HOLYOKE –  The Holyoke City Council voted unanimously during their Jan. 7 meeting to allow Mayor Alex Morse to enter into a five-year contract with Waste Management to manage and process the city’s recyclable waste items.

Finance Committee President Joseph McGiverin said by voting on the contract, which was negotiated by Morse, the council was simply giving permission for the mayor to enter into a five-year agreement with Waste Management, which leases Bondi’s Island in Springfield from the Department of Environmental Protection.

“Any mayor can only negotiate up to three years, we have to approve the five years,” McGiverin said. He also noted the contract would include two, five-year extensions.

The approval came with a number of concerns, questions and conversation around the topic of the town’s management of recycling and the cost surrounding it.

McGiverin began the discussion by sharing that he had been asked to file the order about a month ago by Holyoke Department of Public Works Superintendent Michael MacManus. He also said  Holyoke was not the only city in this position, as it was being estimated that “70 communities are going to take advantage of this contract.”

Councilor James Leahy explained to the council what had happened to the industry over the years. “In 2000, China, as you guys know, had a manufacturing boom and they were taking all the recyclables they can because they were making profits off it,” he explained.

This, he said, had benefited Holyoke a great deal as the city was able to push people towards recycling and profit from the process. “Back in the early 2000s, the city of Holyoke was making roughly $70,000 a year. I remember pushing recycling all the time, not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because we were making, we as the city, was making money on it too,” he said.

However, in 2017, Leahy said China stopped accepting certain items such as pizza boxes, lightbulbs, plastic bags and shredded paper which changed things for a lot of communities, not only in Massachusetts but across the country.

By entering into a contract with Waste Management the city, for the first time, would no longer be profiting from recycling, but instead paying for their recycled goods to be processed.

“The whole idea is, instead of receiving money back, we’re going to be charged a tipping fee. The first year of the contract is $93.50. It goes up moderately over the five years of the contract itself,” explained McGiverin.

He also stated there were both negative and positive things about the contract. One of the positive aspects of the contact, McGiverin explained, was that if the city did end up profiting from the recycling process at all, it would only reduce the tipping fee. McGiverin also noted that though the contract was for five years, it could be terminated at any time.

“There’s speculation now that with China out of the game, a number of industries within the country itself will probably be looking to doing their own recycling and accepting goods and make for the opportunity for a better deal,” he said. “At any given time the city, any city can back out of this contract if they can get into something that makes more sense in terms of disposing of our recyclable materials.”

McGiverin said, “Worst case scenario, five years the total budgeted item would be $165,000.”

However, Councilor David Bartley disagreed and said he had read the contract differently. He said, “The $165,000 to me, I think that’s a best-case scenario, the way I read that contract Mr. President. I don’t think that’s a worst case scenario.”

Bartley continued and said he’d like to hear how the city planned to budget for the new tipping fee. “What I didn’t hear tonight, and what I hope to hear from either Mr. MacManus or the mayor, who negotiated this contract, is how are we budgeting for this, Mr. President,” he questioned. “How are we budgeting for this going forward for the next five years on a worst-case scenario?”

Furthermore, Bartley said there also needed to be some “kind of education campaign, because this is an important thing.”

Councilor Rebecca Lisi also confirmed with McGiverin that a certain number of towns and/or cities in Western Massachusetts needed to enter the contract for dual-stream recycling to be offered. Without dual steam, Lisi said a single-stream recycling option for the city would increase the tipping fee substantially.

“If we don’t sign into this contract then there’s not enough communities in Western Massachusetts to participate in the dual-stream recycling. So we would all be folded into a single stream, and that would increase the tipping fee up to about $500,000,” she said.

McGiverein said he was “not too sure about a number,” but if the city did not accept the contract “we’re subject to a contract with not as lucrative or not as good as terms as this could be” and the tipping fee would “be a much higher number than we’re facing.”

Ultimately, the council voted unanimously to allow the mayor to enter into a five-year contract with Waste Management. If Morse moves forward with the contract the city would be impacted starting on July 1.