Dive Brief:
- The city of New Orleans, LA has awarded a sanitation contract to a new hauler. The contract is worth $3.9 million per year.
- Empire Janitorial Sales and Services, a Metairie, LA-based company, is taking the reigns of sanitation collection in the downtown area of the city, including the French Quarter and business district.
- According to city officials, the contract for services was obtained at a reduced cost to the city, and includes additional services not included in the previous contract held by Progressive Waste Solutions after it acquired the contracted hauler SDT in 2011.
Dive Insight:
The new waste services contract will save the city a reported $475,000 annually. Terms of the deal include rolling out a fleet that is powered by alternative fuels and that is smaller in size than the trucks used previously. Glass recycling is included in the new contract, too, although it was not handled by haulers in the past.
The city of New Orleans has many specialty recycling projects underway. In June 2014, the city began an oyster shell recycling project in an effort to restore the coastal waterways with reefs. The city launched cigarette butt recycling program in the same month and partnered with TerraCycle to become the first city in the nation to participate in such a recycling program. New Orleans earns $4 per pound of waste collected.
The city also has a recycling project unique to the NOLA region. A non-profit called Arc began recycling beads collected at the massive Mardi Gras celebration that occurs in the city every March. In fact, in 2013, Arc recycled 120,000 pounds of beads.
