The city of East Moline is thinking of changing their public trash collection service to private.
"What it would mean is that [East Moline citizens'] garbage would no longer be picked up by city employees, it would be picked up by a private hauler that we would contract with," said Cole O'Donnell, East Moline City Administrator.
After four of the city's trash pickup employees retired, they now have the opportunity to eliminate the department. That opens up the possibility of using a private trash collection service, which could be more expensive for East Moline residents.
O'Donnell said that when the city was looking into trash haulers a few years ago, he saw significant differences in prices with the private haulers.
"What we've done is, we've sent out requests for proposals to several trash haulers, and we are waiting for them to send back responses to that. We will look at their responses, their experience in residential garbage service, [their] references, [any] other contracts that they have, and we'll look at their pricing. From that, the council can make a determination whether or not they want to accept one of those bids or if they want another option," O'Donnell said.