A YES vote on June 16th will re-affirm a 2026 Annual Town Meeting decision to proceed with economically necessary changes to our trash collection.
If YES prevails, the Select Board will designate a standard bin size for continued “free” (tax supported) residential trash collection, and will set fees to collect trash that’s in excess of what fits in the standard bin. They will do so after public hearings, and after receiving recommendations from the Waste Reduction Task Force, town staff, and various town committees.
According to a survey of 1,400 residents, 83% now use 48 gallon or smaller bins. My guess is that the Select Board will designate a 48 gallon bin as standard, providing an option to use a 35 gallon bin instead, while also accommodating special cases (medical needs, group homes, etc.) that require bins that are larger than the standard.
So most residents’ trash will fit within their standard bin, and if YES prevails their weekly trash collection will remain “free” like it is now.
For trash in excess of what fits in the standard bin, fees will be set to recover its cost of collection and disposal, and will be in line with what’s charged in neighboring towns. Fees for excess trash will provide an effective incentive to divert more of it to composting and recycling.
Bins will be provided by the town at no cost to residents.
Our new Pay-Above-a-Threshold system will be part of our broader transition to automated trash collection, where bins are emptied by the truck’s pick-up arms rather than by humans.
We’re not making this change to improve our current already excellent manual trash collection service. We’re doing this because trash haulers are automating. They are either withdrawing entirely from providing manual trash collection or are making it economically unattractive.
A negative vote on 16 June could delay our transition to automated trash collection, perhaps indefinitely, with the result that we’d face increased and rising costs since the few haulers that still offer manual trash collection will impose a substantial cost premium.
Increased costs for trash collection and for its disposal — because many of our in-state landfills have closed and others are approaching that point — will divert money from already tight budgets for our schools and other town functions.
We can put a lid on such wasteful and avoidable increased costs by voting YES on June 16th.
Peter Shapiro
Town Meeting Member, Precinct 4
The trash fee referendum on June 16th does not block the town’s efforts to move to automated trash collection which will save the town millions of dollars. I will be voting NO to new trash fees but I’m supportive of automated collection. Proponents of trash fees are intentionally conflating automated collection and trash fees in order to strengthen their desire to reduce town services while at the same time charging new fees to residents. However, trash fees are not a pre-requisite in order to achieve cost savings through automated collection.