DALLAS, Texas —The Dallas City Council has approved a contract with Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC), to build and operate a new material recycling facility (MRF) that is expected to process and market up to 120,000 tons of material annually.
Construction on the $20 million project at the McCommas Bluff Landfill is expected to begin in early 2016 and operations are scheduled start by January 2017. The approval of the FCC contract followed a two-year process in which Burns & McDonnell advised the City of Dallas on developing and implementing a long term and sustainable recycle processing program.
Contact approval represents the culmination of a process in which the City evaluated multiple recycling and resource recovery technologies to increase recycling in support of its solid waste management plan. The plan calls for achieving a 40 percent recycling rate by 2020, and further increases over time. The City decided to focus on single-stream recycling (as opposed to other evaluated technologies such as mixed waste processing, gasification or anaerobic digestion) as the City recognized the opportunity to increase the recovery rates from the existing single-stream program.
“With our current recycling processing agreement expiring in December 2016, we sought to develop a request for proposals that included an opportunity for a meaningful public-private partnership in which the City and a private company would be incentivized to increase recycling among residential households, apartments and commercial businesses by sharing risks and financial rewards. We also wanted to see if an opportunity existed to develop a recycling facility at the McCommas Bluff Landfill that would be a pragmatic project approach, as well as emblematic of the City’s long range goals and visions of less disposal and increased diversion,” said Kelly High, Sanitation Director for the City of Dallas.
Burns & McDonnell advised the city on preparing a competitive proposal process that allowed companies to propose on one or both of two options: a processing services agreement or a new facility on a 15-acre site at the City’s McCommas Bluff landfill.
“This approach allowed companies to decide which option would be most beneficial to their company and the City. Recognizing that the City was offering to provide the land, a convenient location and key infrastructure, we thought that there could be interest in building a new MRF at the McCommas Bluff Landfill” said Scott Pasternak, Burns & McDonnell’s project manager.
“Understanding the challenging recycling commodity markets, the City wanted to provide companies with as many incentives as practicable that would benefit both parties. Additionally, we were very mindful when developing procurement specifications to consider employee benefits and work environment, as well as potential impacts on nearby communities.
“Based on feedback from community meetings, the City wanted to ensure that any facility proposed to be built at the McCommas Bluff Landfill would not negatively impact to the community and could actually provide positive impacts such as well-paying local jobs and other community partnering opportunities.”
Seven firms responded and FCC submitted the strongest proposal with a plan to build a state-of-the-art MRF. FCC is a European-based company – with its U. S. headquarters in The Woodlands, Texas – focused on solid waste/recycling, construction, water, environmental and other industries.
Financially, FCC’s proposal included a host fee, public education contributions, revenue sharing, processing fees and a guarantee that the City would not have to pay FCC in times when processing fees exceed the value of commodity revenue. Over time, the City and FCC hope to share a vision for the MRF to serve as an “anchor” for the continued development of green technologies in the area.
“This will be the largest public-private partnership of its kind in Texas,” said Pasternak. “This partnership between the City and FCC should provide a solid foundation for continued efforts to increase recycling in the City of Dallas and surrounding communities.”
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About Burns & McDonnell
Burns & McDonnell is a company made up of more than 5,200 engineers, architects, construction professionals, scientists, consultants and entrepreneurs with offices across the country and throughout the world. We strive to create amazing success for our clients and amazing careers for our employee-owners. Burns & McDonnell is 100% employee-owned and is proud to be No. 15 on FORTUNE’s 2015 List of 100 Best Companies to Work For. For more information visit http://burnsmcd.com