No Loose Leaf Pickup, East Brunswick Closer To Inking Garbage Contract

Aug 11, 2023

EAST BRUNSWICK, NJ — East Brunswick residents will soon see an end to their household waste pickup woes, as the Township inches closer to inking an agreement with a garbage contractor.

During Monday’s council meeting, Mayor Brad Cohen gave the community an update on the progress made with bringing on a new contractor for the year.

The township had put out a bid and so far only one bidder has responded.

“There's clearly no appetite among many of these haulers to go into municipal business. So the one bidder is the person or the company that we use right now,” Cohen said.

According to the bid requirement, the bidder has been asked to provide at least one of two options - a once-a-week pickup, or an all-year, twice-a-week pickup.

The haulers will be coming in with new sidearm trucks and residences will be getting two new garbage bins, which will be larger to accommodate more household waste.

One garbage bin will be for household waste and the other for recycling. Officials will come to Council at a later date with a bond ordinance that will help pay for these cans over a five-year period, Business Administrator Joe Criscuolo said.

Each of the new bins will be picked up by an armed truck, hence removing the need for more manpower, which has been a major cause of concern for haulers since the pandemic.

“If we go with the twice-a-week option, pickup would be a Monday and Thursday, or Tuesday and Friday. Pickup for recycling will be every other week on Wednesdays,” Cohen said. “There will be no pickups on the weekends.”

If there's a missed pickup due to weather conditions or a holiday, the garbage will be picked up at the next scheduled date.

“When it comes to bulk pickup, we're still going to have that. The only difference is that you're going to need to schedule that. So the hauler can figure out how much can go into a truck,” Cohen said. “It’s less likely that things are missed because they could schedule the truck accordingly.”

“The only other thing that we should keep in mind is that the apartments and multi-dwelling units have to follow the same schedule that the town does,” Cohen said.

Going forward, loose leaves will no longer be picked up. This service is being phased out across the state, Cohen said.

The State Department of Environmental Protection has imposed regulations on townships mandating DPW staff to regularly clear our loose leaves across towns as they tend to cause problems with stormwater drainage leading to flooding.

“The requirements for them to be cleaned more regularly is going to put a much greater demand on our DPW staff,” Cohen said.

Residents will now have to bag the leaves themselves, and unlimited bags will be provided by the DPW.

With loose leaf pickup eliminated, the township is expected to save almost $300,000, Cohen said.

The total cost of the garbage hauling contract would be around $800,000.

“So all things considered, the increase that we were expecting, could have been a lot worse, and it wasn't,” Cohen said. “So, I think that number is something that's manageable. I'm going to be recommending that we go with the twice-a-week pickup.”

Officials are expected to bring a resolution to Council at the meeting to vote on.

“I think it's good news for the township because we'll be able to, for pretty much a reasonable amount of money, provide better service than what we had before.”

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