100 Commercial Solutions Openings and One of Them Is Trash Pickup
The 374th Contracting Squadron re-posted its Yokota refuse disposal buy on Monday morning as a two-step closed Commercial Solutions Opening, PSC S205, garbage collection. DoD has now published 100 notices titled that way this fiscal year, against 72 in the previous three combined, and three more weekend notices moved base services onto other transactions and calls for solutions.
"What makes refuse disposal an innovative commercial service?"
That is the question sitting inside solicitation FA5209-26-S-C001, which the 374th Contracting Squadron re-posted at 02:07 Zulu on Monday. Eleven in the morning at Yokota, so a perfectly ordinary time to publish if you work there.
It is the second version since August 31, and it is a Commercial Solutions Opening. Two-step closed CSO, issued per the notice "in accordance with DFARS 212.70" under "Department of Defense (DOD) Class Deviation 2022-O0007."
Step one responses close 4pm JST on November 30.
The product service code on the requirement is S205. Housekeeping, trash and garbage collection.
The Notice Answers Its Own Question
The CSO text carries the definition the authority runs on, and it is broad enough to hold almost anything. Innovative means any technology, process or method that is new as of the date of proposal submission, or any application of an existing one that is new as of that date, or a new application or adaptation of an existing one.
Read the third branch slowly. A new adaptation of an existing method of collecting garbage is innovative, by the notice's own terms.
And that is the point of the instrument rather than a loophole in it. Under a CSO the Air Force may competitively award proposals received against a general solicitation "similar to a broad agency announcement," reviewed by subject matter experts, with everything treated as a commercial item.
So what a capture team actually loses here is the shape it plans against: no FAR Part 15 evaluation scheme to price to, no set-aside in the structured record, no single proposal date to staff toward. Yokota's step one window runs ten weeks.
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