During his tenure as city council president, Mayor Peter Marchetti saw multiple attempts to shift away from unlimited curbside pickup crash and burn on the chamber floor. Now, he says changing industry norms are pushing Pittsfield into an unavoidable reckoning with the future of its trash and recycling pickup.
“First and foremost, it is working in collaboration with our haulers," the mayor told WAMC. "When we were away this winter at the Mass Municipal Association, we talked to a couple of vendors. The vendors that we were talking to were not accepting new clients unless they went to automation, so I think that that's the first piece. Sooner or later, the haulers are going to be, this is the way you're going to get your trash picked up.”
The rising cost of trash and recycling is also driving Marchetti’s latest push for Pittsfield to adopt a new system.
“Currently, we're spending about $5.1 million between trash collection and disposal costs," said Marchetti. "If we continue to allow for unlimited curbside trash pickup, that number is not going to decline anytime in the near future. And so, we need to find ways to reduce costs and generate some revenues and decreasing the amount of trash that we're hauling away and increasing the amount of recyclables does that.”
Pittsfield wants to maintain its relationship with the current company in charge of the city’s refuse, but switch to a toter system.
“We are proposing to continue working with Casella with an automated system that will require a toter system, toters to be provided for trash and recycling to every family up, to four family units," explained Commissioner of Public Utilities Ricardo Morales. "And with this, there's going to be a component of pay-as-you-throw, there's going to be a component to minimize trash and increase recycling, which will ultimately result in savings on the trash disposal and recycling disposal end of the equation.”
Morales says initially, the new system will save Pittsfield $80,000 on its contract with Casella before going on to cut down more costs through reducing landfill contributions and revenue from sales of recycled materials collected from the city.
“You will have- As proposed, it's a 48-gallon toter. If it doesn't fit there, you're going to have to do something about that- Either bring it into transfer station, or ask for an additional toter," said the commissioner. "If that's something you need to do constantly, we have provisions, and that's where the pay-as-you-throw component comes in, where we have a family that constantly needs two toters or more than one, you're going to have to pay an extra quarterly fee, and then another toter will be provided and you'll have two, but you that comes at a slightly- that comes at a cost.”
Marchetti says the move is long overdue.
“It's about trying to manage costs," he told WAMC. "We hear that we don't want our tax rates to go up, but we're doing nothing to manage costs- And here's one of those opportunities. And I also think – there's a whole mess of angles for it – it's the savings reduction that we'll be able to accomplish over time, but I think it's also about how the city looks. And I think we've all been to communities where you see the toters lined up on the end of the driveway, and it looks so much nicer than 27 brown paper, plastic bags on a curbside so I think there's something to be said for the cleanliness of this piece, [which] will be, we won't have to worry about animals invading trash and we can save money.”
The three community meetings Marchetti is holding throughout May will be an attempt to clear up misconceptions around a toter system before it’s implemented later this year.
“It's before the city council now. It's my understanding through initial conversations with President [Peter] White that these hearings won't happen until the first week in June, then it will need to return back from city council or to city council for approval," said the mayor. "If it's approved by the city council, the contract will go in effect for July 1st. We are preparing for a 10-to-12-week education process, letting the community members know how, what, when, where, why, and then late August, early September, we will begin to roll out the total process, trash route by trash route."
Pittsfield’s meetings on new trash and recycling policies will be held at the Ralph J. Froio Senior Center on May 6th, Conte Community School on May 9th, and Herberg Middle School on May 21st.
