Junk Bond

When it comes to garbage in the city of Minneapolis, there appears to be only one undisputed truth: If you put it on the curb, someone will come and take it away. Tree branches, tires, old dishwashers, disintegrating carpet--some diligent trash crew will whisk it away and get it out of your sight.

Considerably more contentious is the question of exactly who should get to pick up that household waste. For the past three decades, Minneapolis has had the same system for garbage pickup. The city is split into halves, one served by municipal employees, the other by private haulers. Today the geographic split forms two interlocking L-shapes: The southern and eastern parts of Minneapolis have trash hauled by city crews, while the northern and western areas are served by Minneapolis Refuse, Inc. (MRI), a consortium of some 25 trash haulers, large and small. MRI has had the contract--at $5.5 million a year, it's one of the city's largest--since the system went into effect in 1971. And in all those years, the city council has never entertained other proposals for the service in a competitive bidding process.

Despite pleas from the city's division of Solid Waste and Recycling, independent trash haulers, and several past and present city council members to make the process more competitive, the city's contract with MRI has skated through official channels for three decades. (State law exempts cities from using a competitive process for certain services, including garbage hauling.) While there appears to have been a reasoned policy for the original contract, no one seems able to offer an explanation for the continued lack of competition, except the obvious one: inertia.

Although MRI's current contract does not expire until the end of 2002, late last year the haulers' consortium approached the city, asking to increase fees and extend the contract another five years, arguing that rising costs mean the haulers are losing money. As the debate continues, critics worry that, if history is any guide, the city will probably renegotiate MRI's contract without answering what seems like a simple question: Why hasn't this contract ever been put out for competitive proposals?

"I don't know why you wouldn't want to find out what the market has to offer the City of Minneapolis," says Barret Lane, 13th Ward council member, adding that the reasons cited for staying with MRI have been relatively superficial: It's a hassle to ask for proposals; and, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. "No one has offered to me a coherent explanation of why we want to do this."

Before 1971, Minneapolis crews picked up "wet waste," such as rotting food. Burnable waste was disposed of in furnaces, and the rest of the "rubbish," ashes and trash that could neither burn nor rot, was picked up by private haulers. In 1971, when a change in state law banned outdoor burning, Minneapolis moved to a system in which it would oversee citywide hauling of all garbage, wet and dry. But the notion of the city taking over trash collection throughout Minneapolis caused a stir among the private haulers, according to Minneapolis City Engineer David Sonnenberg. Other cities had not opted to organize trash collection; in St. Paul, for example, homeowners must contract with the trash hauler of their choice. "So as not to damage the business community that had been providing this service, the argument was made that the city do half and those companies that had been doing it for years do half," Sonnenberg explains. "It was a policy decision. That relationship has continued over time."

Even in those early days, says Susan Young, the city's director of Solid Waste and Recycling, the city planned to entertain bids for the contract. But then a group of more than 30 haulers formed a coalition and offered to do the work, she says, and it has been that way ever since. If the city were to open garbage service up to competition, Young says, MRI, with its experience in serving the city, would "have a real inside track." The city would not be obligated to take the lowest bid, Young adds; rather it could look at the services offered and the company's experience and choose what seemed like the best package. For that reason she'd like an opportunity to see other proposals--and even have her own department get in on the process. "I think the city can out-compete anyone there," she says. "We have phenomenal folks here and we have a pretty efficient operation."

And it's not necessarily the case any longer that changing the system would be tantamount to shuttering a host of small businesses, she and other critics say. Since those early days, many of the original small haulers have been bought up by larger companies that now make up a big portion of the consortium, they claim. National waste-removal firms, such as Waste Management, Inc. and BFI Systems of North America, participate; in fact, those two companies alone own a third of MRI's shares. (MRI officials declined to comment on the Minneapolis contract for this story.)