PAYT saves municipal dollars

Responsible fiscal management includes making necessary changes wherever possible as this article highlights. With little effort, that's a pretty impressive savings.

The program so far has saved the city upwards of $1 million in disposal fees, and has increased recycling four-fold since the program was implemented,

PAYT reduced per-household trash costs in Malden by $41.93, and saved the city about $800,000 in disposal fees, based on figures from the first five months of the program’s implementation.


Malden officials on pay-as-you throw panel reignites old fight
By Matt Byrne, Town Correspondent


As a handful of city officials are expected to praise pay-as-you-throw trash disposal at a panel discussion for waste industry professionals later this month, a group of Malden taxpayers have continued to fight the measure, which they say was implemented at the 11th hour and without the necessary citizen input.

Robert Miller, founder of Malden Taxpayers for Accountability, a nonprofit watchdog group that attempted unsuccessfully to repeal the trash program with a November 2009 ballot question, said the program amounts to an end-run around a long-standing state law against raising property taxes.

“We’re not against recycling, what we’re against is the way it was implemented,” said Miller in a telephone interview. “And a lot of my people still believe it’s an override of proposition 2 ½.”


"We put in place a program that is recommended by the DEP and EPA," said Mayor Richard Howard, of the continuing criticism of the PAYT program. The program so far has saved the city upwards of $1 million in disposal fees, and has increased recycling four-fold since the program was implemented, he said.

"As for the legitimacy, they can argue that same point in the 200-some other communities where they have similar programs. I think that argument falls on deaf ears, to some degree," Howard said.

Judi Bucci, city councilor for Ward 8, said she agrees that how the program was first implemented could have been better, but those criticisms are in the past.

“I think that clearly we have heard the message from the public that the way in which the program came to fruition as policy was not done as transparent as folks would have liked to have seen it,” Bucci said in telephone interview. “That was three years ago. I think we all need to move on from it. And I think all of the work we have been doing since then, all of the budget deliberations, have been in adherence with what the taxpayers have said they want to see.”

Pay-as-you-throw charges Malden residents $20 or $10 for official city bags to dispose of household waste. Under the program, recycling is free and is encouraged. According to a 2009 Environmental Protection Agency bulletin, PAYT reduced per-household trash costs in Malden by $41.93, and saved the city about $800,000 in disposal fees, based on figures from the first five months of the program’s implementation. Those savings have since increased, according to Howard.

Scheduled to speak at the conference Aug. 15-17 in Boston are Charlie Toomajian, special assistant to the mayor; Deborah Burke, Malden project director; Jeff Manship, Malden Director of Public Works; and Bob Knox, Malden compliance supervisor.

The panel discussion is part of the Solid Waste Association of North America’s annual convention

Toomajian, Burke, Manship, and Knox were not available for comment.

A representative for the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection said that PAYT is an effective way for communities to significantly reduce their recycling costs statewide.

“In these tight fiscal times, any costs saved at landfills or waste disposal plants can really help community budgets,” said Joe Ferson, spokesman for the Massachusetts DEP. “The department supports and [PAYT has] shown to improve our recycling by 15 to 25 percent, and decreased the amount of solid waste disposal by about 25 to 40 percent.”

Also scheduled to speak at the convention is Mark Dancy, president and CEO of Waste Zero, a South Carolina company contracted by Malden through the state to produce and stock the official bags. Dancy said that initial resistance to PAYT can be sizable, but residents often eventually see the long-term benefits.

“It takes a while for people to come around to understand that if each individual person is more responsible, it helps reduce cost,” Dancy said.