IV Waste, the local garbage hauler owned by Sidney Torres, won the opportunity to negotiate a second major trash contract in New Orleans on Tuesday after city officials gave the firm top marks in the bidding process to service an additional 64,000 households and businesses.

During a meeting of the contract selection committee, Torres’ firm, which last year won the contract to service Lakeview, Gentilly and downriver neighborhoods, placed first over rivals Waste Pro and Richard’s Disposal, Inc., for the chance to pick up in Mid-City, Uptown and other upriver neighborhoods.

Contract negotiations will follow Tuesday’s selection. If they are successful, IV Waste will take over from Richard’s in the new area on April 1.

At that point, Torres would control nearly three quarters of the city’s 153,000 curbside waste and recycling pickups outside of the French Quarter and parts of the Central Business District — and that might not be all. On Wednesday, the same committee is scheduled to select a new hauler for Algiers, with more than 18,000 service locations.

IV Waste is also vying for that contract.

In an interview Tuesday, Torres said his company is “100%” ready to handle the new area, and potentially Algiers, and will not seek any additional government contracts after that.

“We’re not looking to take on any more residential, government contracts because of the size that we are with this new award,” Torres said.

The trash contracts represent some of the most lucrative offered by the city, and were re-bid over the past two years after growing complaints about trash service during the pandemic and after Hurricane Ida.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell vowed changes were ahead, but also acknowledged that costs were almost certain to rise and service cuts were likely.

That has come to pass. Once a vendor is selected for the Algiers service area, the total annual cost for curbside collections outside the French Quarter and downtown — which are conducted separately with different requirements — is likely to exceed $40 million, or about twice what the city was paying two longtime contractors before last year.

Moreover, the new contracts will only require once-per-week pickup, a change from the twice-weekly pickups that occurred under the previous deals.

Fast growth

Torres is well known in New Orleans for his previous garbage company’s lemon-scented service in the French Quarter, various real estate projects and a short-lived reality television television show.

IV Waste also services Kenner and St. Bernard Parish. The Kenner contract turned controversial earlier this year as Torres and that city’s officials accused each other of violating payment terms in an ongoing lawsuit.

New Orleans officials, citing 311 complaint data, said Tuesday that IV Waste has provided exceptional service since taking over its existing service area nearly a year ago.

Torres started IV Waste in 2016, and before selecting it on Tuesday, officials asked Torres if the company was at risk of growing too quickly. He said he had made that mistake with his previous company, SDT Waste, which he said operated in 24 cities and parishes in Louisiana before he sold the company.

“I was all about winning instead of worrying about the quality,” Torres said, adding that his business plan is now limited to contracts that can be serviced from the IV Waste headquarters in Mid-City. “We’re not looking to bid something in Baton Rouge, we’re not looking to go to Mississippi. I did that. I know what that’s like. And it was a nightmare.”

Cantrell’s pledge 

The contract rights awarded this week represent the second half of Cantrell’s pledge to shake up New Orleans garbage service.

Last year, Cantrell terminated Metro Service Group, the contractor with the worst service record, and replaced it with IV Waste and another contractor, Waste Pro, which now handles New Orleans East and the Lower 9th Ward.

Service complaints in those areas have tumbled since the new companies started in November, according to 311 data. 

The contract that is now up for bid covers the other half of the city, which is services by Richard’s. As it did with the Metro’s former area, the administration is dividing the Richard’s area into two contracts.

End of an era

Metro and Richard’s were synonymous with New Orleans garbage service for 15 years, having first received contractions during former Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration in 2007.

Former Mayor Mitch Landrieu renewed them twice, most recently on a seven-year term ending in 2024. Service began to suffer with the onslaught of additional household waste during the pandemic, and the post-Ida failure turned into a full-blown crisis as rotting waste piled up across the city.

Metro and Richard’s had long complained about the Landrieu-era contracts, which they said did not adequately account for annual service growth. They also bitterly argued with the Cantrell administration over its refusal to pay emergency rates during the pandemic and after Ida.

While openly lambasting the two companies for the service failures, the Cantrell administration has never publicly addressed their grievances over emergency pay. The administration did pay settlements to each company totaling $9 million, however, and has paid millions more to supplemental contractors to stabilize collections.

The administration also allowed the contractors to cut service frequency in half, to once-per-week, to avoid disruptions in the future. The service cut is now permanent, since going back to twice-weekly pickups would further balloon what the city must pay.

Cantrell last year hinted that an increase in $24 monthly sanitation fees on water bills may eventually become necessary, despite the service cuts, since the fees don’t cover the costs. She has more recently dropped those hints, however, as outcry grows over rising taxes, insurance and other costs of living.

Richard’s settlement 

Richard’s ranked last among the three firms that received scores on Tuesday from the committee, which was comprised of top Cantrell lieutenants. While price was only one factor under consideration, Richard’s proposal came in about $1.5 million more per year than the similar proposals of IV Waste and Waste Pro.

Richard’s owner, Alvin Richard, has previously said that losing the New Orleans contract would put him out of business, though he said Tuesday the city’s $5 million settlement payment this year had helped him hire additional mechanics and hoppers while increasing hourly wages.

That, along with temporary supplemental contractors the city paid for, helped Richard’s iron out service failures earlier this year.

But the settlement, which the city agreed to even without any lawsuit filed, had not ironed out what he said is a still-unfair contract.

“Still, I’m doing more work than what I’m being paid for,” Richard said.

While Torres said he wants the Algiers contract, and is prepared to take it on, he also said he prefers that it go to Richard’s.

“I hope Mr. Richard gets it, to tell you the truth,” Torres said. “I’d rather him win it just because of the fact that all the years he has.”