Big Smith To Take Over County Waste

RISON - Cleveland County residents will be seeing a new solid waste provider next year after the Cleveland County Quo‐rum Court unanimously ac‐cepted a bid Tuesday night from Big Smith Waste Services of Lincoln County to begin a fiveyear contract on Jan. 1, 2023. Big Smith and the county’s ex‐isting solid waste contractor, Get Rid of It, Inc. of El Dorado, were the only two companies to submit bids for the service. Big Smith currently provides solid waste services for Lincoln County. Bids from the two companies were revealed during the quorum court’s August meeting, but the quorum court decided to table a decision until this month’s meeting. Big Smith submitted the lower per household bid of the two. Big Smith’s bid was $15.53 per household per month with a $335 charge for each “roll-off” container and a “tipping fee” of $45 per ton to dispose of it in the landfill. Roll off containers are the large metal bins where trash, appliances and other items are deposited at the solid waste transfer station on Hwy. 79 in Rison. Get Rid of It’s bid was $18 per household per month using the existing trash cans or $19.50 per household by providing new trash cans. In addition, Get Rid of It would charge $375 per box for the roll-off containers. Currently, the county is paying two contractors to pick up solid waste inside the county: Get Rid of It for the households in the county and Waste Management for the households within the Rison city limits. Rison had an existing contract with Waste Management when the city turned over its solid waste responsibilities to the county, and the county continued to allow the city to select its own contractor. However, Waste Management did not submit a bid to continue its contract with Rison so this new contract will apply to all residents of the county. When the topic came up on Tuesday’s meeting agenda, Justice of the Peace Bruce Brown of Pansy q...