SWM trashes competition
Department to pick up garbage from 85,000 more homes
Senior sideloader driver, Telford Birmingham, a 22-year Solid Waste Management veteran, will train new drivers for the additional 85,000-home service areas.
Story and Photo by John Perry
Starting July 1, the Solid Waste Management Department will collect garbage from 85,000 homes now served by Republic Waste Services.
“It’s a major undertaking, but we intend to carry it out with the same efficiency and responsiveness to our customers that I have continually emphasized at City Hall,” Mayor Bill White said. The addition will increase the number of homes served by SWM by more than 20 percent to 515,000.
“Our goal is to make the changeover as seamless as possible,” said Thomas “Buck” Buchanan, SWM director.
“We will strive to keep collection service days the same,” Buchanan said. “However, if there’s opportunity for increased efficiency, schedule changes are an option.”
If there are scheduling changes, the affected neighborhoods will be given a 60-day notice and repeated reminders, Buchanan said.
The service area will include a section of Alief west of Beltway 8 between Interstate 10 and Highway 59; a subdivision in Clear Lake; an area northeast of Loop 610 between I-45 North and I-10 East; a few areas in Kingwood; and east of Lake Houston’s shoreline.
Buchanan, a former Army colonel with a can-do spirit, energetically accepted the challenge as another opportunity for SWM employees to excel.
Last year, employees made a 40.5 million stops, collecting nearly 800,000 tons of solid waste while providing automated garbage collection, yard trimmings, heavy trash pickup, and curbside recycling to 430,000 homes across 635 square miles.
Trash talk
Republic Waste operates in 21 states with 13,000 employees and is one of the nation’s largest waste-collection firms. With its seven-year, $56 million contract set to expire in June, SWM decided to bid on the contract. The department’s bid was $2 million less than Republic’s.
Buchanan attributes the department’s lower bid to streamlined management that constantly examines and improves job performance; hiring more staff, including about 80 drivers, route-optimizing software; and upgrading the collection fleet.
Currently, SWM employs about 500 people, 70 percent of whom are collections personnel.
Will Flower, spokesperson for Republic’s Ft. Lauderdale corporate office, said the company’s higher bid resulted from higher gasoline and lubricant costs.
Republic has had other issues. In a dawn raid last January, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents swept the company’s plant in Humble, detaining 53 undocumented workers. And a year ago, the company admitted it had billed the city for trash it had not collected.
Trash technology
SWM is optimistic about new route optimization software that helps analysts determine the most efficient routes for collection trucks, said Ross Heasty, staff analyst heading the geographic information system.
GIS analysts compile information from the Planning and Development Department such as addresses, property boundaries, number of houses on a parcel and distance between houses.
“Distance is the main element when computing drive times, “ Heasty said.
Direction of traffic flow, speed limits, distance to the nearest landfills and transfer stations, and locations of hospitals, schools, railroad crossings, bayous and rivers are also fed in the route optimization software.
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