Amherst TSO Moves Waste Hauler Proposal Nearer RFP

The Town Services and Outreach Committee (TSO) took up the final decision points regarding the current Waste Hauler Proposal at its remotely conducted meeting on October 1, 2026.

Present were: Chair George Ryan, TSO Committee members Councilors Jennifer Taub, Pam Rooney,  Andy Churchill, and Hala Lord, as well as Town Manager Paul Bockelman, DPW Superintendent Guilford Mooring, Pioneer Valley Planning Commission Consultant Mimi Kaplan, and DEP Municipal Assistance Coordinator Susan Waite..

The committee started by restating their former agreements on decision points taken up at the last two TSO meetings, including recommendations on trash pickup, recycling, the composition and contamination audits, bulky waste and the status of the Transfer Station. See here and here.

Procedure
Ryan asked the Town Manager what the next step is for the committee. The Manager suggested that the proposal would not necessarily come back to TSO after their final recommendations on the RFP. It was established later in the meeting that Mimi Kaplan and Guilford Mooring will come back with one more draft of the RFP with categorization of bid offerings as “highly advantageous”, “advantageous”, or “not advantageous”, according to TSO and its advisors.

Decision Points
Decision Point: Who will provide Education and Outreach to customers, the vendor or the town?

The town manager strongly promoted having the vendor do as much service as possible to prevent the town from having to hire staff. The group later agreed that town staff would interface and coordinate with vendor staff.

Decision point: Who will take care of customer service/complaints?

There was considerable discussion of this point with the Manager wanting vendor provision to be “highly advantageous”. Andy Churchill suggested that the town needs a coordinator who could forward complaints to the vendor. Mimi Kaplan reminded the group that Agawam has a half-time coordinator who deals with both complaints and contract compliance and has good regular communication with the hauler. The committee agreed that the vendor should be primarily in charge of customer service.

Pam Rooney stated that the town will need to provide staff for contract compliance. Susan Waite added that you need a good, assertive person on compliance to nip any problems in the bud and to require damages for a hauler not fulfilling contractual agreements.

Decision point: Organics collection. The group focused on whether to offer both industrial compost facilities and anaerobic digestion facilities, or just industrial compost facilities which pick up a much greater range of compostable materials. They settled on giving preference to bids using facilities that accept the widest range of compostable materials.

General Discussion
Susan Waite noted that at the recent DEP meeting on a future residential organics ban, the takeaway was that a statewide ban is coming but not anytime soon. Amherst would be ahead of the curve in adopting a curbside organics program. Mimi Kaplan brought up the usefulness of looking at Brattleboro, VT, that just implemented a curbside organics program. 

Pam Rooney and Jennifer Taub brought up a recent District 4 meeting where some condo residents were concerned that compost collection would be difficult, Transfer Station users also expressed concerns, and

members who subscribe to USA Waste and Recycling supported the proposal. Pam Rooney asked for a breakdown of household types in Amherst and an idea if and when the curbside compost program would cover the whole town. (The original proposal phases the program into the whole town, starting with 1-4 family units and moving to apartment and condo complexes, homeowners associations, and businesses within 3 years.)

There was agreement that bidders should be able to bid on any portion of the RFP so that Amherst could have one hauler for trash and recycling and one for compost, if that was advantageous. 

Susan Waite suggested she, George Ryan, and others meet with DEP officials who are experts on Pay-As-You-Throw (PAYT) and curbside compost pickup.

The Town Manager noted the need to get more input from the public. 

At the close of the discussion, Guilford Mooring stated that he thought the town had enough information to put out an RFP now and suggested that it go out soon. He offered to work with Mimi Kaplan to put the language together before the next TSO meeting, on October 15 at 10 am.