In the wake of the sole franchise agreement that the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners signed with Advanced Disposal in October, residents outside the Valdosta City limits continue to express concern about their right to choose their waste disposal service, which they say the agreement has revoked.

In many cases, these citizens have aligned with Cary Scarborough, owner and operator of Deep South Sanitation—their only other option. A following of more than 1,000 residents (out of the 14,000 Lowndes County residents that Advanced Disposal now serves) have stepped forward to petition on Scarborough’s behalf, Scarborough said.

The sole franchise agreement between Advanced and the County, supported by Georgia law, makes it illegal for any other waste disposal service to operate within the County. The County began issuing Cease and Desist letters to Scarborough back in January, before Advanced officially began its service, and served him a law suit to pressure him to shut down his company.

Scarborough defends his freedom to open and operate his own trash business with the claim that monopolies are illegal, and his belief that the government should not be able to control the choices of the citizens it represents.

Scarborough and his followers maintain that the County’s agreement with Advanced “is wrong,” that he has a constitutional right to operate, and that his sole desire is to maintain his family business that is his living.

“I’d love to be able to keep operating,” Scarborough said. “I didn’t open up this business to stop. I did my due diligence when I came up with this idea, and I asked the (former) Chairman (Ashley Paulk) then and (County Manager) Joe Pritchard about it.”

According to Scarborough, the County endorsed his decision to open the business in the summer of 2012 and granted him a license to operate, although by then, the County had already begun the process of closing the centers and putting the trash service up for bid.

Paulk said he never endorsed Scarborough’s business, and instead advised him against it.

Before contracting with Advanced Disposal, the County issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) to waste managment companies across the region announcing the County was interested in entering into a contract for a low-rate public trash pick-up service.

All waste companies were allowed to issue their bid for the contract. The County received nine letters of interest and five official bids. Veolia, later bought out by Advanced Disposal, offered the lowest bid which was further negotiated down to $12.80 per month per household, the lowest price for county-wide curb-side pickup service to date.

Prior to this agreement, this service cost an average of more than $20 per customer, not counting recycling center fees, according to Chairman Bill Slaughter.

The County is not required under Georgia law to issue RFPs to any company for waste disposal services, according to Slaughter. That decision was made in a good-faith effort to find the lowest possible rate for garbage service for the citizens of Lowndes County, he said Tuesday.

Scarborough, who knew about the RFP, elected not to issue his own bid, confident that he would not win the contract.

“I could not afford to bid,” Scarborough said. “You’d have to have millions of dollars to take over the whole county. And the winning bidder is the one who owns the landfill.”

Scarborough pays the Pecan Row Landfill, operated by Advanced Disposal, $34 per ton to dispose of the waste he collects from his customers. Sometimes he carries the waste to a Thomasville landfill, which charges him $29. The average price to his customers for his service is $17.50 per month, he said.

“I’m not losing money,” Scarborough said. “My overhead is me and my family doing the business. We’re not getting rich by any means. It’s a living. I’m just making a living.”

Paulk states that Scarborough is not the small family business he presents himself to be as he is backed by a silent partner who aided Scarborough in the establishment of Deep South Sanitation. Scarborough did not deny the claim.

   In addition, Advanced Disposal has offered to buy Scarborough’s business, which is less than a year old, for several hundred thousand dollars. Scarborough said it’s true that they offered to buy him out, but said their offer was “an insult.”

The County was hemorrhaging between $400,000 and $600,000 per year to keep its recycling centers open and operate the equipment to haul the garbage, but the money lost did not come out of property tax money.

“That was paid for out of other incorporated revenues slated to go to services,” County Clerk Paige Dukes said. “Things like other licenses and fees like occupational taxes, alcohol license fees and other permits.”

Property taxes do not go to Advanced Disposal now, nor have they ever gone to solid waste disposal services. Georgia law prevents County governments from using property tax dollars to pay for waste services.

“Residential solid waste in unincorporated Lowndes County has to be paid for by user fees,” Dukes explained. “There were never tax dollars spent on solid waste management. That’s one of the common misconceptions.”