The Commons

6 NEWS The Commons • February 2009 The Commons • February 2009 NEWS 7
n Pay as you throwfrom page 1
dumping.
With PAYT, also known as
“unit-based pricing,” residents
are charged individually, based
on the amount of trash they
throw away, instead of uniformly
subsidizing the rubbish pickup
and disposal process through
their property taxes.
Under the proposed scheme,
Brattleboro residents would pay
a fixed rate for special trash bags,
which would be available at the
town’s major grocery stores. The
actual retail price for each bag is
not yet fixed and must be decided
by the Selectboard if the plan
goes ahead, at an estimated $2
per 30-gallon bag.
Currently, Brattleboro is one
of only three municipalities in
Vermont, along with Westminster
and Vernon, whose residents
benefit from curbside
trash pickup. Even Burlington
offers curbside pickup only for
recyclables. In other towns, residents
pay haulers directly or haul
their own rubbish to a transfer
station.
Last year, the Westminster selectboard
also discussed transitioning
to a PAYT system.
“It’s not the most green system,”
said Brattleboro’s Public
Works Director, Steve Barrett,
who has served on the town’s
Solid Waste Study Committee
since 2006. Jane Southworth
chairs the committee.
Other members include Paul
Pay-as-you-throw
advantages
• Equity – Customers who
use more service pay more.
• Economic signal – Behavior
affects the bill so there is a
recurring economic signal to
modify behavior.
• Lack of restrictions – Does
not restrict customer choice.
• Efficiency – Variable rate
programs are generally inexpensive
to implement.
• Waste reduction – PAYT
rewards all behaviors that reduce
the amount of garbage
thrown away.
• Speed of implementation –
PAYT programs can be quickly
put into place.
• Flexibility – PAYT programs
can be implemented with
a range of arrangements.
• Environmental benefits
Cameron, director of Brattleboro
Climate Protection; Harold
Dompier, a former member of
the Selectboard; Brenda Emery,
who coordinates accounts payable
in the town finance department,
and John Fay, a program
director with the Windham Solid
Waste Management District, a
cooperative program to manage
recycling and hazardous waste
collection programs in the county
and to manage the now-closed regional
landfill.
“Basically we’re chucking everything
away, and we have a really
low recycle rate” — between
16-19 percent, Barrett said.
Costs and benefits
The PAYT subject was most
recently broached during the
Selectboard’s examination of the
town’s budget, as board members
looked for ways to keep
costs down. The annual cost for
curbside pickup of trash and recyclables
is $962,000.
PAYT would save approximately
$300,000 annually, proponents
say, preventing a predicted
3.4-percent increase.
The town stands to see savings
in the form of reduced tipping
fees, but in more prosperous
times, the recyclable materials
diverted from the waste stream
could have been sold as well.
However, because of the everlooming
economic recession,
the recycling industry at large
– PAYT programs are beneficial
to the environment.
Pay-as-you-throw
concerns
• Illegal dumping – Research
shows illegal dumping is a bigger
fear than reality, and is a
problem in about 20 percent
of communities — a problem
that lasts about three months
or less. Composition of illegally
dumped material finds
only about 15 percent is household
and the largest household
component is bulky items or
appliances.
• Concerns about large families
or low income – Large families
pay more for groceries,
water and other services. PAYT
extends this to trash. For lowincome,
in some cases, communities
provide discounts for
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Trash awaits pickup in Brattleboro in January.
is at risk. The price of recyclables
continues to drop because
of the declining demand at home
and abroad.
With food waste constituting
21 percent of all residential
waste, according to a 2007 report
on Vermont Waste Prevention by
DSM Environmental Services,
Cameron encourages residents
to compost more.
“You can bring your compost
to Windham Solid Waste now,”
said Cameron, “I certainly support
people having composters
essential services like energy
and telephone. These types of
discounts could be extended to
garbage fees.
• Revenue uncertainties –
the number of bags or containers
set out decreases with PAYT
so communities need to adjust
rates accordingly.
• Administrative burdens –
Workloads during implementation
will be increased.
• Multi-family buildings –
PAYT is most tested in single
family situations, up to perhaps
8-unit complexes. Multi-family
buildings serviced by dumpsters
receive a better volumebased
building-wide incentive
for recycling than single family
households.
From the Brattleboro Solid
Waste Committee.
in their backyard; those can be
purchased through Windham
Solid Waste.”
But for renters in Brattleboro
who cannot compost because of a
lack of space or permission from
building owners to do so, the
time, energy and money spent
disposing of their food wastes at
Windham Solid Waste could end
up being just as costly to them as
throwing the food waste away.
‘Everything was
on the table’
Selectman Rich Garant originally
voted in favor of PAYT back
in November. “When it was first
voted on, I voted yes because
there was such an emphasis on
recycling.” But Garant became
the only board member to vote
against the new scheme in January,
questioning whether this
leveling of the budget was necessary
at all.
“It was never explained why an
increase of 3.4 percent was unacceptable,”
Garant said. “It’s not a
problem with funds. The board
only did it to make the budget
look good. That was the driving
factor.”
The board also briefly considered
other options, including doing
away with curbside pickup
altogether.
