WESTFORD — As town staff and elected officials continue to consider new ways to collect solid waste, the Select Board during a recent meeting reviewed survey data collected in October where respondents weighed in on a pay as you throw program.
During the discussion, Assistant Town Manager for Strategic Operations Mike Edwards reviewed the goals and objectives for changing curbside collection options and the resident feedback survey results. They also looked at data from the neighborhood survey done by the Recycling Commission, the budget task force findings and some curbside collection options.
The new curbside collection options aim to improve the Town’s waste disposal both by acting as a revenue tool for the town to cover costs in excess waste targets as well as a waste reduction tool for the Town’s target tons per household.
The new strategies can also improve support for housing and economic development goals by shifting a portion of the tax burden from businesses and multifamily taxpayers. It’s also a cost-effective way to allow residents to dispose of excess waste.
The resident survey, which collected responses from Oct. 15 through Nov. 4, received 1,300 responses. They promoted the survey through the Town’s website, social media accounts, WestfordCAT, and community group channels.
The survey found that on a typical week, 64% of households could fit their trash in a 35-gallon cart and among those who responded, 90% of households could fit their trash in a 65-gallon cart. Respondents preferred the town set a fee and respondents preferred to purchase overflow bags for occasional excess trash, “overwhelmingly so.”
So how do each of the different proposals differ?
Per Household Fee
The per-household fee would be an annual or quarterly fee that would only apply to eligible households with no changes to carts or the collection program. This option would generate predictable and consistent revenue to offset the program.
There would be no added enforcement burden for the curbside program with this option, meaning that collections would be enforced largely through existing billing and processes.
This proposal would provide no incentive to reduce waste and have added to costs for billing and collection such as the startup cost, recurring staff and potential software costs.
PAYT Bag Program
The PAYT bag program would be a 100% bag-based program and could see the immediate rollout of automated carts. This option would have little to no cost for the Town and a state Department of Environmental Protection grant could cover start-up costs. Edwards said staff found strong evidence of a significant reduction in municipal solid waste tonnage from this program.
However, Edwards also said that the industry is moving away from the manual collection model.
“We should be careful about jumping into anything where the technology is going to be changing and the collection models are going to be changing,” Edwards said.
The typical cost for collection for this option is $1 per bag. This means that their current contract may require renegotiation and possibly more staff.
Overflow Bag
There are two different program options: 35 and 65-gallon carts.
The 35-gallon cart option could be cost-neutral and would be included in the tax levy. The cart costs are estimated at $145,000 after the MassDEP grant and that can be absorbed into the current budget based on the current trends.
This option meets the majority of the needs of 64% of respondents in the resident survey. Edwards said that this option will not necessarily reduce any waste but may capture the excess waste.
“The 65-gallon cart seems to meet just about everybody’s needs,” Edwards said, “The vendors have all called this, in trash terms, the sweet spot for cart size for trash.”
The major drawback of the 65-gallon cart, Edwards said, is that there is no grant funding for the larger cart.
This option also has little to no incentive to reduce waste and could increase household disposal. There would be no grant reimbursement with this option which would cost approximately $567,000. However, this option would meet the 90% of respondents from their resident survey.
