Three South Jersey municipalities are talkin’ trash — and leveraging savings — by combining their refuse collection services into a single contract.

Cherry Hill and Gloucester Townships already had separate private contracts for trash disposal, and discovered that they were up for renewal at the same time.  That presented an opportunity for a common bid, also including the Cherry Hill School District and Fire District.

And Merchantville, NJ, which is in the early stages of merger talks with Cherry Hill, joined in. 

Community officials won’t say how much they hope to save, but Gloucester Township mayor David Mayer (second from left in photo) says:

“Government is too expensive, and so today I think we start down a course where you will see more great partnerships like this between between municipalities.  We don’t have a choice.  We have to reduce our costs.”

Merchantville could see some layoffs in its public works department when borough trash hauling is privatized.
Reported by John Ostapkovich, KYW Newsradio.

 Photo by John Ostapkovich