HF&H Consultants, LLC

City of San Diego

Recycling Center Evaluation

2007

Client Needs

The City of San Diego wanted to evaluate the City’s current buy-back and drop-off recycling center (Center). While the City owned the site, they wanted a private company to continue to operate the Center. As part of this goal, the City would renegotiate the existing agreement or conduct a competitive bid process.

HF&H Solutions

With the help of City staff, HF&H identified and obtained current recycling center agreements and information from five other communities. We reviewed each contract and compared the key terms to those of the current contract.

The City of San Diego’s current contract is comparable to, and in most cases more favorable than, the other agencies agreements. The Center has more hours of operation and recycled more tonnage (except the City of Oxnard) than the other cities surveyed. The Center is conveniently located near the landfill and provides the opportunity to recycle rather than dispose of material.

The annual reports showed favorable increasing trends since 2004 with regard to both payments to customers for commodities purchased and annual tonnage. Payments to customers for material purchased increased almost 300% during 2004 to 2007. The number of customers using the facility increased by 45% since 2004 and currently averages 9,000 customers per month.

We recommended that the City consider minor changes to the current agreement and negotiate a contract extension with the current contractor.

Consider increasing the monthly rental payment and/or consider a revenue sharing provision with the contractor in order to increase revenue paid to the City
Increase the annual $5,000 marketing budget in order to promote the Center.
Ensure compliance with the monthly reporting provisions by requiring the contractor to report all material handled at the Center and purchase prices paid for all commodities purchased from the public.

Results