As municipal revenue sources disappear, waste management and disposal services will become an increasingly greater headache for constituents.

The progressive privatization of waste management services has been on the rise in the last few years, and the next thing citizens will have to face is the collection of fees for this essential service.

The president of the Puerto Rico Mayors Federation, Mayor of Arecibo Carlos Molina Rodríguez, noted that soon the municipalities would not be able to cover the costs of a service that has so far been offered for free to the citizens.

'It's one of the biggest municipal expenses. There is a cutback of almost $350 million to the municipalities, and we cannot pay for the service. Everyone will have to make adjustments, and since that is the greatest municipal expense, everyone who generates trash will have to pay to have it collected at home,' he explained.

NotiCel tried to obtain feedback from the Puerto Rico Mayors Association, but all attempts proved unsuccessful.

The way the service will be charged has caused controversy, and there is no consensus on a standard method island-wide. According to Molina, Arecibo will conduct a census starting this month, to then proceed to bill or tax the properties in this municipality. In Cabo Rojo, trash will only be collected if it is packed in bags that are now available for purchase.

For their part, legislators Luis 'Narmito' Ortiz Lugo and Ramón L. Rodríguez Ruiz submitted bill 937 in the House of Representatives last month. This bill proposes to have each municipality choose between the Aqueduct and Sewer Authority or the Electric Power Authority as their collection agent, to charge the waste management fee from their clients.

A search in the website of the Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico shows that, from January of 2016 to the present, there have been 1,333 new or modified waste management and recycling contracts of various kinds, for a total of $130 million.

Out of these, the companies with the greatest amount of sizeable contracts are Consolidated Waste (also known as ConWaste), EC Waste, and Landfill Technologies of Guaynabo.From July of 2016 to the present, the dominant company in the municipalities is clearly Consolidated Waste. This enterprise takes the lead, holding contracts with 26 of the 78 municipalities, as well as other governmental agencies.

The 76 contracts this company holds for that time period add up to about $30.025 million. Meanwhile, EC Waste has only established contracts with the municipalities of Maunabo and San Juan for the same time period. Both contracts are for one year, and they add up to $118,000 for services in Maunabo and $4 million for services in San Juan.

Both Con Waste and EC Waste have consistently provided services to government entities. Recently, these companies were embroiled in a battle for the waste management contract in the city of Mayagüez.

A case search in the Judicial Branch website returns civil cases for collections and breach of contract, involving the municipalities of Ceiba, Patillas, Juana Díaz, Arecibo, Humacao, and Salinas, from 2013 to the present.

EC Waste press official Ricardo Soto told NotiCel that this company would not be issuing any statements regarding their clients.

This upturn for private companies is recent, since the Office of the Comptroller has no evidence that there was such an abundance of contracts before FY2012-2013. The spike in contracts coincides with the Legislative Assembly discussion about possibly eliminating the Solid Waste Management Authority—a proposal that was struck down by the Senate in 2014.

Carlos Contreras, president of Con Waste, said that 'citizens have realized they have a responsibility, and that it goes beyond the issue with the municipalities, because waste management and disposal is an essential service. In spite of the fiscal crisis faced by most municipalities, citizens cannot do without waste disposal services.'

The executive acknowledged that most municipalities in the island do not have sufficient funds to pay for waste management services, due to the budgetary cutbacks implemented as a response to the economic crisis.

However, the responsibility municipalities have to provide waste collection and disposal services was one—if not the most important—reason why the municipal sales and use tax of 1.5% was implemented. When the IVU tax was established in 2006, the revenues allocated to municipalities were meant to cover the expenses incurred in waste management and disposal services.

A decade later, Arecibo and Cabo Rojo once more agreed to charge for the service that is already covered by their constituents through the municipal 'penny' tax—which means it could constitute a double taxation. ConWaste also disclosed that another 12 municipalities, including Isabela and San Germán, have asked the company to implement the waste management and disposal program called Iniciativa Naranja ('Orange Initiative'), in which citizens would have to pay to have their trash collected.