No More Time to Waste

By Glenn C. Koenig, Webmaster at Town Wide Mall

Maynard, MA - It’s almost time to say goodbye to that old trash barrel.  There is less than a month to go before Maynard’s new trash and recycling system goes into effect on July 1st, but the town’s web page for trash and recycling now asks residents to register for the new program by June 17th.  That’s only six days after the publication date of this story.  (See: https://www.townofmaynard-ma.gov/252/Solid-Waste-Recycling )

Every household has to either register for the new program or arrange for their trash and recycling to be collected and disposed of by other means, such as by a private company.

Recently, the town mailed cards to every mailing address in town (see illustration here).  The back of the card lists dates for a few information and registration help sessions, but those dates have already passed.  The town’s web page for Solid Waste and Recycling now has an updated list of dates and times (see link, above).  ​

I published a story to introduce this new system, here on this web site, back on May 3rd, entitled, "Got Trash?"  Also, Maynard’s other online news source, The Maynard Voice, ran a story, back on May 15th.  I’m told they will have a follow up story in their next edition, due out on June 15th.

The following Question and Answer series, here below, picks up where I left off in my first article.  I’m planning two more stories on this topic, one with more of a history, overview, and long term view, and the other a more practical one on how to reduce how much trash we generate.  It may seem that we’re all victims of rising costs, but I think there is a lot we can do to help prevent the next “sticker shock.”

Question:  Why is it suddenly so much more expensive?
Answer:  Maynard began the sticker program in 1996.  It was $1.00 per single bag or $2.00 for a barrel full.  Stickers remained at that price until 2022. That’s 25 years without a price increase!  During that time, just with normal inflation, that $2.00 sticker should have increased to $3.65.

Question:  Sticker prices doubled ($2 per bag, $4 per barrel) in 2022. Didn’t that cover it?
​Answer:  Well, no, because we didn’t just have inflation to worry about.  The cost of trash collection and disposal increased more rapidly than inflation, as landfills around the state filled up and many of them closed. (See: https://thebostonweekly.com/massachusetts-faces-growing-recycling-and-waste-management-challenges/)

All our trash now goes to a “waste to energy” plant (a high tech incinerator that uses the heat produced to generate electricity).  The photo here shows the Millbury Waste to Energy plant, where our trash is taken to be incinerated.
(There are more questions and answers concerning such plants, below.)

Question:  So if costs went up faster than sticker prices, how’d the town pay for it all?
Answer:  The town had to take funds out of the “general fund,” which is government-speak for property taxes, state aid and other miscellaneous funds.  Property taxes are limited by a state law known as “Proposition 2½.”​ That means less is left over for other town needs. This also meant that even people who had private contractors take their trash were paying a portion of their property taxes to help cover everybody else’s trash collection.  And yet, if they put their recycling out for the town to pick up, that cost the town to provide that service (see recycling question, below).  Also, throughout the years, voters in Maynard have established a tradition of paying separately for various services, rather than just take it all out of property taxes.

Question:  What about recycling?  Don’t we earn some income from our recyclables?
Answer:  Unfortunately, not anymore.  The cost of running the program exceeds the value of recyclables that we can sell in the open market. For years, most of the recycled materials in the U.S. (after being sorted out into separate categories) were typically shipped to other countries to be manufactured into new products.  But in 2018, the global market changed dramatically, when many of those countries stopped taking them, so we had to resort to industries here in the U.S., which were not prepared to take the load.  So, although it may seem “free” to put recycling on the curb, the remaining cost of the program had to be subsidized by general tax revenue and sticker fees.

Question:  So does that mean that recycling is not worth it?
Answer:  No, recycling is definitely worth it.  First, the value of recycled materials is likely to rebound over time, especially as raw materials continue to get more expensive in today’s world markets.
Second, the regular trash disposal system is not designed to handle these materials anymore, so the costs of disposing of our trash would skyrocket if we didn’t keep recycling.  But even more importantly, recycling helps reduce our destruction of the natural environment, both from mining new materials, and from burning or dumping our waste.  For all these reasons, putting recyclable items into the trash is a bad idea and is actually now forbidden by state law.  

