Bellevue seeks national best practices, EV fleets and stronger service metrics in next solid waste RFP
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Summary
City staff outlined four equal-priority objectives for a competitive RFP to replace Bellevue's solid waste contract (expiring June 2028): adopt national best practices, comply with state organics and recycling laws, focus on reliability/affordability/user experience, and pilot technology including EVs and AI; council directed staff to develop the service package.
Bellevue's utilities staff presented objectives for a competitive solicitation to replace the city's solid waste contract, which began in July 2014 and expires June 2028, and council directed staff to prepare a services package to support the RFP.
Lucy Liu, utilities director, and Scott Edwards, deputy director, told the council the city pays roughly $37,000,000 annually for current solid waste services and that staff recommend maintaining weekly single-family collection and an embedded rate structure for composting and recycling in the next contract. The recommended service objectives are to: 1) learn from national and regional procurement practices and incentivize innovation; 2) ensure the package complies with state laws such as the organics management laws and the Recycling Reform Act; 3) be responsive to community priorities of reliability, affordability and user experience; and 4) explore technology and data (electric vehicle fleets, onboard performance reporting, AI for materials sorting and customer-facing tools).
Council members pressed staff on measurable performance metrics (missed collections, call volumes, customer hold times), the degree of community engagement to date and the privacy/aggregation approach for potential AI tools. "We wanna be very sensitive and thoughtful as to what we consider in [AI] application and how we look to implement," Scott Edwards said, noting staff prefer aggregated performance data rather than household-level tracking.
Councillors also urged staff to balance ambitious recycling and organics goals (including the state target to cut organics to landfill by 75% by 2030) with affordability for residents; one council member urged staff to aim for as close to a zero-rate increase as practicable while meeting environmental goals. Staff said they had contracted NewGen Strategies to benchmark national metrics and expect to return with detailed performance measures and a timeline for procurement. The RFP process is planned to begin midyear, with staff returning to the Environmental Services Commission in Q4 and an apparent successful vendor recommendation expected in early Q1 2027 to enable a contract award by late Q1/early Q2 2027 for a mid-2028 contract start.
Council moved, seconded and approved a motion directing staff to develop the solid waste services package to support an RFP; the motion passed by voice vote.