Guest Editorial: Nicholas G. Tsakiris on Pay-as-You-Throw
The following is a guest editorial from South Berwick citizen Nicholas G. Tsakiris. Mr. Tsakiris is a member of the South Berwick Solid Waste Committee.
Recently, South Berwick Councilors, voted to institute a “Pay-as-You-Throw” (PAYT) program to help manage the town’s growing solid waste problem. This means that residents of
Fellow skeptics, hear me out. The town pays two costs for waste, the first being transportation costs to and from the waste disposal site and the second is a disposal fee. When you recycle, there is no disposal fee. I am a recycler and as such I only use about one bag a week. Right now the total expense of waste disposal in South Berwick is lumped together and spread across every taxpayer equally, meaning that the recycler and the non-recycler are paying roughly the same. The economics of “Pay-as-You-Throw” are pretty simple. It’s like paying the light bill. You can shut off your lights and save money or you can turn on every light in the house and pay for what you use.
Pay-as-You-Throw is an incentive to encourage recycling. No matter how much we may dislike paying for our trash bags, there is no denying that, like many other towns, our current budget does not cover the increasing cost of disposal. Ignoring the situation will not make the problem disappear, so we need to deal with it as best we can. Given this reality, it seems only fair to have people pay according to the amount of trash they produce. That is, a family that generates four bags of trash per week should pay more than the family that has two bags per week. Our present system provides no incentive to encourage recycling.
To make it even simpler to recycle, South Berwick Solid Waste Committee is looking at Single Sort recycling. Single Sort is a system in which you only need one recycling container and you don’t need to sort your paper from cardboard, plastic, metal, or glass and no removing caps. Everything goes into one container. It is as simple as one trash can and one recycling can. Recyclables include: Cardboard, paper board (gift box or cereal box), all paper (junk mail, newspaper, and magazines), rigid plastic containers marked #1thru #7 (milk jug, water bottle, yogurt cup, or butter tub), metal cans, aluminum (cans, foil, and pie plates), and any colored glass bottles or jars. It has been estimated that 50% of household trash can be recycled and since recyclable items are not placed in bags, recycling saves you, the town and me money.
–Nicholas G. Tsakiris
Tags: opinion, Sustainability
June 2nd, 2008 at 3:17 pm
So, what is the estimated cost of Single Sort recycling? If, in fact, it costs extra, will the pay as you go cover the cost? Or is that an additional cost to the town. I’d prefer keeping things the way they are - our family doesn’t mind recycling into different containers. I still think it is just a way to introduce a new revenue stream for the town, and I don’t see it as a great additional ’service.’
June 2nd, 2008 at 3:36 pm
I was at one town meeting when this was discussed,
I guess there is a one tome fee for the hoppers, but it would allow for the reduction of one full time position at the transfer station.
June 2nd, 2008 at 4:05 pm
I would be interested in the single sort recycling if all of the different plastics are involved. Right now, anything other than 1&2 adds to the trash hopper.
June 2nd, 2008 at 5:53 pm
If the pay per bag system is to work, the town needs to step up to the plate and allow for more materials to be recycled - specifically more plastics! Why can’t we recycle the plastic containers in which some fruits are packaged?
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:55 pm
We all have to “buy” trash bags anyway and if it will add to the amount of
plastic that gets recycled I am for it. Also, taking the time at home isn’t a problem so much because we have a system set up to go along with the town’s current one. It’s when we get to the transfer station where the time in making all the trips to the different places takes time. On one hand it’s a ‘good cause chore’, one I’ve been accustomed to for years now, but if there is a better way to do it that saves time AND money, then I’m all for it.
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:56 am
I don’t like having to pay as you throw. I know that if they don’t make as much money as they want then the fee will go up. The more everybody recycles the less bags bought then the more your going to be charged for the bags to cover the loss. This is a bad idea. They should have gone and let waste managment take the trash and that way we would just put it on the corner and they would sort. What I was told is they would have leased the land from the town too, so we could recover cost from the land the town would need to take on 236 some where. Then we could shut down the town dump and save all that money.
June 3rd, 2008 at 6:28 am
Sounds good to me. I also wondered, as Peter has, that when the town doesn’t get the proposed amount of ‘income’ from this system, what will happen? Of course the fee will go up! I wonder if leasing to the waste management folks is still an option. But think of who might lose their jobs, can’t have that.
