Lower Towamensing Township has a new trash hauler.

The supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday night to hire County Waste as the township's new garbage collection company. County Waste came in with the lowest bid at $1.1 million, said Christine Wentz, the township secretary and treasurer. The contract is for five years.The second lowest bid was from Solid Waste Management, a J.P. Mascaro company, she said. That bid came in at $1.2 million.The third bid was from Advance Disposal for $1.3 million, Wentz said. Although Advance Disposal has been the garbage collection company for the township for 10 years, the bid was too high.The collection will remain for garbage only, not recyclables. Supervisor Brent Green, vice chairman of the board, said the township does not have curbside recycling, because it doesn't meet the requirements for mandated curbside recycling. Despite not being required to offer it, the township has looked into it in the past, he said. It was too costly, because there are too few residents spread out over a lot of square miles."It's something we can certainly look into in the future," Green said.In the meantime, people who would like to recycle can bring the items to the collection site behind the municipal building from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.In other businessThe supervisors agreed to accept bids for a large quantity of stone and blacktop. Since it is still winter, the township doesn't know the extent of pothole damage and other road work that will need to be done, but Green thinks they will have a list of some roads in time for their meeting in March. Forms to file a bid are available in the township office.The supervisors agreed to advertise a public ordinance hearing regarding the Carbon County Council of Governments' terms, agreement, rules of participation, etc. Green considers this to one more step in formalizing the organization.The council is a multimunicipality organization that shares in the cost and maintenance of expensive equipment, as well as pulls together in planning development.Three items were tabled in order for the supervisors to gather more information.Changes to the township's website were put on hold. Green said he would really like to see the township's website revamped to include more information that can easily be updated, including offering a newsletter.Virtual Towns and Schools would design a new website and provide software to the township for use in upkeep, he said.Although interested, supervisors Ronald Walbert and Jesse Mendez would like to have the company present its product in a public meeting. Green hopes that will be possible in March, or soon after.The supervisors also decided to table changes to the pension plan for the road crew. They would like to change the plan from an undefined pension benefit to a defined pension benefit, Green said.The township has four part-time employees who could be eligible for full-time status. He said they plan to contact the pension provider, talk to the employees and solicitor and get state aid clarification.Although sorting out the pension plan is going to take more than a month, Green does hope they proceed in the next meeting with purchasing a new dump truck. The matter was tabled Tuesday."We have budgeted $50,000 for it," he said. "It's allocated."The supervisors couldn't move on the purchase because they need to determine its uses, to choose a manufacturer, and to select equipment. Once they get more information and select a truck, then it takes several months to complete a purchase, Green said."We need to get one before next winter," he said.