“Everything was on the table,”
said Dick DeGray, Selectboard
chairman. “But that would have
been too much of a pill for people
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to swallow.”
The town’s Solid Waste Committee
lent its expertise to the
decisionmaking process and
advised the board with a presentation
of relevant options.
Committee volunteers research
waste-management issues and
offer recommendations to the
Selectboard.
Eventually, PAYT was deemed
the best option, primarily because
of the
projected
reduction
in the town
budget,
but also
because of
sustainability
and environmental
benefits.
“We currently
pay
DAVID SHAW/THE COMMONS
Garant
$85 dollars for every ton of rubbish
that goes out of town,” Barrett
said. “PAYT offsets that
tipping fee.”
In theory, it also creates a
fairer system in which residents
who recycle and produce less
waste will no longer subsidize
the behavior of their less conscientious
neighbors.
As of January, Brattleboro’s
recycling rate stood at 17 percent,
leaving ample room for
improvement.
The Solid Waste Committee
also referenced a national study
on PAYT by Duke University,
which found an average 14-to-27-
percent reduction in waste and a
recycling increase from 32 to 59
percent in towns that had implemented
the scheme.
The committee also looked at
precedents from nearby towns
that use PAYT, including Greenfield,
Mass. and Hinsdale, N.H.
With the amount residents pay
for trash disposal depending directly
on quantity, the committee
says statistics show that the
financial incentive spurs recycling
rates.
“It’s working out really well”
for Greenfield, Southwor th
said. “They’re up to 41 percent
recycling.”
DeGray said the Selectboard
put “$5,000 in the budget for [recycling]
education,” before PAYT
was voted in. As of now, curbside
recycling pickup is still bi-weekly,
when asked about changing to a
weekly curbside pickup system
DeGray hesitated, “there’s a
significant cost increase there.”
Burden on lowerincome
residents
With fewer bottles, cans, paper
and cardboard in each trash
bag, Brattleboro’s cumulative
trash volume will drop and less
money will be consumed by the
town’s refuse collection fees to
New Hampshire–based Waste
Management, which manages
the curbside pickup and contracts
for the tipping of 3,667 tons
(7,335,294 pounds) of trash.
The town paid approximately
$311,000
per year in
tipping fees
each of the
past three
years, an
a m o u n t
that could
be reduced
by more
DeGray
aggressive
recycling.
A number
of citizens have voiced their
concerns since the policy was
first proposed last fall, in the
pages of the Reformer, on iBrattleboro.com,
and at a Selectboard
meeting in January.
Many opponents have advocated
on behalf of lower-income
individuals, whose bag costs
could create an untenable increase
in their annual budget.
Under PAYT, in residences
with four or fewer units, the cost
of waste disposal is passed from
landlord to tenant, leaving tenants
to absorb the cost.
Garant — the only renter on
the Selectboard — voiced the single
“nay” in the January vote.
“I don’t think it’s a responsible
thing to shift the cost so clearly to
the individual taxpayer and make
no benefit to the community at
large,” Garant said.”
“I will be unable to afford the
bags,” declared resident Theresa
Toney at the Selectboard
meeting.
“I certainly understand peoples’
concerns,” said DeGray.
“There is going to be a cost
shift.”
Indeed, the reduction in taxes
offered by PAYT will be exceeded
by the annual cost of bags.
“It’s actually going to cost
people more money,” Barrett
corroborated.
However, in some instances,
poorer families may not be required
to pay for their own
bags.
“If you’re living in a dwelling
with five families or more in it,”
said DeGray, ”your landlord is
supposed to be providing your
trash pickup anyway.”
The Solid Waste Committee
has also been looking into obtaining
vouchers for lower-income
people, but ultimately the
Selectboard will decide whether
to offer them.
Illegal dumping may also increase
under the new system,
opponents say. The Duke University
study reveals that 19 percent
of towns experienced a ‘slight increase’
in dumping.
Alternatives weighed
A number of alternatives and
additions to PAYT have been
suggested. Most prominently,
Rich Garant, Jane Southworth,
and Steve Barrett have all voiced
their support for a renewed recycling
program and an increase in
recycling education.
“Recycling has gone down
since the program started in
the mid-90s,” said Southworth.
“It has to do with the fact that
the town had a paid part-time
coordinator.”
“We even had group leaders
in all the neighborhoods,” said
Mr. Barrett. “What happened
was that, over the years, there
was no money put in there for
education.”
A final decision will be made
on PAYT at the town meeting
this March. Although town representatives
do not legally have
the power to overrule the Selectboard’s
decision, they do effectively
hold the fiscal purse
strings and can recommend that
the $300,000 be reinserted into
the budget.
Although the Selectboard has
the power to disregard the recommendation,
“if they do put
money back in, the Selectboard
usually follows that request,”
said DeGray.
“I’m certainly willing to abide
by what the town meeting reps
want to do,” DeGray said. “But
as I always say, let’s try this and
see how it goes.”
“If they want to go back to
trash pickup, that’s what I’ll do,”
he said.
With additional reporting by
Dane Kingsbury.
DAVID SHAW/THE COMMONS
Trash in Brattleboro, one of only three towns in the state of
Vermont that offer their residents curbside pickup of refuse
and recyclables.