Left In Lowell

PAYT Gaining Support, Recycling Subcomm Tuesday

13 Responses to “PAYT Gaining Support, Recycling Subcomm Tuesday”

1. Jay Mason Says:
   May 19th, 2008 at 1:55 pm

   Lynn,

   Regarding: “That means for those who can keep their trash disposal down to one bag a week, the increase of $50/year from the $100 yearly trash fee now in place is all you’ll be responsible for. The PAYT program as proposed should nearly eliminate the trash budget deficit, with the final deficit covered by possible increased participation in recycling.”

   Actually, please note, the zero deficit DOES NOT include a free bag. I had said if you can keep your trash to one bag there would be no additional cost- this was not accurate. A free bag per week times 26,500 households at $1.50/wk would add $2.07M to the disposal/recycling costs. These models are still being reviewed and should be discussed tomorrow at the 5pm city hall meeting. The point remains that a hybrid fee/bag system will reduce cost, but not magically.

2. Lynne Says:
   May 19th, 2008 at 2:18 pm

   Thanks for the clarification, Jay!

   What I think I really meant to convey is that the incentive to recycle coupled with the PAYT coupled with other stuff (education, enforcement, and bulk item PAYT tags) will bring us to eliminate the deficit. Sorry if that was less clear!

3. waittilnextyr Says:
   May 19th, 2008 at 5:20 pm

   It sounds like this plan could add $2M into the cost of trash removal that someone has to pay, and the real beneficiary is the maker of those bags.

   Why wouldn’t it be better to limit each household to one bag (or barrel) of a limited size? As people had the need to go over that one bag limit then they could purchase a tag (with the address stamped on to prevent) for additional trash disposal. In that way there would be no additional cost until someone went over the one bag limit, and whatever additional cost that incurred could be charged in the price of the tag.

   At the same time it would be necessary to address the issue of non-recyclables in the recycle bin, or else people would work around the system by flooding the recycling center with trash.

4. Josh Says:
   May 19th, 2008 at 8:21 pm

   One bag a week seems kinda low, especially for households with many occupants, which Lowell has a lot of.

   At least they’re on the right track.

5. Lynne Says:
   May 20th, 2008 at 8:44 am

   There’s a lot of “oh no, the sky will fall” scenarios that people are touting…but the recycling people will not, or should not at least, take away *any* recycling bin of stuff if it has nonrecycling trash. In fact, I think that’s probably already the case. So trash will not choke up the recycling center.

   What we need is a good transition team - a group of people, volunteers plus maybe some budgeted time from the dept of public works - to ease us into the new system. I suspect that Chelmsford did not do this, and as a result trash built up - but many communities do PAYT, without problems, so let’s just not implement it however Chelmsford did. Seeing as we have the Chelmsford manager as our manager now, it should be pretty easy to avoid the same pitfalls! (No idea if the Chelmsford PAYT program was implemented under Lynch or not.)

   Tags, bags, whatever. All I know is other towns do it successfully. Model us after them.

6. Tim Little Says:
   May 20th, 2008 at 9:04 am

   I think one critical element will be education; how well will the city publicize a PAYT program and persuade people why it’s in their best interest to get on board? This is something where the community (newspaper, schools, churches, etc.) are essential, and could/should be part of a larger “green city” campaign. Just my .02.

7. tim Says:
   May 20th, 2008 at 12:41 pm

   I’ve seen recycle bins left w/ stuff that couldn’t be recycled after the truck came, so you’re correct Lynne, they won’t pick it up.

8. Magnolia Says:
   May 26th, 2008 at 6:39 pm

   I think we have been around this before in Lowell. The key to the whole thing (in my humble opinion) in enforcement. Out of 11 or so houses on my block,only 6 recycle and that includes the elderly woman on the corner who is lucky if she has 5 items in the bin. On the other hand I have 3 neighbors that don’t give a hoot,and 2 that don’t speak much English ( nice people - but try and explain recycling to them!) Maybe Gunther should get out of the office a little more and follow the trach trucks around and then follow up with notices and/or fines. And again, it does not help when the haulers pick up bags that are obviously full of bottles and cans after the bash on the the other corner.

9. kpems Says:
   May 29th, 2008 at 3:59 pm

   Recycling is not required so I am sure it is not enforced. One other issue I have with this is that I live across from a city park that has many trash barrels(and they are needed). When we go to pay as you throw I bet those barrels will get aweful full.

10. Tim Little Says:
    May 30th, 2008 at 10:05 am

    Looks like some of our neighbors (Chelmsford, Tewksbury, Tyngsboro) are looking at another approach:

    http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/05/29/when_towns_talk_trash_earth_taxpayers_benefit/?rss_id=Boston.com+–+Massachusetts+news

    (Hat tip to Judy Meredith at BMG.)

11. Tim Little Says:
    May 30th, 2008 at 10:06 am

    Interesting discussion over at BMG, btw:
    http://www.bluemassgroup.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=11714

12. fishgydude Says:
    June 2nd, 2008 at 7:11 pm

    Given that trash collection falls under the list of things that are not essential functions of government, residents who use this service should be covering 100% of the cost of this service.
    As for the recycling angle, to recycle properly each household needs 4 different buckets. Paper , Plastic, Glass, metal. I only see one in front of any house with everything mixed together with the recycling truck dude seperating by hand. (sometimes.)
    I don’t want the city adopting any option that takes the choice away from to use heavy duty bags that do not rip easily. Nor should draconian measures as are used in New York. In order to eliminate the need for a search warrant as required for any search of trash, resident are required to use only cheap clear bags that can easily be “accidentally” broken or “plain sight” inspected for recyclables.
    Dracut already tried unconstitutional trash searches to “verify compliance” with mandatory recycling.
    Recycling is a good idea. But just because something may be a good idea, that does not mean it should be mandated by force of law.

13. Tim Little Says:
    June 5th, 2008 at 9:17 am

    Hmm… Public sanitation isn’t an essential function of government?

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