By Jubi Headley
October 1, 2012

Cutting costs. Achieving environmental sustainability. Delivering services faster, better, and more safely. These were the themes explored as solid waste and environmental officials from cities and states across the country convened in Lexington for the 2012 Municipal Waste Management Association (MWMA) Fall Summit. The Fall Summit, held this year September 11 – 13 in Lexington (KY), brought public sector leaders together with private sector executives from the solid waste industry, to discuss trends, emerging technologies and best practices in contract negotiations, workplace safety, alternative fuel vehicles, and other solid waste issues.

The three-day annual conference featured a variety of sessions, all focused on achieving greater efficiency, cost'savings, and sustainability in the municipal solid waste sector. “For me, the MWMA Fall Summit is one the most important conferences I attend all year, “said Tonja Brickhouse, Director of the Department of Solid Waste and Environmental Program Management for Tampa. “I always come away with concrete, creative strategies for improving my city’s solid waste services. And I get the opportunity to network one-on-one with my peers – other solid waste directors from cities around the country, who face the same issues I do in my job. I get lots of invitations to industry conferences, but the Fall Summit is always the first one I put on my annual calendar, and I’d recommend it to any city solid waste director.”

One of the conference’s most popular sessions, the “Urban Summit,” featured no formal presentations of any type. The Urban Summit, the one session that is a part of the Fall Summit each year, is a unique experience – more of a brainstorming and strategy session where public sector solid waste, recycling and environmental executives meet in a closed-door forum (no private sector participants or media are allowed), for a candid discussion on the topics most important to them. Participants can talk about whatever they’d like, whether it’s a problem that’s costing their city money, or an issue that they’ve been wrestling to solve. Urban Summit participants put their issues on the table, to the one group of people who completely understand their job and role in the city – and have likely dealt with the same or a similar issue themselves. Participants regularly comment that they leave the Urban Summit with a new idea, solution or program that saves them money.

Other topics covered at this year’s Fall Summit included:

• Negotiating the Ultimate Contract. The presenters have participated in solid waste and other contract negotiations for a variety of cities across the country, that combined are valued in the tens of billions of dollars. Presenters focused on the key ingredients for negotiating a contract that benefits the city and meets the vendor’s needs as well; the benefits and risks of various types of contracts; creative alternatives to conventional contract development processes; and a case study from Philadelphia that illustrates a number of contract negotiation best practices that could be adopted by other cities.

• Moving Toward Waste-to-Energy. Increasingly, mayors, municipal solid waste executives, and cities are focusing on waste-to-energy (WTE) as an option not only to divert waste from landfills, but to generate renewable energy. The session focused on the nuts and bolts of developing a waste-to-energy initiative – including which WTE technologies are proven and which are still in the development/testing stages, as well subsidies and other financing options for WTE. The session also featured presentations from two cities with WTE initiatives - Honolulu, Hi, which just completed a major expansion of its WTE facilities, and Allentown (PA), which is in the early stages of launching its WTE initiative.

• Alternative Fuel Vehicles. Participants learned about the relative benefits of CNG (compressed natural gas) versus hybrid vehicles, as well as the typical operating costs of each type of truck, as well as other technologies on the horizon. (This presentation was complemented by the presence of an actual truck at the conference site for demonstration purposes.)

• Workplace Safety. Workplace safety is always one of the top concerns of municipal solid waste executives. This session featured a presentation on video equipment that can be installed in trucks, in order to identify and quickly correct driver error, and by doing so improve safety and reduce safety-related costs. Participants also got an up-close look at the latest ANSI-approved innovations in safety apparel.

• Operations Efficiency. This session featured a live demonstration of route management software that optimizes collection routes, as well as track collection stops, times and a host of other data.

• Dealing with Food and other Organic Waste. Seattle and Portland are widely considered within the solid waste industry to be the gold standard when it comes to municipal organics waste programs, and the solid waste chiefs of both cities were on hand to share best practices as well as challenges and other considerations that each city faced in the development of its organics waste diversion program.

“I got so much out of this year’s Fall Summit,” said Philadelphia Streets Commissioner Clarena Tolson. “I’ve been coming to this conference for well over a decade now, and my city is benefitting tremendously. I always leave with new creative ideas to either save money or improve efficiency. I look forward to more of the same next year.”

The 2013 MWMA Fall Summit will be held October 14-16 in Tampa. Registration will open in May 2013.

MWMA, the environmental affiliate of The United States Conference of Mayors, is a national membership association, representing solid waste directors, environmental commissioners, and other municipal solid waste decision makers from major cities, counties, and other local and regional public authorities and agencies across the country.

For a full list of the sessions at the 2012 MWMA Fall Summit, as well as PDF copies of presentations from the sessions, visit Virtual Conference Center at http://www.usmayors.org/mwma/fallsummit12.