Residents of Brandon and Groveland townships will continue to contract for their own waste hauling services, despite the results of a months-long study that concluded citizens could realize savings and other benefits from community-wide waste hauling contracts.
Brandon and Groveland were part of the waste hauling services study conducted by Resource Recycling Systems of Ann Arbor and paid for through a Capital and Cooperative Initiative Revolving Fund Grant (CCIRF). Other northern Oakland County communities in the study were Springfield Township, Independence Township, Waterford, White Lake, and West Bloomfield.
The supervisors of the respective communities met on Aug. 31 and jointly decided they would not proceed with forming a solid waste authority. Thurman announced the decision at the Sept. 8 board meeting.
‘They (RRS) wanted funding to get started and since we don’t have funds, we decided not to put the resolution before the board,? Thurman said at the meeting. ‘There is not enough support from the community.?
Thurman said Resource Recycling Systems was requesting that Brandon Township contribute between $2,100 and $3,450 to join an authority. Instead, she said, the townships plan to work together as a taskforce to seek government funding for conversion technologies that would recycle 80 percent of waste and convert the garbage into reusable forms of energy or product.
Groveland Township Supervisor Bob DePalma said the township supervisors originally agreed to participate in the study to look at new technology and see if the need for landfills could be reduced.
‘We got sidetracked into the issue of single haulers in a community,? DePalma said. ‘We are going to try and refocus on new technology and the way solid waste is handled.?
A survey of Groveland Township residents found that about 75 percent of 324 respondents were open to the idea of a single hauler in the township. In Brandon Township, the same survey found 285 respondents split? with 46.6 percent opposed to the township coordinating services and 53.4 percent in favor of a township-coordinated contract for trash and recycling services.
‘We clearly identified that the savings is definite,? said DePalma, who had originally favored continuing to phase II per the CCIRF study recommendation. ‘But Groveland is not big enough to make any of these changes on their own… Everyone is entitled to their position, but those opposed to a single hauler were so vocal about it that it distracted from the real focus of the study, which was to look at the technology instead of this endless cycle of adding landfills.?
Thurman said based on the survey of township residents, there was not enough interest.
‘In the future, we may want to look into the matter deeper,? she said.