City of Cornwall awards waste contract to Environmental Solutions

The City of Cornwall has awarded the contract for collection, processing and marketing of recyclable material and collection of curbside waste to Environmental 360 Solutions (E360s) Incorporated.

E360s, an experienced solid waste management contractor, currently operates two material recovery facilities and services over 150,000 customers weekly in Canada. The seven-year contract, which begins April 1, was awarded January 28.  Through a media release, E360s indicated that they would be hiring 35 employees, giving preference to local candidates with experience in waste management.

The City of Cornwall is confident that E360s will advance the goals of the Solid Waste Management Master Plan by improving recycling and diversion. The company is committed to the communities in which they operate and has proposed a significant investment in state of the art equipment at the City’s material recovery facility. The collection fleet will increase collection efficiency and promote diversion, which will in turn extend the City’s landfill life beyond the current expected lifetime of 2030.

The savings associated with implementing additional waste diversion initiatives will amount to over $535,000 over the 7 year life of the contract. The City will also benefit from additional revenues associated with efficiencies with improved recycling processing.

The waste and recycling contract was awarded through the RFP process. An RFP is used when the City is seeking proposals with technical expertise or specialized capability for a service where new or alternative methods and innovations are sought.

Once proposals are received, a committee of City staff review the submissions based on a list of evaluation criteria and weightings through a pre-determined point system. This criteria includes cost, as well as six other factors:

• company capabilities and credentials,
• human resource requirements,
• facilities and equipment requirements,
• implementation and operational requirements,
• value-added services and innovation, and
• quality assurance, quality control, communication and contingency plans.

The RFP process is different from an open bidding process, where a tender is issued for specific goods or services, and the lowest bid meeting these specifications is selected.

As part of the award process, reference checks were completed for E360s.  The reference checks were highly favourable and confirmed the ability of E360 to perform successfully the tasks outlined in the Request for Proposal (RFP).

The City sought legal advice on this matter, and was advised that the RFP process followed City policies, and was open, fair and transparent.