Hazardous waste management & disposal

Buffalo Public Schools is soliciting proposals through a competitive Request for Proposals (RFP 26-0627E5-008) for hazardous waste management and disposal services across approximately 70 schools and facilities in Erie County, New York. The procurement encompasses comprehensive hazardous waste management including collection, inventory, storage, handling, packaging, documentation, transportation, transfer, and disposal of hazardous materials such as old paints, paint thinners, kerosene, fuel oil, printing inks, cleaners, boiler chemical treatments, and laboratory chemicals including nitric acid, sulfuric acid, and potassium hydroxide, with disposal methods encompassing recycling, treatment, neutralization, processing, destruction, and hazardous waste landfill placement. Qualified vendors must demonstrate a minimum of five years of experience in hazardous waste management and disposal services for school districts or similarly sized agencies and must maintain current liability insurance, provide at least three client references, hold hazardous waste transportation permits for all states traversed during transport, and provide documentation of approved disposal facilities with EPA Identification Numbers. Emergency response capability is mandatory, with contractors required to acknowledge 24/7 availability with a one-hour response time for emergencies and 48-hour response time for non-emergency service requests. Evaluation criteria include qualifications and experience (20 points), certifications and licenses (20 points), project approach and emergency response capability (20 points), cost (30 points), and compliance (10 points), with a minimum non-cost score of 42 out of 70 points required for consideration. The question period runs from March 18, 2026 through March 30, 2026 at 4:00 PM EDT, with answers posted April 2, 2026; proposals are due April 23, 2026 at 4:00 PM EDT through the Bonfire portal, with a tentative award date of May 20, 2026.

The procurement includes provisions for Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprise (MWBE) participation and utilization, with respondents required to submit an MWBE Utilization Plan documenting all subcontractors and their MWBE certification status; however, subcontractors are not permitted on this contract, meaning all work must be performed directly by the prime contractor. All respondents must comply with New York State prevailing wage requirements under Section 220 of the Labor Law and must submit completed Equal Employment Opportunity Employer Information Reports documenting workforce demographics across all job categories. Restrictions on contact provisions prohibit offerers from making impermissible communications with district personnel during the solicitation period, with violations potentially resulting in proposal disqualification and debarment from New York State government contracts for up to four years. The prior contract awardee was NRC under RFP 23-0624E2-078, which ran for three years. The initial contract term runs from July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027, with five optional one-year extension periods available extending the maximum contract term through June 30, 2032, and the current year award amount is estimated at $50,000.