Bigger Bite of Apple

Fort Worth, Texas-based IESI Corp. has purchased the New York City commercial hauling operations of Phoenix-based Allied Waste Industries. IESI, a division of Toronto-based BFI Canada Income Fund, entered the New York market about 10 years ago and is one of the largest commercial waste collectors in the city.

“We are pleased with the acquisition as the integrated operations will provide improved density and efficiencies to our current operations in the New York City market,” said Mickey Flood, IESI's president and CEO, in a press release.

IESI's acquisition comes amid news that the city is set to study the pricing caps that commercial haulers must follow. Residential trash is collected by the city.

According to a mid-February report in the New York Times, the city's Economic Development Corp. has “finished accepting bids” from consultants hoping to conduct the study.

In 1997, then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani lowered the caps from $14.70 per cubic yard to the current $12.20 per cubic yard, according to the paper. “Current and former city officials have expressed concern that elimating the cap would serve as an invitation to organized crime to infiltrate the business again,” the paper adds.

“We and many in our industry hope that the Bloomberg Administration wil come to the only logical conclusion possible — that the rate cap must be radically changed,” Flood said in his press release statement. “This is necessary to allow collectors to continue to provide quality waste collection and disposal services to the businesses in New York City at reasonable rates.”