NATCHEZ — All companies vying to become Natchez’s next waste and recycling hauler will convene Thursday for a public meeting to pose questions about the upcoming new contract.

The 9:30 a.m. meeting in the City Council Chambers located on Pearl Street will give prospective haulers the opportunity to clarify what exactly they must provide in their proposals, which are due by the end of April 9.

Requested by various Natchez aldermen, the meeting aims to ensure companies enter the proposal process with a clear understanding of what services the city seeks.

“It’s just going to be an open forum for waste companies to get clarification on different things (about the process),” Natchez City Planner Riccardo Giani said. “It’s a formal setting for questions from the waste companies.”

Giani said approximately 10 companies have expressed interest in the contract to date, though who shows up at Thursday’s meeting remains to be seen.

The questions from the meeting will center on the form that outlines how companies will submit bids. This document, known as the request for proposals (RFP), contains numerous different line items with a blank space for companies to provide a per-unit cost.

For example, the city lists options for both twice-a-week residential trash collections as well as only once weekly collection, and businesses are asked to provide per-household costs for each option. The same goes for recycling, with options for either weekly or bi-weekly collection.

More specifically, the RFP contains various combinations of options that extend past frequency of pickup, including whether vendors will provide 65-gallon waste containers or if the resident’s will bear the cost of containers, cost of services to the city’s central business district, and how the city will handle the processing of recyclables.

Giani said Thursday’s meeting would attempt to answer all questions about the aforementioned aspects of the upcoming contract, but also that any unanswered questions from the meeting would receive a response prior to the proposal’s due date of April 9.