Local governments throughout the United States are being asked to change the way they function, and solid waste collection programs are not exempt. Those who manage and operate them also must face the primary reason why many obvious program changes never are implemented: Human beings instinctively are opposed to change.

By Karen M. Luken

This is the second in our ongoing series of refereed papers taking an in-depth look at significant waste management issues. Because of its length and level of detail, we presented only an executive summary of the article in the magazine. The entire paper, including the tabular data supporting the analysis, can be accessed as a pdf file by clicking here.

The Chesterfield County (VA) Solid Waste Management Division was aware that the existing residential solid waste collection in Chesterfield County faced significant challenges. Their concerns specifically included the high costs associated with the county-operated solid waste collection programs; inefficient routing; expensive solid waste collection services, such as loose leaf collection, only being provided by the county; multiple private contractors' collection vehicles on the same street on the same collection day; and, the inability of private contractors to collect service fees owed by their customers.

The division thought many of these challenges could be addressed if residential solid waste collection was managed through contracts, franchises, or permits. However, they also realistically recognized that significant opposition to any form of government intervention would occur from the private contractors.

Chesterfield County is committed to total quality management (TQM) as a standard operating procedure and approached the potential of managed solid waste collection using a process that embraced their TQM philosophy. To accomplish this, the county's consultant R.W. Beck used a process known as "Systems Thinking" that included the following five steps:

1. Characterize the existing collection system
2. Identify the strengths and challenges existing system
3. Benchmark Chesterfield County's collection system against similar systems
4. Determine the solid waste collection goals of key stakeholders
5. Identify solid waste collection alternatives and evaluate how these alternatives would achieve the goals of key stakeholders

Systems Thinking is an interactive process that can help stakeholders move beyond their own personal concerns by educating them about the concerns and motivations of all stakeholders; the interrelationship between individual components of a system and the success of the entire system; the cause and effect of systems decisions; and models or diagrams that can convert subjective opinions into objective decisions.

Existing System

Chesterfield County residents were served by an "open" or "free market" solid waste collection system allowing residents to use services provided by the county or one of approximately 25 private contractors. In addition, convenience areas at the two county-operated transfer stations served residents who chose to self-haul their solid waste.

The Department of General Services, Solid Waste Division manages the county-run operations for residential solid waste collection, bulky-waste collection, vacuum leaf collection, bagged yardwaste collection, drop-off centers for recyclables, a household hazardous waste drop-off program, and two transfer stations. The division also coordinates various contracts with Central Virginia Waste Management Authority for curbside collection of residential recyclables, drop-off centers for recyclables, and transfer station operations.

The director of general services licenses approximately 25 private contractors to provide solid waste collection in Chesterfield County. Most of these private contractors provide collection services on a weekly basis. In addition, some private contractors within the county also provided bagged yardwaste and bulky-waste collection.

Strengths and Challenges of the Existing System

Before changes to the existing county solid waste collection system were even considered, the county assessed the existing system's strengths and challenges. As part of this assessment, the county surveyed 5,000 of its households (approximately 5% of county households) to gain views and opinions from the public on such issues as:

• the importance of the following solid waste collection variables,
• the cost of collection services,
• the number of collection vehicles driving down their street on the same day,
• being able to choose their solid waste service provider,
• only being charged for the amount of waste that they set out,
• collection schedules (i.e., all materials collected on the same day),
• the role of the county in providing solid waste collection services,
• what collection services should be offered to residents,
• the degree of satisfaction with the current solid waste collection system, and
• factors influencing individual citizen's selection of their current solid waste service provider.

The survey results identified that the primary benefit of the existing open collection system was the ability of customers to select their private contractor of choice (approximately 75% of respondents indicated that they agreed "somewhat" or "strongly" with the following statement: "I should be able to choose my own private contractor"). For most respondents who participated in the county program, they did so because the cost was less than using a private contractor and, as demonstrated by Figure 1, they had a high level of satisfaction with the county-provided services.

The open, nonstructured residential solid waste collection system in the county also presented several challenges. One challenge was the inefficiencies created by multiple private contractors collecting in the same service area. With no designated service area, any private contractor could market services in any part of the county. Consequently, on any given day, it was conceivable - and it did occur - that any or all of the private contractors who offered residential solid waste collection services could send a truck through a neighborhood.

Another challenge was the fact that an open, nonstructured system without designated service areas created routing inefficiencies that prevented optimization of services and optimization of the services offered. In addition, this system created difficult-to-account-for impacts, such as street wear-and-tear, air emissions, noise, litter, safety concerns, and customer inconvenience. Further, open collection did not have the desired competitive situation to provide the best rates to ratepayers.

The county-operated collection program also faced significant challenges:

Route Inefficiencies. The county's customer base comprised approximately 4,995 residents, or approximately 6.4% of the potential residential solid waste customers in the county. These customers were located throughout the county, with very little population density on specific county collection routes.

Lack of Participation in the Recycling Program. The existing system included the county funding curbside recycling services for approximately 71,000 households. However, only 40% of these households actually participated in the program.

Limited Capacity at Transfer Stations. Due to the popularity of self-hauling to the transfer stations, the transfer stations did not have the capacity to accept more customers on certain days of the week without excessive wait times. The existing capacity shortfall would be exacerbated as the county's population increased during the next ten years.

