Politics & Government

Los Gatos Talks Trash Tonight

West Valley Collection and Recycling's contract is up for discussion at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Los Gatos POB, 15900 Los Gatos Blvd.

Sheila Sanchez's profile picture
Sheila Sanchez, Patch StaffVerified Patch Staff Badge
|

The West Valley Collection and Recycling contract with the West Valley Solid Waste Management Authority is up for discussion tonight during a meeting at 7 p.m. at the Los Gatos/Monte Sereno Police Operations Building, 15900 Los Gatos Blvd.

The contract with WVCR expires in Feb. 28, 2014, with an option to extend it for up to 36 months to Feb. 28, 2017. The Authority has to decide whether to extend the contract for 10 years.

WVCR is a joint venture between Green Waste Recovery, Inc. and Waste Connections of California, Inc. They were selected by the Authority to be the recycling, green waste, and garbage hauler for Los Gatos, Saratoga, Monte Sereno and Campbell.

The Authority was formed several years ago primarily to provide for comprehensive and cost effective solid waste services to residents and businesses in the four municipalities.

The Authority, established in 1988, has appointed an Ad Hoc Committee of the Board that is currently in discussions with WVCR regarding the possible contract extension or new contract that would provide additional or expanded solid waste services to residential and commercial customers.

Some of the services under consideration are:

  • Residential organics composting
  • Yard waste composting
  • Commercial wet/dry collection
  • Single-stream/materials recovery facility directed commercial collection
WVCR provides automated 3-cart residential collection service (co-mingled recyclables, garbage, and green waste) to more than 28,000 single-family residential accounts within the JPA service area, employing split-body vehicles for collection of green waste and garbage, and a separate vehicle for collection of co-mingled recyclables.

Green waste and garbage are sent to Guadalupe Landfill in San Jose, while recyclables are processed by WVCR at a company-owned material recovery facility in San Jose.

WVCR also provides additional services to residents and businesses including annual curbside clean-up events, universal waste drop-off, Christmas tree pick-up, and commercial customer composting.

According to the Authority, WVCR serves:

  • 9,738 residential customers in Saratoga
  • 8,833 residential customers in Los Gatos
  • 8,499 residential customers in Campbell
  • 1,094 residential customers in Monte Sereno
Commercial customers are as follows:

  • 217 in Saratoga
  • 744 in Los Gatos
  • 1,326 in Campbell
  • 6 in Monte Sereno
Rates for the cost of service vary by jurisdiction and include a variety of fees including a 19 percent franchise fee, fees for JPA administration, street sweeping (performed by others), household hazard waste collection and disposal, and a street impact mitigation fee.

Monthly residential rates for single 35-gallon container garbage collection (including recycling and green waste) are as follows:

  • $22.34 for Los Gatos
  • $24.42 for Saratoga
  • $22.98 for Campbell
  • $27.20 for Monte Sereno
Total hauling revenues reported by WVCR for calendar year 2012 were $21.4 million. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2013, WVCR is expected to remit slightly more than $4 million in Franchise Fee revenue to the member agencies.











Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

More from Los Gatos