[greenyes] Fwd: Managing municipal recycling collection by license or franchise?

["Megan Kershner" <Mkershner@no.address>]

Sorry for cross-postings...

More questions from Boise City, Idaho:

We would like to know if municipalities regulate by business license or franchise agreement haulers or collectors of recyclable materials from businesses.  Does the size/volume of the recycling hauler influence how you regulate their services?  A cardboard scrapper vs. Waste Management?  How about single focus recyclers like Rocky Mountain /Pacific Recycling (metal recycling focus)?  

Boise City has an exclusive franchise agreement with BFI for residential trash and recycling and commercial trash.  Commercial and multi-family recycling falls outside of their contract.  By ordinance, all commercial recyclers must be licensed with the city and pay a franchise fee to the city.  We have not enforced the licensing and franchise fee components of the ordinance for two reasons: 1) no one has wanted to compete with BFI for recycling services (until now); and 2) the commercial recyclers that do exist were providing only a single material recycling service (e.g. cardboard, metal, or white paper).

Obviously, the "easy" thing would be to change the franchise agreement with BFI to include commercial recycling.  Any other suggestions for how we move forward?

Thanks in advance.  I have received many great responses to my previous questions and it has been immensely helpful.  Boise is evolving from a small town to a big city and these are just a handful of the growing pains we're feeling.

Warm regards,
Megan Kershner

Public Works Dept. - Environmental
Boise, Idaho