Allentown City Council rejects trash collection contract that would have hiked fee 46%

Allentown City Council rejected a new trash collection contract that would have hiked the solid waste fee by 46% , leaving the city without a trash collection provider in place when its contract expires next year.

Council members and residents who opposed the new contract said residents could not afford the increase, but city officials said the new contract is the best option because the cost of trash collection has increased across the region.

The vote was 5-2, with Ce-Ce Gerlach, Ed Zucal, Natalie Santos, Cynthia Mota and Candida Affa voting to reject the contract. Santo Napoli and Daryl Hendricks voted in favor of it.

Allentown’s contract with Waste Management will expire in June, and the city is recommending a new contract with J.P. Mascaro and Sons, which has a division in Allentown.

Allentown residents paid $415 for trash collection in 2024. If City Council had approved the new contract, that would have increased to $605 next year and an estimated $740 in 2026.

“This is going to cause a lot of problems,” Zucal said of the new contract. “[The cost] is going to get passed on to tenants, it’s going to cause more financial issues for those that have them.”

According to Ann Saurman, manager of Allentown’s Bureau of Recycling and Solid Waste, the fee increase is the minimum the city can afford without a deficit to the solid waste fee.

It is unclear how the city will proceed without the contract in place. Even though the current contract is valid for eight more months, the city will need to adjust the solid waste fee in its 2025 budget proposal, which is usually unveiled in October.

City spokesperson Genesis Ortega said the city administration will ask City Council to reconsider and vote on the contract again at its next meeting Oct. 2.

The cost of trash and recycling collection has increased in municipalities across the region recently. Lower Macungie Township this summer increased its trash collection fee by about 50%, and South Whitehall Township increased its fee by around 60% last year.

The new contract would have maintained the city’s twice-weekly trash pickup, and allowed yard waste to be collected year round.

Council members who opposed the contract questioned why the city did not consider reducing trash collection to once weekly to cut costs. According to a survey conducted by consultant Next Gen on behalf of the city, 61% of the roughly 1,300 residents who responded said they favored keeping trash collection twice a week.

“Based on the 1% of people who responded, it seems like people weren’t exactly in favor of [reducing trash collection days]. But I’ll bet you if they knew it meant a 70% increase, they maybe would have answered differently,” Gerlach said.

Saurman said that changing trash collection to once a week would lead to more trash and litter throughout the city. In a presentation, she pointed to several photos of excess trash on Allentown streets.

“Things are blocking the sidewalk, it is not [Americans with Disabilities Act] complaint,” Saurman said. “The litter and trash mess is a result of uncontainerized bags of trash that are placed out.”

The city considered changing to “containerized” trash pick up, which would have distributed 65-gallon trash cans to every resident so that trash is picked up automatically, but doing so was more expensive, Saurman said.

Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com .