A win-win program to use composted restaurant waste to enrich inner-city vegetable gardens is opposed by the Miami-Dade Department of Solid Waste Management (DSWM) because it will impact its bottom line.

Excuse me. I thought county services were intended to serve the community, not the reverse. Any program that could help provide affordable, nutritious food to a community where those basic needs are under met while diverting waste from the waste stream sounds like something county government should promote.

The DSWM objection is that it has a contract to deliver a certain amount of waste to a processing facility or pay a penalty. As manager of public services at DSWM in the 1990s, I was asked to do an analysis to determine the feasibility of the county taking over waste service for county departments served by private haulers to alleviate this very problem.

Although the county has the right to provide waste services to all county facilities, many county facilities were served by private haulers who at that time were hauling the waste to Broward County.

Much to my surprise, my analysis showed that the county's commercial waste fees were highly competitive despite the higher union wages, a large amount of overtime and an alleged lack of efficiency. Charges were similar because the profit levels of the private firms offset the county's higher operating costs. I also found instances of departments being billed by private firms for more pickups than they actually received and, at the airport, for service it no longer received.

Had the county actually taken over service to its own facilities it would have addressed the ``put-or-pay'' deficiency, provided more cost-effective service to county departments and saved taxpayer dollars. There were strong objections from private haulers, and the county takeover of waste service to its own departments did not occur.

Diverting waste from the waste stream is a good thing. Providing healthy food options for residents is a good thing.

DSWM should identify other options to improve its bottom line and stop standing in the way of a program that would better serve this community.

5 !!END TAG!! Miami

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