Nahant looking to save money on trash contract

NAHANT – The town could save money with a new trash and recycling contract, which could go into effect in July.Nahant Town Administrator Mark Cullinan said the town currently has a contract with Northside Carting of North Andover for trash collection and biweekly pickup of recyclables. Northside Carting is in its fifth year of the contract, which was for three years with a two year extension. The existing contract with Northside Crating expires on June 30.Cullinan said municipalities are not required to put trash contracts out to bid and the town could have renegotiated the existing contract, but decided against renegotiation.”The selectmen thought it would be a good idea to rebid given the economy,” he said. “The bids were very competitive and will save the town money.”Cullinan said the town is currently paying $288,000 per year for rubbish collection and biweekly recycling pickups.Cullinan said of the seven bids the town received, the bid from Northside Carting was most competitive.”Northside bid $272,000 a year, which is less than what we are paying now,” he said. “The bid includes weekly recycling collections instead of once every two weeks so we would be getting additional services at a reduced rate.”Cullinan said he hasn’t awarded the contract, which would be for three years with a two year option, but he expects the town would stay with Northside Carting.”With their bid we’d still be paying less three years from now than we are paying right now,” he said. “And we would have weekly recycling pickups.”The draft warrant for Town Meeting has an article asking residents whether the town should go to weekly recycling collection, but Cullinan said the selectmen could remove that article from the warrant before Town Meeting.”If weekly recycling was going to cost more we wanted Town Meeting to have a say in the matter,” he said. “But we may take the article off the warrant since weekly recycling is actually going to save us some money. That decision on whether to pull the article (from the Town Meeting warrant) is up to the Board of Selectmen and it hasn’t been made yet.”