SOUTH KINGSTOWN — The Town Council has awarded the contract to run the Rose Hill Regional Transfer Station to the low bidder, Waste Haulers LLC of Johnston.

The town accepted bids to run the transfer station after the Town Council in September scrapped a plan to hire a single contractor to pick up trash townwide and run the transfer station. The bidding documents were rewritten and two companies submitted bids: Waste Haulers and Patriot Disposal, also of Johnston.

In recommending Waste Haulers, Public Services Director Jon Schock noted that the disposal costs, as presented by the company overall, would be less than those currently charged by Allied Waste, whose contract expires Jan. 1. The council unanimously awarded Waste Haulers the five-year deal Tuesday night.

Incorporated in 2006, Waste Haulers is the largest private collector of commercial trash in Rhode Island, according to its owner Pat Sperduto. In the past year, it has purchased eight independent hauling companies. It currently serves residential customers in South Kingstown and Narragansett.

M. Butch Jencks, one of the company’s principals, operated the transfer station from 1984 through 2000 for various firms.

According to bid documents, Waste Haulers will charge $1.10 per bag disposed at Rose Hill in the contract’s first year and $1.34 in the last. The town would add an administrative fee of about 60 cents to that cost or require users to purchase a vehicle access tag, Schock said in a memo.

Yard waste could be dumped for $1 a bag in the initial year and up to $1.22 in 2012.

Waste Haulers’ rates for commercial haulers to dump municipal waste would be on a graduated scale based on the percentage of recyclables sorted out. Those rates would start at $64 a ton for those who remove 10 percent recyclables or less. Those fees would drop to $61 a ton for those who achieve 40 percent recycling.

While Patriot’s bid numbers in this category were lower, Waste Haulers would charge haulers $10 per ton for all recyclables, $49 less than Patriot.

Town Manager Stephen Alfred said yesterday that the lower recycling fee gave haulers and their customers incentive to recycle.

“The incentive is there to promote recycling,” he said.

The town’s recycling rate of about 9 percent ranks as one of the lowest in the state. Town leaders have been looking to hike those numbers under pressure from the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation, which oversees the state landfill.

kmulvane@projo.com