Earl Township to Vote on $648K Trash Hauling Contract

Earl Township's supervisors meet Monday, Oct. 19, to decide who hauls the township's trash for the next three years. The agenda carries a motion to award, or not award, a three-year trash and recycling contract to Hollenbaugh Trash & Recycling, LLC, at a total price of $648,000. That works out to $216,000 a year, by our arithmetic; the agenda gives only the three-year total.

The same meeting would set a date for the township's 2027 budget workshop, approve about $33,500 in road and equipment spending, and hear an update on a Hill Road storm sewer project. The township's Board of Supervisors page says regular meetings are held at 7 p.m. at the Earl Township Municipal Building, and the township calendar shows the Oct. 19 meeting at 7 p.m.; the building is at 19 Schoolhouse Road, Boyertown. The agenda itself prints no start time.

A $648,000 trash contract

Trash pickup in Earl Township is a township service, not a bill each household pays a hauler. The township's Trash Collection page calls it "a free service for Earl Township residents," with weekly Thursday pickup limited to three bags or two cans per home. The page names the current hauler as Whitetail Disposal and says the township does not contract with anyone to collect recycling; residents who want to recycle are directed to drop-off containers at the Rolling Hills Landfill, or to a private hauler the page says may still offer curbside recycling for a fee.

The new contract has been in the works since summer. The board's Aug. 17 agenda carried a motion to advertise "Earl Township trash collection bids for 3 year contract" and said the bids "will be opened at the October 19, 2026 Board of Supervisors meeting." The Oct. 19 agenda already names Hollenbaugh as the "lowest responsible bidder" and states its price, so the bids were evidently opened before the agenda was posted. The agenda does not say when that happened, how many companies bid, or what the other bids were.

The motion makes the award conditional: Hollenbaugh gets the contract only if all bidding requirements are met to the township solicitor's satisfaction. A lowest responsible bidder is the company with the lowest price that also meets the bid's legal and performance requirements, so the solicitor's review is the last check before the contract is final.

What the agenda does not say

The two agendas leave most of the questions a resident would ask unanswered. Neither document says how many households the contract covers, whether weekly service and the bag limits stay the same, or whether the "recycling" in the winning company's name means curbside recycling is part of the deal. Neither gives the price of the current Whitetail Disposal contract, so it is not possible to say from the public record whether $648,000 is more or less than the township pays now.

Earl's homepage puts the township's population at about 3,000. For scale, Cumru Township took township-wide trash bids this year that started above $800,000, as our Cumru coverage has reported, though the two contracts differ in what they cover and how long they run, and Cumru's agendas did not say whether its figures were annual or for the full term.

Because the service is free to residents, the cost comes out of the township budget. The county's 2026 rate table lists Earl's municipal property tax rate as 0.000 mills, as our guide to property tax rates by municipality shows, so the township levies no real estate tax of its own. The agenda does not identify which township revenue pays for trash collection.

A 2027 budget workshop, with no date yet

Item 8 is a motion "to schedule and authorize advertisement for the FY2027 budget workshop meeting." The agenda gives no date, time or place for the workshop. It is where the supervisors would work through next year's spending, including the new trash contract if it starts in 2027; the agenda gives no start date. Residents who want to follow the 2027 budget should expect the date to be set Monday and advertised afterward.

Also on the agenda

• A presentation by the Boyertown Community Library. Earl Township is in the Boyertown Area School District, per the township's FAQ page.
• A Hill Road storm sewer update from the township engineer. Our Sept. 21 preview noted a Hill Road project update on that agenda as well. The October agenda gives no cost or schedule.
• Under emergency management, FCC licensing of a radio frequency for the road crew. The agenda gives no detail beyond the title.
• A motion to let the roadmaster spend up to $13,200 on road supplies.
• Two motions on tractor tires: one to rescind an earlier motion to buy tires from McCarthy Tires, and a second to approve buying them for $8,645.00 from the same company. The agenda does not explain why the earlier motion is being redone.
• A motion to approve "SVOS for culvert replacements on Laurel Road in the amount of $11,626.45." The agenda does not define SVOS.
• Approval of the Sept. 21 meeting minutes and the treasurer's report.
• The Planning Commission's Oct. 15 meeting was canceled; its next meeting, if needed, is Nov. 19.

Landfill and cable votes still off the record

Two items that dominated the board's last two agendas do not appear on this one. Our Sept. 21 preview covered a motion to approve an amendment to the township's host community agreement with the Delaware County Solid Waste Authority, which owns the Rolling Hills Landfill in the township, described on that agenda as "re: sludge derivative synthetic soil," along with a public hearing and vote on a Service Electric cable franchise ordinance. The Aug. 17 agenda carried a separate amendment to the same agreement, "re: accepting Delaware County municipal waste."

How the board voted on any of those is not in a posted record. The township's 2026 minutes listing ends with the June meeting, so the July, August and September minutes are not yet public. Monday's agenda includes approval of the Sept. 21 minutes, which should put that meeting's votes on the record once the township posts them.

How to attend

The meeting is open to the public at the Earl Township Municipal Building, 19 Schoolhouse Road, Boyertown. The township lists regular meetings on the third Monday of each month at 7 p.m.; the agenda does not print a time, so residents may want to confirm with the township office at 610-367-9673. Item 4 on the agenda is public comment from the floor, before any votes. The board is Chairman William Moyer, Vice Chairman Michael Marburger and Supervisor John Cleaver. The next regular meeting is Nov. 16, 2026.