Question:  If I generate only a small amount of trash, perhaps only one bag per month, why do I now have to pay as much as the people who have a lot more?  That doesn’t seem fair!
Answer:  I agree, it’s not fair.  Unfortunately, the town was stuck in a very difficult position.  When we asked for bids from various trash and recycling companies, only one company, E. L. Harvey, qualified.  The others were too far away to serve Maynard, for one thing.  If we tried to add yet another option, such as once per month, that would reduce revenue for the program, but the overall cost to the town would not be reduced.  The basic problem is, even if they don’t pick up at every address, the trucks still have to drive up and down all the streets in town, every week, to reach the carts that are put out on the curb.  Just having the biweekly option is a stretch.  It’s almost a “gift” to residents, as the cost of collecting is much the same for all, regardless of which option is chosen.
​Note:  See more about this in the Background section, below.

Question: With this flat fee, what’s the incentive for anyone to reduce their amount of trash?
​Answer:  There isn’t a direct financial incentive per household.  But there is definitely a financial incentive for us all!  That’s because if we all work together to reduce the amount of trash we create, that will lower the overall cost to the town and keep rates from rising even faster in the future.  You see, the town pays a certain amount for each ton of trash collected that has to be dumped at the incinerator plant.  The fewer tons, the lower the cost to us.
With the passage of Article 26 at the annual town meeting last month, all revenue and expenses for trash and recycling are now recorded in a separate account, known as an “Enterprise Fund.”  That means that the program no longer depends on funds mingled with the other town budgets.  So if we can manage our costs, that helps reduce rate increases in the future.

Question:  But doesn’t the trash to energy plant earn money from the electricity it generates?
Answer:  Yes, it does.  But the income from electricity generation is still less than the cost of running the plant overall.  Every town that delivers their trash there has to pay per ton of trash they deliver there, to cover the difference.

Question:  Well, at least that gets rid of the trash, right?
Answer:  Well, no. Not everything in our trash burns.  For every 100 tons of trash burned, there can be as much as 30 tons of unburned material that comes out the other end of the plant.  People throw away all kinds of things that don’t burn, including clay cat litter, broken coffee cups, old toilet bowls, and many other items.  And, because not everyone takes their toxic waste to special collections, some toxic stuff ends up in there as well.  (See: https://energyjustice.net/incineration/ash/)
All this “Bottom ash” (as they call it) still has some of this toxic stuff mixed in. Elements such as arsenic, cadmium, or lead, for example, don't burn up in the furnace.

This ash then has to be dumped somewhere.  Right now, that goes to another landfill.  But, within a few years, that landfill will also run out of space.  So, where will we put it then? Some towns are already paying to have their trash or ash trucked out of state.  That’s doesn’t really solve the problem, of course, it just moves it somewhere else, and it costs even more.

Question:  Can’t I just avoid this program and get a private trash company instead?
Answer:  Yes, you can.  In fact, we just received a card in the mail from such a company a few days ago (see illustration).  However, most companies will charge more, perhaps a lot more, when compared to the $15.00 per month the town is charging for the biweekly choice or $25.00 per month for the standard weekly choice.
The fine print at the bottom of this mailing has a stipulation before being able to “Save 20%.” It says, “with proof of existing bill.”  But Maynard will only send bills every 3 months, so it will take at least that long before anyone will have a bill from the town to use for comparison, and thus can even learn of this company's rate.

And Maynard’s program guarantees the same rate for a whole year.  I’d be very careful to examine any contract to see how often the company can change rates, whether they provide the carts you’d use (as Maynard will do) or you have to buy or rent them, etc. ​

Question: What can we do about all this before it gets worse?
Answer:  There are a number of things we can do.  One way is to separate all our food waste from everything else and compost it instead. Food waste has a high water content, so it takes more energy to burn it in the furnace.  And it also weighs a lot, so every ton of it that we don’t compost and send to be incinerated instead costs us.

Question:  If I don’t put food waste in the trash, then what can I do with it?
Answer:  Some households in Maynard (mine included) pay Black Earth to pick up their compost every week.  They pay $15 per month for the service. Black Earth has four composting facilities in Massachusetts so far.  See:  https://www.blackearthcompost.com/locations They produce bags of fully decomposed compost that can be used as fertilizer in gardens.