June 3rd, 2008 at 9:35 am
I agree with the pay as you throw option regardless of whether it’s in our current system or as a single stream. I think the cost for waste disposal has been shifted too much to local government. If consumers have a more direct connection to the cost of disposal, I think it will force manufacturers and retailers to manufacture and sell products with lower disposal costs. If consumers start to see that each product we buy will cost us to dispose, then we will begin to favor products that have less unnecessary packaging and are recyclable. It drives me crazy when I go to buy some simple item like a screwdriver and I find it encased in a big unrecyclable bubble pack that only seems to be there to market the “features” of the screwdriver. I know I am paying twice for that unnecessary packaging, once at the store and then again in taxes to support disposal of it.
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:01 pm
I have no problem paying to dump my trash, but I do take issue with having to purchase plastic bags. From what I’ve read, most of the “earth friendly” bags out there still take ages to degrade. I’d like to have a paper alternative–at least it comes from a renewable resource. Maybe this new policy will force people to recycle better (I’ve seen things tossed in the hopper that shouldn’t be). I agree with KM–the town needs to step up and accept more plastics. As it is, I try to avoid buying anything in a non-recyclable container. Maybe the good side is, people will also think about the packaging they are purchasing and must pay to toss as Molly says. Too many Americans just don’t think–out of sight, out of mind.
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:02 pm
A big focus of the Pay-As-You-Throw system is to reduce what is thrown into the hopper. If one is more aware, and pulls out items that can be recycled, then the amount needing to be thrown goes down. If the town has less to be hauled away, the town pays out less.
And…..get this….its better for the environment!
June 3rd, 2008 at 7:17 pm
I don’t agree that it is necessarily, get this, ‘good for the environment.’ I think we do a rather fine job of recycling as a town. Yes, we could all probably do better, but (and I’ll use our family as an example) we recycle everything, we already do not purchase overly packaged food and items, we compost, we keep our thermostat at 60 during the day in the winter, and throw away very little. Not sure how my paying for garbage bags is going to benefit the environment. Pay-per-bag should also apply to everyone including town employees. Hope that is enforced.
June 3rd, 2008 at 7:51 pm
The budget numbers show they are expecting to bring in $60,000 from the pay per bag system.
What I would like to know is how they came up with that number.
Did someone count bags?
Is this based on an estimated number of bags?
Did they reduce the estimate to accommodate for people throwing out less? That is the goal I believe.
This is part of what bothers me. There is no disclosure of information of this sort.
$60,000 has been added to the amount the town believes it will bring in, and we don’t know what they have based that number on.
If it falls short, then we have to make up for it somehow.
I spoke to Mel Kenney last night after the meeting.
If the town had opted to do both pay per bag, and single stream recycling, it would have made it much easier for people to recylce, and it would have reduced cost because the transfer station staff could have been reduced.
June 3rd, 2008 at 11:11 pm
They are not doing pay as you throw to help push people to recycle more. They are doing it to make money. Remember the less they make the more there going to want to take. When I talk to a town official I was told if number does not come in at 60,000 or more then the bags will have to cost more to make up the difference for the next year. This again is not been done for enviromental reasons remember that.
June 4th, 2008 at 1:44 am
South Berwick is not the first town to try Pay as you Throw or Pay per Bag. Dover NH has it. North Berwick has it. Kennebunk has it. I believe the Solid Waste committee looked and talked with at a number of Maine towns that have it. I believe that the numbers being proposed are based upon the amount of trash we throw in the hopper weight-wise minus the amount we aniticpate we will increase our recycling. Dave (not the ex) has some very good questions about where the numbers come from. I hope he asks them at the next meeting he attends. Maybe one of the Solid waste committee people reads the blog and can provide the answers. I trust the citizens on the Solid Waste Committee (thank you Nick) who have looked at this issue. They have volunteered their time to look into this and if I follow Nick’s entry, not all of them were fond of the idea of PAYT. I know they have spent a lot of time looking at this issue. Here are some questions I think would be helpful to get some answers to: How many tons of trash did we send to MERC last year?
How much did it cost?
What are the overall costs of running the transfer station? Is the expected income from pay as you throw going to exceed any of these costs? If not, it is not going to be a “money maker” for the town, but it will offset the amount the town spends to operate the transfer station. The income the town has to offset its expenses is used to offset our tax rate.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Ladyjane,
I’m sure that you do a very fine job with recycling. A lot of people do. Unfortunately, many people don’t. Some people have to have a different motivation other than just being good to the earth in order to go the extra step.
