The PA Waste Industries Association Wednesday asked the Monroe County Court of Common Pleas to declare the tipping fee system established in a recent request for proposals issued by the Monroe County Municipal Waste Management Authority to be illegal and invalid.

With bids under the RFP due on August 30, PWIA filed a corresponding petition for a preliminary injunction, requesting that the court suspend the RFP process pending its decision on the matter.

The Authority has issued a request for proposals that would require landfills, in order to dispose of any waste generated in Monroe County, to sell their airspace to the Authority and allow the Authority to set the “tipping fee” for use of that airspace, based in part on the Authority’s costs of operating its recycling and other programs. 

Similar provisions would require the sale of “throughput capacity” by transfer stations and resource recovery facilities along with Authority-set use fees.

“The unprecedented shift to the Authority of the power to set the facility tipping fee is an attempt by the Authority to maintain the practice of assessing an administrative fee to fund its recycling costs and other programs, which is unauthorized by Pennsylvania law,” the PWIA complaint says.

In 2005, the Commonwealth Court ruled that counties cannot impose their own administrative fee on waste to pay for recycling and other programs.

“It is quite clear that counties don’t have any legal basis to impose their own fees on waste to pay for recycling programs,” PWIA President Tim O’Donnell said. “As stated by the court, only the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is authorized to collect fees on waste to support recycling. The state currently collects $2 per ton on all waste disposed in the state to support local recycling programs. The state channels those fees to local recycling efforts through its comprehensive grant programs.”

O’Donnell added, “The proper course for Monroe County is to apply for funds through these grant programs, to use the proceeds from the sale of recycled commodities from their programs to further fund their programs, and to operate their programs efficiently and effectively so they are otherwise self-sustaining, rather than to invent a scheme to circumvent the law and impose a local administrative fee under the guise of a county-mandated tipping fee.”

PWIA represents private-sector recyclers, waste haulers, and landfill operators in Pennsylvania and is the state affiliate of National Solid Wastes Management Association.

8/20/2012