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<br />had been paying individually. The City of Bloomington has a program to help their <br />neighborhoods organize collection on their own. In Falcon Heights, the residents of <br />Hollywood Court negotiated as a group, with the common goal of having fewer trucks on <br />their fragile alleys. University Grove has had grass-roots organized collection for years. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />Another way for the consumers to get back the savings from increased efficiency is <br />through a city contract. "Municipal governments are in a position, by virtue of the way <br />they procure rubbish hauling services for their citizens, to dictate whether consUlllers or <br />haulers will get the most benefit of customer density efficiencies." (9) <br /> <br />Other Research <br /> <br />. The 1993 report on organized collection ii'om the state Attorney General's Office, <br />Antitrust Division, has been quoted elsewhere as finding considerable price <br />advantantage for consumers in a "competitive" system. However, the report does not <br />equate "competitive"' with "open," but includes competitively-bid city-wide systems <br />in the "competitive" class. The "uon-competitive" systems against which the report <br />recommends are those in which a hauler has an exclusive contract that has been <br />awarded or extended without competition. (3) <br /> <br />. GBB Solid Waste Management Consultants conducted studies of metropolitan area <br />rates in 1993 and 1994. They found that the average rates under organized systems <br />was 13% lower than than for open systems for 30 gallon containers, about 9% lower <br />for 60 gallon containers, over 16% lower for 90 gallon containers and 16.6% lower <br />over all. (4) The GBB study also broke out averages by county. In Ramsey County, <br />customers in open systems paid an average $13 .30 per month for a 30-gallon <br />container, while customers in organized systems paid an average of $11.78. The <br />differences are even greater for larger containers. See the Chart in Appendix D. (5) <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. Appendix 14 of the RanlseylWashington report also sUlllillarized findings from <br />Oakdale, North St. Paul, Maplewood and Lauderdale, which had conducted fee <br />comparisons in their ovm organized collection studies. In every case, monthly rates <br />were lower for cities witll organized collection than for cities with open systems. (6) <br /> <br />Special Deals <br /> <br />It has been pointed out that haulers have been offering as much as six months of free <br />service to new customers. "How can an organized city system compete with that?" the <br />Commission has been asked. <br /> <br />Residents who have accepted these offers would do well to study the fine print in their <br />contracts, especially if they think they will be able to switch to another hauler as soon as <br />their free service period comes to an end. They aTe likely to fmd that they have <br />committed to a minin1um contract period of several years, \vith major penalties for <br />cancellation. Businesses cannot offer these discounts without recovering their costs <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />City of Falcon Heights Final Report on Organized Collection <br />October 13, 2004 <br /> <br />10 <br />