Extensive experience now shows that private firms can collect a city's trash at up to 70 percent less cost than similar public service. Just as important, the same experience has demonstrated that private firms provide higher quality service as well.

The Allegheny Institute for Public Policy points to this experience, and particularly to the success of cities like Indianapolis, Phoenix, and Flint (MI), to argue the advantages of competitive contracting for residential refuse collection. Their 1996 study, The Case for Competitive Contracting of Residential Refuse Collection in the City of Pittsburgh, by Paul Kengor and Jake Haulk, focuses on Pittsburgh, but the facts and arguments apply to most cities.

The study makes several key points that any city can apply in its own context:

1. Competitive contracting saves money. About half of municipal governments in the U.S. contract out trash collection, for savings averaging 30 to 60 percent.
   
   
2. Private employees tend to be two or three times as productive as public employees. So, private firms can often give improved service while still lowering costs.
   
   
3. Competitive contracting spurs public employees to change their ways and be more productive and efficient. In several instances public employees have won competitive contracts.