Commissioners vote 4-1 to add ‘opt-out’ option so residents can select their own service provider, but didn’t finalize selection of vendor(s) for county’s new waste, recycling contracts
Alamance County’s commissioners have tentatively agreed to let rural residents “opt out” of the waste collection franchises that are parceled out to trash haulers within unincorporated parts of the county.
The commissioners took the first of two votes on Monday to formally change the county’s solid waste ordinance to enable households that have suffered sufficient hardships to obtain curbside trash and recycling from a different company than the one assigned to serve their part of the county.
The commissioners have voted 4-to-1 to make this policy adjustment even as they continue to ruminate over their next franchise allocations, which are to take effect on January 1, 2027.
Last month, Chris Gustin, the county’s solid waste director, presented the commissioners with proposals from seven would-be franchise holders who are competing to serve one or more of the county’s three unincorporated zones.
Gustin went on to advise the commissioners to retain the current allocations – with Republic Services keeping Zones 1 and 2 in the northwestern and eastern parts of the county and GFL Environmental reinstated in the more southerly Zone 3. In each case, the county’s solid waste director observed that these legacy waste haulers had proffered combined rates of $31.50 a month, which beat out the bids their competitors had submitted for both trash and recycling.
The commissioners ultimately heard verbal pitches from most of these would-be franchisees – with the challengers touting everything from new fleets of vehicles to promises of better customer service in support of their respective proposals. The commissioners, for their part, were also concerned about murmurings of widespread dissatisfaction with GFL and Republic – claims that Gustin tried to put to rest by relating that he has received a mere three complaints about the two franchise holders since he took over the solid waste division nine months ago.
In the end, the commissioners asked Gustin for more information on how other counties mete out trash and recycling services as a prelude to some potential changes to Alamance County’s own policies.
The county’s solid waste director returned to the county’s meeting chambers on Monday with accounts of four competing methods that state law allows counties to use to regulate curbside waste disposal.
Gustin said that some counties give out licenses to commercial trash haulers that allow them to serve any residents who want to receive their services. He added that some counties, such as Orange, Durham, Caswell, and Chatham, issue licenses without rate caps while Guilford and Johnson counties place ceilings on the maximum rates that these companies can charge.
Gustin told the commissioners that Alamance County is one of several jurisdictions that rely on the franchise model, which requires franchise recipients to serve all residents in a particular zone at the same guaranteed rate.
Gustin proceeded to note that the latest versions of the county’s proposed franchise agreements would hold recipients to their proposed rates for at least two years unless the commissioners, themselves, raise the tipping fees charged by the county’s landfill. He added that, under these agreements, franchise holders would also be charged “liquidated” damages if they fail to live up to the terms of their deals.
“We made them punitive on purpose,” he went on to inform the county’s governing board, “so they would be incentivized to not have issues.”
Gustin observed that, in addition to Alamance, Randolph, Granville, and Rockingham also use the franchise format that provides curbside waste collection to rural residents. He added that, in theory, a county could couple this model with an opt-out clause to provide an alternative in cases when the franchise recipient cannot, or will not, provide timely services to particular customers.
Gustin didn’t share any examples of counties that use the franchise model with this metaphorical bolt hole included. He nevertheless said that Alamance County could modify its own policy to activate this “opt-out” option in the event of “repeated documented failures by the franchisee,” a disability that the assigned waste hauler can’t accommodate, credible issues with safety or harassment, and other instances of “good cause of comparable seriousness.”
The county’s solid waste director added that, in the case of a franchisee’s repeated failures, a customer will need to have made “multiple” complaints that haven’t been “cured” by the waste hauler in order to take advantage of the opt out provision. The county would then review the customer’s case and recommend an alternative waste hauler, with a preference for another franchise holder within Alamance County. Gustin added that, in order to avoid price-based poaching, the alternative hauler would be forbidden to charge the new customer anything less than the franchise holder’s agreed-upon rate.
The potential for this very sort of opt-out provision had previously been broached by commissioner Ed Priola as a way for rural residents to address persistent complaints they may have about a particular waste hauler. Gustin’s subsequent report that he had only received three grievances in nine months seemed to obviate the need for such an escape clause.
On Monday, however, area resident Emily Conway, offered herself as an example of someone who could benefit from such a provision.
“If I knew there was a way to complain,” she told the commissioners during a designated public comment period that morning, “there would have been a lot more than three phone calls.”
Alamance County’s attorney Rik Stevens told the commissioners that, if they would like to proceed with this opt-out provision, he had already roughed out some language that they could go ahead and adopt during their proceedings on Monday. He added, however, that this or any other change to the county’s solid waste ordinance will require at least two readings under state law in order to take effect.
Stevens also reminded the commissioners that they have yet to take action on the franchise deals that Gustin and his colleagues have previously advised them to award to GFL and Republic.
“Our franchise agreements are going to expire at the end of the year,” he went on to observe, “so we’re going to have to make some decisions…That’s no man’s land and we don’t want to be in that place.”
In addition to GFL and Republic, a couple of commissioners also voiced their support for Charlotte-based Meridian Waste as another potential contender for a solid waste franchise.
Although not one of the low bidders, Meridian has an existing relationship with the county thanks to a franchise it previously obtained to haul construction debris to the former location of Coble Sandrock. During Monday’s meeting, representatives of Meridian pressed their case for an additional solid waste franchise, which seemed to impress the likes of commissioner Sam Powell.
“I think that Meridian has made a very good offer,” Powell told his fellow commissioners, “and I hope there’s a way we can work it in.”
In the end, Priola made a motion to accept the proposed language that Stevens had drafted to include an opt-out provision in the existing ordinance. The rest of the board voted 4-to-1 in favor of this proposal. The only vote of dissent came from commissioner Pam Thompson, who stressed the amount of work that Gustin and his colleagues had already invested into their review of the proposed franchise agreements.
“I just know that his team have done a lot of research a lot of work,” she said. “I just think we need to move on this.”