Other households use a backyard composting bin.  Maynard has bins that can be purchased by residents, along with information on how to use them, on a separate web page.  (See:  https://www.townofmaynard-ma.gov/247/Composting )

Question:  Why can’t the Town pick up compost instead?
Answer:  When you think about it, it has taken many hours of work by volunteers and town officials, starting over two years ago, just to modify our trash collection system.  At least we had such a system already in place, previously.  A compost pick up system would require an entirely new program, as trash collection companies typically do not provide composting services.
In the future, the Town hopes to have a preferred vendor for composting, which would hopefully encourage more residents to sign up. As the number of residents using a composting service increases, the composting vendors typically lower their prices for those participating.  Black Earth did this here in Maynard.  When a certain number of households signed up, the rate went down.

Background

Regarding the folks who currently only put out one bag of trash per month, the town’s Solid Waste and Recycling coordinator sent me this statement, to provide more detail and perspective:
"At this point in time, unfortunately, offering a monthly trash collection choice is not financially sustainable. Our Town gets billed for trash collection at every household each week, even when a household is on a bi-weekly choice plan, for example. Every municipal hauler bills that way, because their drivers have to go down each street anyways, so they are not saving on fuel costs, etc. It is also difficult to find municipal haulers who offer a monthly collection option, as it makes scheduling their drivers extremely difficult, and is not a break-even part of their business models.
​The good news is that Maynard is considered a trail blazer on this front! We are among the first municipalities in MA to offer a bi-weekly trash collection option.
When calling or emailing private haulers, our Solid Waste Management Coordinator was able to find one private (not municipal) hauler who was offering to collect garbage on a monthly basis for approximately $40/month. For that reason, enrolling in the Town’s bi-weekly trash/recycling/yard waste choice may be the most cost-effective option for you, since it costs $15/month. If you choose that, please remember that billing will occur AFTER the first three months of service and will appear as a third line on your quarterly water/sewer bill. Since billing is for three months, the charge on that trash/recycling utility line will appear $45 (3 months x $15/month)."

Commentary

I don’t have much to say, here, as much of my Q and A, above is already partly my commentary, of sorts.  Over time, in order to improve this situation, we will have to find ways to make significant changes to our high consumption economy, in order to reduce waste overall.
As for me, even when I was relatively young, seeing something like clothes thrown into in a wastebasket just seemed strange to me.  In my family, we always used such things for rags or to cut and sew up into something else.  And just the idea of incinerating food definitely felt wrong to me.  Food waste belongs in the ground where the nutrients can help grow new plants.  This was not just a logical reaction for me, but a visceral one.  It’s as if I could imagine the living things in the soil just yearning to receive the food matter when we were done with it.  For us, food with rot or mold is repulsive, and naturally so.  But to the microbes and insects in the soil, it’s “yum.”
​Even these days, I save all the metal waste that I can (beyond the food and beverage cans that our recycling system can take) and then, when I have enough, I call a man who shows up in his truck and takes it all to the scrap metal yards down in Chelsea.  It just seems right and good to do that.
During World War II, people pitched in and collected all kinds of materials to be reused.  In today’s world, the need is just as critical, even though it’s for an even bigger cause, the preservation and health of the natural world on this planet.  That’s harder to conceive of in practical terms, when compared to saving metal items for a war effort, for example, but I’m fully behind such efforts.
Lastly, I want to take this opportunity to thank the all the volunteers and town employees who have put in literally hundreds of hours of work, extending well over two years, to work diligently to solve Maynard’s trash and recycling problems.  I also want to thank the folks at The Maynard Voice for joining in to help everyone understand the importance of what we’re doing.

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End Notes:
• For more about landfill closures, see: https://thebostonweekly.com/massachusetts-faces-growing-recycling-and-waste-management-challenges/
• Technically, what we call “Proposition 2 1/2” is called an “initiative petition” in Massachusetts, but the name was borrowed from a similar vote in California, known as “Proposition 13,” which was big news at the time.See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Massachusetts_Proposition_2½
Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13
• Our trash is taken to the plant known as “WIN Millbury.” See:  https://www.mass.gov/guides/municipal-waste-combustors#-material-separation-plans-

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