Are Middleboro residents asking 'Where is Middleboro?'
Did anyone notice that Middleboro raised the FEE PER BAG to residents who recycle so heavily, they don't pay for quarterly trash pick-up?
How short-sighted!
Why is the Middleboro DPW continuing to pick up over-stuffed trash barrels?
Will Middleboro ever get dragged into the 21st Century?
Sandwich pay-as-you-throw effort deemed success
Program said to save town money, increase recycling, reduce waste
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By George Brennan
gbrennan@capecodonline.com
Posted Aug. 18, 2015
SANDWICH — The pay-as-you-throw program has saved the town nearly $600,000 over four years and has doubled the amount that residents are recycling, according to a Department of Public Works assessment.
Four years ago, the Board of Selectmen took a bold vote authorizing the department to enact the program, which requires residents with a transfer station sticker to purchase special bags for their trash — in essence paying only for what they throw away.
The results have been impressive. Along with the overall savings and the increase in recycling, the town has lowered the amount of its waste from 5,329 tons the first year of the program in 2011 to 2,710 tons in the fiscal year that just ended. That decrease comes as tipping fees to bring that rubbish to the waste-to-energy plant in Rochester have increased from $37.51 per ton to $65 per ton.
“It's no surprise to us at this point,” public works director Paul Tilton said. Residents have taken it upon themselves to save money through recycling, which benefits the town as a whole, he said. "Recycling is a great way to control costs and it's something they can control."
Joshua Kolling-Perrin, a spokesman for WasteZero, the national company that worked with Sandwich on the program, said the town has performed better than most of the 800 cities and towns the company has worked with nationwide. The national average for reducing waste is 44 percent, and Sandwich has dropped 49 percent, he said.
“How can you not be happy with the success of the program?” Frank Pannorfi, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, said.
Pannorfi was on the committee that studied the program but wasn’t a selectman at the time it was approved. “We didn’t take it to town meeting and ask that it be done,” he said. “The board had great courage in saying this is our decision. This is why the voters elected us.”
The savings through the trash program, as well as some health care savings for town workers and a solar farm that has cut the town’s electric bill, have allowed the town to hire four additional firefighters, another police detective and civilian dispatchers, Pannorfi said.
“If we did not have that differential, we would not be able to do these things,” he said.
The town’s fourth year of gains comes as other communities, including Dennis, Mashpee and Barnstable, are considering the program.
“I’m surprised, frankly, other communities haven’t done what we’ve done,” Pannorfi said.
Initially, the town lost about 500 customers to private haulers, but some of those people have come back, Tilton said.
There was a short period of backlash, especially in the first month of the program when bags were ripping, Pannorfi said. Once that was fixed by the town’s contractor, WasteZero, the critics were quieted and the success speaks for itself, he said.
For the first time since the program was put in place, the town increased the price of a transfer station sticker by $5 — to $60 per year — to help offset an increase in tipping fees, Tilton said. The fees for the bags have remained the same, he said.
http://www.capecodtimes.com/article/20150818/NEWS/150819424/101015/NEWSLETTER100
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