Overland Park is one step closer to potentially overhauling its trash and recycling system, though some details still need to be settled.
The city currently leaves trash hauling and other solid waste removal services to its residents in an open market system, so residents contract with haulers individually or through an HOA.
However, Overland Park is the latest Johnson County city to explore switching to a more organized trash pickup system by possibly contracting out with one or more haulers in an effort to address cost concerns for some residents.
Earlier this week, the Overland Park City Council unanimously approved a resolution that formally signifies the city’s plans to move in that direction.
The vote on Monday is the latest step in a years-long process that could allow the city to create a more centralized trash hauling system for residents. Now, the city will begin collecting feedback from haulers and other stakeholders before developing an official plan.
“I appreciate staff’s diligence and pace, taking this at a responsible pace,” said Mayor Curt Skoog. “All of us rely on trash pickup in our house every week. The last thing we want to do as a city is make a decision or be hasty so that all of a sudden trash doesn’t get picked up.”
Still, nothing is set in stone, said Lara Isch, Overland Park’s sustainability manager.
“It’s still exploratory and non-binding,” she said.
Why is Overland Park doing this now?
For years, Overland Park has left trash hauling to the open market, so historically, the city has mostly stayed out of the arrangement.
Instead, Overland Park has a list of licensed haulers residents or HOAs can pick from to handle their services. That’s left something of a patchwork where some residents pay significantly more than others.
According to data from the recent Overland Park Solid Waste Study, some residents who contract individually for trash hauling services are paying more than twice what their counterparts who contract through an HOA are paying.
Though it varies widely from neighborhood to neighborhood, in one sampled HOA, residents are paying as low as $18.51 a month for the service. At the same time, residents without an HOA who are contracting with haulers individually can pay anywhere from $30.15 a month to $44, per the study.
Councilmember Holly Grummert, who lives in northern Overland Park, said she’s seen some of that in her neighborhood and that the cost of her own trash service “just jumped exponentially.”
Aside from the cost issue, some neighborhoods without HOAs could have multiple haulers coming through multiple days a week to pick up trash from their individual customers. City staff have said that adds extra wear-and-tear on streets and can be disruptive.
Additionally, complaints about unreliable service and late pickups in neighborhoods have piled up across Johnson County. At times, some neighborhoods went weeks without scheduled pickups in the past few years.
During public comments earlier this year, some residents voiced support for moving to a more centralized trash and recycling system in Overland Park.
“Any option is better than the one we have,” said Jeff Lee, a northern Overland Park resident with a professional background in recycling.
He said he sees a shift to a city-contracted system as an obvious solution.
Still, leadership from some HOAs have said they’re happy with the current system.
Craig Wilson, who represents the Apple Valley Estates HOA, said in May that he doesn’t oppose an overhaul, but he urged the city to select an alternative that allowed HOAs to opt out.
“The most important thing to our residents is great and consistent service, and our price is less, and our amenities are greater than what I saw on the proposals tonight,” he said.
Some lingering questions still don’t have answers
Overland Park has not officially decided anything about its trash hauling system yet. Even if it did move to a city contract system, there are still a lot of unanswered questions about how all that could work and what it might look like.
For instance, the city needs to decide how it will handle contracts for trash hauling that homeowners associations, neighborhood groups or individual residents might have. A decision also needs to be made on whether HOAs would be allowed to opt out of the city contract, and if so, what the process for that would be.
The city has also not decided whether it will contract with one or more haulers to handle the trash collection.
“Those all kind of need to be worked out,” Isch said on Monday.
Additionally, the city may need to change some of its existing ordinances on trash hauling to set new rules that would work for a city contract system and standards for things like pickup frequency.
Next steps in the trash overhaul process:
Now that the city council has adopted a resolution showing the city’s intent to set up an organized trash hauling system through city-run contracts, a formal engagement process can begin that includes a more robust survey of HOAs across the city and upcoming public information meetings.
Isch said all of that will inform the development of an official plan draft over the next 90 days. That phase will close out with another public hearing. After that, the city council will consider a final plan.
That final plan will likely settle a lot of the lingering details, like whether homeowners associations will be allowed to opt out of the city contracts and how that would work.
Then, the city will put out a request for proposals from haulers to contract with the city for trash, recycling and yard waste hauling. One or more haulers could be picked, depending on the exact model Overland Park decides to use.
Under the Kansas Organized Solid Waste Collection Service Act, the earliest the city contracts could take effect is in January 2029 due to a statutorily required 18-month waiting period.
Keep reading: Some Overland Park residents pay twice as much for trash pickup as their neighbors. The city wants to change that
