Four additional towns have signed onto a landmark cooperative-purchasing alliance aimed at driving down the cost of municipal trash-disposal services, Mayor Bernie Platt has announced.
Collingswood, Haddon Township, Somerdale and Winslow have joined Cherry Hill, Gloucester Township, Voorhees and Merchantville in the joint venture that, when announced back in March, launched the second phase of a plan to reduce the cost of one of the most critical and expensive municipal services.
The move brings the total number of towns participating in the effort to eight. Together, the municipalities span roughly 122 square miles, and serve 245,000 residents and 87,000 households. That’s more than half the total land area of Camden County, and nearly half the county’s total population.
This is a companion effort to a 2010 deal between Cherry Hill, Merchantville and Gloucester Township that slashed the cost of trash collection by nearly $2 million for Cherry Hill alone.
Together, trash collection and disposal are two of the costliest and most critical services municipalities provide. In Cherry Hill, the bill for those two items alone totals roughly $7.3 million a year — more than 10 percent of the total municipal budget.
Under the current pricing structure, Cherry Hill pays about $1.3 million each year to dispose of approximately 23,000 tons of solid waste. Platt estimates that Cherry Hill could reduce that number by up to $250,000 annually. Officials hope to begin realizing that savings this summer.
“We’re bringing a lot of business to the table, and vendors know they need to cut our costs or they’ll lose that business,” Platt said. “We’ve seen it work in the past, and I think we’ll see the same result in this instance.”
Platt noted that this partnership is the largest of its kind undertaken in South Jersey–and is among the largest in the state. Platt applauded the towns’ decision to join in this cooperative effort, adding it’s a clear indication that shared services work.
“Local governments cannot continue operating under the old way of doing business if we want to survive,” Platt said. “Our partners in this effort know that we need to put everything on the table, re-evaluate every service we provide to see what we can do better. We’ve led the way in doing the right thing here in Cherry Hill, and neighboring communities have caught onto that.”
