WOOLWICH
Facing a downturn in recycling, a Woolwich committee is seeking input from residents on pay-as-youthrow and other options for solid waste mitigation to offset rising tipping fees.
At Woolwich’s May Town Meeting, residents voted in favor of authorizing the Woolwich Solid Waste and Recycling Committee to conduct an informal investigation into PAYT, said Fred Kahrl, chairperson of the committee.
“The only statistical issue that stands on its own, that doesn’t have to be interpreted, is that we have started to see a slippage in the amount of recycling materials that have been collected,” said Kahrl. “For the first time since we started with this program, the tonnage has decreased.”
According to the committee’s annual report, recycling decreased by 20.43 tons in 2013, while trash increased by nearly 44 tons. The additional expense in tipping fees to the hauler for the increase was $3,740, the report stated.
Overall, the budget line for solid waste disposal is the town’s third largest expense, said Kahrl, surpassed only by budget lines for highways and bridges and for schools.
“We pay a large annual contract fee and the annual variable amount is how much we pay in tipping fees,” said Kahrl. “We don’t get any financial reward for recycling, in fact we pay a fee for that service but, in the best of all worlds, if we picked up more recycling and reduced trash enough we could reach a point where there is an offset.”
In 2014, residents voted to raise and appropriate $262,870 for weekly curbside waste pickup and bi-weekly recycling collection services, provided by Pine Tree Waste Inc., an increase of $9,670 more than the previous year’s appropriation.
Additionally, the town voted to appropriate $25,000 from the undesignated fund balance account to cover unanticipated solid waste disposal and recycling costs. The town also pays $2,000 annually for a household hazardous waste collection event that takes place in Bath.
“It’s very clear that if the town wants to save money, it has to do a better job of recycling,” said Kahrl. “How that should be done is not necessarily clear right now — ultimately the town has to decide what its priorities are.”
The committee’s goal is to present relevant information to the town, said Kahrl, that will allow residents to make an informed decision regarding PAYT if the option is presented for a vote at the next Town Meeting.
“We’ve been tasked with coming up with an informational proposal,” said Kahrl, “so we can say, ‘Here are some statistics from towns who have tried pay-as-youthrow and stayed with it, here are statistics from towns who tried it and threw it out,’ and also offer information about what is happening in our town.
“The committee has not taken a formal position on the issues,” he added. “We wish to be observed by the voters as objective in our report.”
According to WasteZero, Bath’s partner company in the city’s PAYT program, Bath has reduced solid waste tonnage by 60 percent and increase recycling volume by 30 percent since the program’s inception in 2008.
In Wiscasset, PAYT was rejected by voters in June 2013. The measure failed 221- 146, according to the Wiscasset Newspaper.
Aside from recycling, increasing composting could potentially reduce the town’s tipping fees, said Kahrl, noting that nationally, organic material accounts for roughly 30 percent of the trash stream after the recycling has been removed.
“We have been advised by Pine Tree that the next biggest identifiable component in our trash waste — outside of our current single stream recycling — is organic waste,” said Kahrl. “We have encouraged people to compost their organics and it is our opinion that the people who are willing to have already started to do that.
“Some other people say that one way we could reduce waste is to look at starting our own compost pile for the town,” he added. “We are just going to put out all the options we hear and see what the town decides.”
The Woolwich Solid Waste and Recycling Committee meets at 5:30 p.m. on the third Wednesday of each month at the Woolwich Town Hall, located at 13 Nequasset Road. For more information, contact the Woolwich Town Hall at 442- 7094.
rgargiulo@timesrecord.com
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