Council eyes shift from tags to bags
By Richard Gaines
Staff Writer
A re-engineered trash policy - one that promises to impede cheating, encourage recycling and save the city as much as $200,000 a year - has been sent to the
full City Council with committee support.
The proposed change involves replacing the current $2 sticker with $2 bags in the city's rigorous but barely enforced mandatory recycling pay-as-you-throw program. That change alone, say city officials, will eliminate a pair of interlocked disincentives and create a more equitable and efficient system of trash removal.
A similar proposal was rejected by the previous City Council. And while members of the Ordinance and Administration Committee - President Bruce Tobey, John "Gus" Foote and Setatia Romeo - were enthusiastic about the idea of bags instead of tags, there was also opposition this week from Councilor Joe Ciolino.
This switch from tags to bags, said solid waste coordinator Kathy Middleton and Public Works Director Michael Hale, will induce customers to improve their efficiency in separating recyclables from trash given to Waste Management, the contract waste collector. The move will also eliminate an odd current incentive for the company to allow or even encourage cheating.
"In the new system, it's a no brainer, it's self-enforcing," Middleton said.
Con Madigan, operations manager for Waste Management's Gloucester assignment, could not be reached.
By cheating, Middleton means trying to get the company to take away more trash than the customer's sticker was meant to allow, and presenting a mix of trash and recyclables that should be separated out.
At present, customers of the waste collection system are required to buy $2 stickers and afix one to a plastic bag to have the bag removed by Waste Management truck teams. If the stickered bag is placed in a trash can, the company is allowed to collect up to four bags when they are packed together in the can - so long as there are no more than four bags in the can and the total volume in the can is no more than 32 gallons. Bags must not weigh more than 50 pounds or have a capacity larger than 35 pounds.
Yet no reasonable user of the system can be expected to do all the calculations to ensure that the organization of the trash adheres to guidelines. And the terms of the city's contract with Waste Management - which calculates the company's fee based on the weight of the trash it collects - give the company no reason to disqualify improperly prepared trash and leave it behind.
The 10-year contract is in its final year. The city pays the company $87.85 for each ton, the tipping fee, for the trash it picks up as its trucks go ward by ward through the work week. The contract commits the company to pick up recyclables at no cost. The contract thus encourages the city and its residents to remove all recyclable items from the trash they pay for in stickers - and the city pays for in the tipping fee. The same incentive, however, works the opposite way on the company. It would fare better picking up trash laced with recyclables - even if the customer had failed to use a sticker or stickers.
Neither Middleton or Hale said they had data on the impact of the disincentives in the contract, but both said that shifting to bags rather than stickers is inherently more reliable, and less susceptible to cheating.
Middleton said the company was thrilled with the changeover because it simiplifies the decision-making during pickups - if the trash is not in the specially marked bags, it would not be collected.
The bags would be extra thick at 1.75 mililiters, and have a 36.5 gallon capacity.
No trash that is not presented in these bags would be taken, giving customers the incentive to remove the recyclables.
Hale said that using bags instead of tags will mean that Waste Management trucks will make their rounds faster and more effeciently, thus giving the city a bargaining point for renegotiating a better contract rate with the company.
Richard Gaines can be reached at rgaines@gloucestertimes.com
