Santa Barbara County plans to award a trash contract to MarBorg Industries for North County unincorporated areas, including the Santa Maria Valley, the Lompoc Valley and the Santa Ynez Valley.
The Board of Supervisors will consider executing the franchise agreement at Tuesday’s meeting. It applies to residential, multi-family and commercial solid waste, recyclables, organics and special waste collection services for 10 years starting July 1, 2024.
Four companies submitted proposals for the contract, including the current provider, Waste Management, MarBorg Industries, E.J. Harrison and Sons and Waste Connections.
With this contract, MarBorg Industries would serve all five of the county’s unincorporated zones. The company already has contracts for South County Zones 1, 2 and 3, and the cities of Buellton, Goleta and Santa Barbara.
The MarBorg proposal offered lower rates and agreed to the county’s draft franchise agreement, which includes free services to schools that currently get free trash service, according to Leslie Robinson of the Resource Recovery & Waste Management Division.
In a staff report, she also wrote that the company is “widely recognized for providing exceptional service.”
Waste hauling residential rates will decrease 4% to 13% compared with last year’s rates, and commercial rates will decrease 2% to 6%, according to the county.
The Board of Supervisors paved the way for this decision when it recently changed a 2010 ordinance that required at least two companies to provide solid waste collection and hauling services for the county’s unincorporated areas.
The new ordinance allows the county to award all five zone contracts to the same hauler, so county staff could consider MarBorg’s proposal during the recent request-for-proposals process.
The franchise agreement is set to be discussed during Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting that is scheduled to start at 9 a.m. at the County Administration Building Board Hearing Room, at 105 E. Anapamu St. in Santa Barbara.
View the meeting in person or watch the livestream on the county YouTube page here: https://www.youtube.com/user/CSBTV20.