Expenditures Exceeding Revenues. Expenditures exceeded revenues by approximately $3.6 million in fiscal year 1999-2000 (Table 1).

The existing system also presented challenges for private contractors. While government oversight of the private contractors was minimal, which most private contractors supported, smaller private contractors experienced difficulty competing against large, national companies. Further, many private contractors were not able to recover payment from their customers. With so many service providers, residents simply could change private contractors constantly, rather than pay their bill.

Benchmarking

As part of determination of change, the county benchmarked the rates county residents were paying against other Virginia jurisdictions. The benchmarking process indicated that jurisdictions in the surrounding area that provided residential solid waste collection services directly with public crews, or through a publicly managed contract with private contractors, had lower costs than those with open, nonstructured private collection. A range of costs from $7 to $12 per month was reported from jurisdictions that managed residential collection directly (public owned and operated solid waste collection services) or through contracts. This range is between 40% and 65% lower than the average reported monthly cost of $20 per household for the same service in Chesterfield County. The open collection system also created customer confusion about service schedules and who provided what service.

Key Stakeholder Goals

The county's solid waste collection system performed adequately, but future needs signaled that changes should be seriously considered. Through interviews, meetings with the Solid Waste Advisory Committee, focus groups, customer surveys, and the strengths/challenges assessment, goals were established for three key stakeholder groups to guide any change that might be considered.

Residential Customers

• Reduce the costs of residential solid waste collection services
• Simplify collection schedules
• Maintain the ability to choose private contractors
• Decrease littering
• Provide an economic incentive to divert recyclables for recycling
• Maintain current user fees for the collection of special wastes (i.e., bulky materials, loose leaves, bagged yardwaste)

Private Contractors

• Retain market share
• Guarantee payment from customers
• Improve collection efficiency
• Limit government oversight
• Receive adequate compensation

County Government

• Minimize county subsidies to programs that are not widely used
• Increase participation in curbside recycling programs
• Reduce reliance on county transfer stations
• Facilitate the collection of "specialty" wastes that are typically more expensive to manage by private contractors
• Retain high customer satisfaction

Alternatives for Change/No Change

The county identified five alternatives to achieve the goals listed above. In all five goals, the county would continue to pay for postclosure costs for closed landfills and for modifying the current system and evaluate how the county would achieve these goals.

1. Maintain the status quo (the "do-nothing scenario") in which the current collection system would remain unchanged.
2. Eliminate the solid waste services currently provided by the county's crews and equipment and rely fully on an open, competitive private contractor-provided collection system.
3. Continue to provide collection services, but set the rates for these services at an amount that covers the full costs.
4. Continue to offer only those collection services that the private contractors did not provide.
5. Eliminate a completely open system for collecting residential solid waste in favor of a county-managed system.

Conclusions

At the preparation of this paper (April 2002), Chesterfield County had not implemented a managed solid waste collection system, but the process of determining if and how solid waste collection should be organized was alive and well. Beyond carefully considering a full spectrum of options, and establishing a compelling case for managed collection, Chesterfield County also was honest about the advantages and disadvantages of managed solid waste collection services and assisted the stakeholders to understand the entire system rather than focus on specific components.

As previously discussed, the most challenging obstacle to be addressed when implementing a system change in a solid waste collection system is opposition from key stakeholders such as residents, businesses, and certain portions of a local government establishment. Building support and obtaining consensus for change requires planning, communication, and perseverance. Chesterfield County recognized that, by nature, most people are like the caricature found in Figure 2.

"Domino Man" could be a private contractor, public official, resident, or business - anyone that would be impacted by implementation of a franchised solid waste collection system. Domino Man is instinctively more concerned about how decisions will affect him rather than the community around him.

The first step that Chesterfield County took to get a diverse group of stakeholders to "see the big picture" was to get them together. The county involved members of various groups, which helped them feel involved in the decision-making process. This involvement also provided them with a sense of ownership of any changes in the collection system.

Just getting a group of diverse people together did not mean an automatic consensus, however. The county recognized that involving diverse stakeholders could pose challenges. The process can end in chaos unless the meetings include a process to evolve individual, often conflicting viewpoints, into a common vision for solid waste collection. Consequently, Chesterfield County used the Systems Thinking Approach. This consensus-building tool is an interactive process that can help move stakeholders from personal viewpoints to a shared vision for a refuse management system through illuminating the concerns and motivators of key stakeholders, the interrelationship between individual components of a refuse management system and the success of the entire system, and the cause and effect of refuse management system decisions. It also provides a dynamic model that can help turn subjective opinions into objective decisions (John D. Sterman, Business Dynamics, Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World, 2000).

Whether to change an entire solid waste collection system or a component thereof is often a complex and sometimes controversial decision for local governments to consider. However, an increasing number of local governments are successfully implementing changes to their solid waste collection system when they:

• identify the strengths and challenges of the existing system,
• examine a variety of options to promote the strengths and minimize the challenges,
• build a compelling case for change,
• are honest about the strengths and challenges of potential change, and
• assist stakeholders to understand the entire system rather than focus on specific components.

Karen M. Luken is project manager with R.W. Beck in Cincinnati, OH.

MSW - Elements 2004