Boston says new trash contracts brought more trucks, workers and fewer missed pickups
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Summary
City officials told the Council’s Ways and Means committee that the FY26 streets budget includes higher contracted spending for residential trash collection after renegotiating with Capital Waste Services; officials said new guarantees and technology led to a 27% drop in 3-1-1 missed-trash reports in one year.
Boston officials told the City Council’s Committee on Ways and Means on May 20 that new residential trash contracts negotiated last year with Capital Waste Services increased capacity, raised wages and reduced missed collections across the city.
The Streets Cabinet’s recommended FY26 operating budget for public works and transportation stands at $206,200,000, officials said; most of the operating increase is in public works contracted services for residential trash collection.
Dennis Roche, superintendent of waste reduction for Public Works, said the city executed new contracts that became effective July 1, 2024. “We were able to guarantee 66 trucks in the city every single day. We were able to guarantee 129 trash workers in the city every single day,” Roche told the committee. He also said the contracts included new reporting measures and GPS tracking for trucks and that the first-year results showed “a 27 percent drop in one year in 3-1-1 missed trash cases.”
Omar Khoshafa, director of budget and finance for the Streets Cabinet, described the budget increase as providing “stability in unstable times” to maintain core services such as trash collection, street cleaning and plowing. Khoshafa said the new contracts brought updated fleets and expanded capacity but were a primary driver of the budget increase.
Officials said the negotiated agreements included higher wages and lower overtime costs for contractor employees and new field supervision. Roche said the city also negotiated provisions that will allow installation of 360-degree cameras on trucks in the future to better manage collection routes and service quality.
Committee members pressed for details about contract structure, competition and opportunities for minority-owned firms; Roche said the city has started breaking some work into smaller contracts and is working with a consultant to attract more bidders and build competition over time.
City staff characterized the outcome as improved reliability rather than a change in the collection model: labor remains contractor-provided rather than performed by Public Works staff. Officials also said the higher contract cost created a one-time deficit pressure in FY25 that the FY26 budget is intended to fund.
The Streets Cabinet said it will continue to report performance measures and data to the Council. Committee members requested follow-up information about truck routing, GPS data and how the city will expand opportunities for minority- and women-owned businesses in future contracting.
