04 - Laserfiche WebLink

BACKGROUND The City completed a comprehensive refuse and recycling collection rate study in 2009. As part of this process, the Council approved enhanced residential services intended to help the City meet the Alameda County Source Reduction and Recycling Board's (Stopwaste.org) 75% diversion goal in 2010/11. In an effort to gain assurances that PGS operations are conducted in a manner that minimize cost to rate payers, the City Council requested, and PGS agreed, to undergo an efficiency study. An efficiency study was conducted in the early 1990's and it found all PGS operations to be in conformance with industry standards. The operational efficiency study will review a broad range of operations including: • Review of truck routing and scheduling practices . Analysis of PGS's organizational structure, management systems and procedures • Staffing practices and the deployment of management and supervisory personnel • Review of collection vehicles including maintenance, safety and replacements • Disposal processing • Process for receiving and processing customer complaints and inquiries . Transfer Station operations • Collecting, tracking and selling recyclable material, including green waste • Preparation of a final report Staff is recommending the operational efficiency study be prepared by Sloan Vazquez LLC located in Santa Ana. Sloan Vazquez has considerable experience conducting refuse operational studies including a comprehensive operational assessment completed recently for the city of Santa Monica. The report is schedule to be completed within 90 days of contract award. As indicated previously, PGS will assume the cost of this study as an operational expense. The City diversion and recycling /tracking study is being initiated by City staff in an attempt to assure that the City is being credited for its recycling efforts. This need also developed during the April 2009 collection rate review process and as part of the public outreach for the new recycling program. Basically, staffs interest is assuring that it has adequate information to respond to public inquiries regarding recycling progress and to communicate effectively with Stopwaste.org and the State regarding diversion targets. The diversion and recycling /tracking study will include the following: • Review data for the City's diversion rate calculation • Review data used for the County's 75% recycling goal • Identify recycling efforts not captured with existing data • Recommend changes to recycling reporting and calculations • Preparation of a final report Page 2 of 3