Greedy Garbage

BY BUDDY NEVINS

The guys who pick up your garbage want to pick your pocket.
Waste Management, the sprawling trash hauler and recycler, is trying to buy Republic Services, its smaller rival.
This could have a tremendous impact on Broward County, but all I hear no outcry from local officials.
A successful merger would leave a monopoly controlling Broward County’s garbage collection.
Waste Management or Republic handles almost all the residential garbage collections in Broward. 
Today a city can ditch Waste Management for Republic’s subsidiary All Service. Such a switch seldom happens, but the threat of it brings garbage haulers to the negotiating table.  
A new monopoly company created by the merger could set rates at will.
Cities would have virtually no negotiating position to counter a monopoly garbage hauler.  Only Hollywood and two or three other communiities have city-owned hauling services. No city has the money to buy the trucks and other equipment needed to build a government-owned trash collection force.
Ron Greenstein, executive director of the county’s Resource Recovery Board, called the possible merger a potential “disaster for consumers. 
Greenstein said such a monopoly could encourage a new company to compete for Broward’s business. Other companies have tried to buck today’s duopoly in Broward and failed.
The proposed deal is far from done.
This is a battle of giants and the U. S. Justice Department is watching. 
Waste Management, with $13.3 billion in revenues last year, controls 25 percent of America’ s waste disposal business. Republic had revenues of $3.2 billion last year and controls about 6 percent of the business. 
After examining the deal, Justice Department attorneys could order the new Waste Management-Republic to divest of its Broward business as a condition of a merger.
More important, Republic is against the deal. Republic prefers merging with Allied Waste Industries, with $6 billion in revenues in 2007.
A Republic-Allied merger would be a much better deal for Broward residents since Allied doesn’t do business in this area of Florida.   And competition would still exist between Republic and Waste Management
Folks like Rhonda Calhoun, executive director of the Broward County League of Cities, are watching the battle over our garbage carefully.
Calhoun knows that cities have a vital stake in blocking the merger. 
The cities and county commission should tell the Justice Department they are against a Waste Management-Republic merger.  People should be insisting their elected officials oppose this merger.
 When it comes to consumers, competition is always better than a monopoly.

 



3 Responses to “Greedy Garbage”

  1. anonymous says:

    Wow ther are two more has been’s for the roster Rhonda and Greenstien.

    Nice to you so and ron are friends now. I remember back in the Clinton days when you got Ronny G all in a snit when you reported he was doing lobbying work for one of the trash companies, right?

    Do you think WM will have to spend more money on All Service as one of these garbage companies paid for Shelia Alu way back when?

  2. S. Only says:

    since none of local “newspapers” are bringing any of this to light- except when Mayo copies the blog-someone has to dig–so—you go Buddy!

  3. anonymous says:

    why so much censorship?