June 5th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
It’s not about that. It’s about the town wanting an income stream regardless. Just be truthful. Don’t cloak it in ‘being good for the environment’, or ‘it’s not about the use, it’s about the overuse.’ They want more money, a hidden tax, period. I don’t really give a fig about motivating other people to go green. Neither does the town. They want a new source of revenue.
June 5th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
……and to increase the amount of wate that is recycled. That saves money, too.
June 5th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Ladyjane–It seems like it’s the opposite of a hidden tax to me. We create the waste and we have to pay for it to be disposed of somehow. In the past it’s been in the mil rate and everyone pays the same rate no matter how much or how little trash they create. This shifts the cost so people pay it more directly in proportion to their use of the service. That way it is the personal responsibility of the users of the transfer station to make choices about whether to recycle or not and their costs will be affected by their personal decisions. I heard at the meeting on Tuesday that they are reducing the mil rate to adjust for the pay per throw. Once we have done it for a while we will be able to see how it works out–maybe eventually, with the revenue for pay per throw and from recyclables we can make the transfer station self sufficient so that it doesn’t affect our mil rate at all. This year it seems prudent for the town to get revenue–I can’t believe the cost of hauling trash away is not going increase. I can’t imagine how much gas or diesel those big trash haulers use.
June 6th, 2008 at 8:04 am
Then perhaps I should just have my employer start making out my paychecks to the to Town of South Berwick. Between the town budget and the school budget I’ll have little left. But thank God we’ll be recycling more, and that poor SAD35 employee that has to drive all the way home to Exeter at night will still have his van supplied and paid for by all of us as well. Sorry for the rant.
Will be busy looking for land in New Hampshire…..
June 6th, 2008 at 8:39 am
………..And when you get to New Hampshire, you’ll be paying 2-3 times MORE in taxes, and probably PAYT, too. Your cynicism is very strong. Costs in South Berwick are middle of the road, not high. Check out the tax bill of a home your size anywhere in NH………………… We have a pretty good deal.
June 6th, 2008 at 9:11 am
The state of Maine is one of the highest tax per capita states in the United Staes.
New Hampshire is one of the lowest.
Considering that state funding for New Hampshire comes from property taxes, adding the property tax for South Berwick to the income tax from the state put most people well over what it would cost in New Hampshire.
June 6th, 2008 at 9:12 am
I didn’t realize I wasn’t allowed to voice my own opinion if it differed from the majority view. You are completely right. We have it great here in town. I stand corrected.
June 6th, 2008 at 9:15 am
That’s what I found in my research too, Dave. I’ve done comparisons and we would be paying far less in New Hampshire, and we’ve considered it for awhile since my husband and I both work over the border, and have for many years.
June 6th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Rollinsford Tax Rate 2006: $14.38
http://www.nh.gov/nhes/elmi/htmlprofiles/rollinsford.html
South Berwick Tax Rate (proposed): $15.10
http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080505/GJNEWS_01/947278922/-1/FOSnews010104
With no income or sales taxes and lower excise taxes it’s a no brainer. I work in NH and my employer doesn’t withhold Maine taxes, so I am very much aware of what the tax impact of the state of Maine is. I pay about $3000 out of pocket every year in income taxes for the “privilege” of living here. Maine has the 2nd highest tax burden in the nation, NH is 49th.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/335.html
June 6th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Back on the subject of solid waste, I keep hearing subtle references to a proposal from a private company to take over the town’s solid waste handling. Why is there not more information out about this? I think privatizing the transfer station especially if there are benefits such as single stream and curbside pickup we need to take a serious look at it. I’ll be the first to admit, recycling is not a huge priority in my life, and single stream even if it were pay-per-bag would benefit me greatly since time is so valuable these days.
September 1st, 2008 at 8:46 pm
the really amusing aspect here is, if the town simply realigned the health insurance benefits offered to all employees to something more in line with what the average private company around here offers….we wouldn’t be praying to make 60K on selling people plastic garbage bags. Come on, Molly….the town doesn’t really care about encouraging recycling…..they are hoping this is a new revenue stream.
if we simply economized in other areas, none of this would be necessary. But, clearly that’s not on the agenda.
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:31 pm
it’s a very easy way to generate funds in the future too. a simple price increase per bag will instanly generate funds. I’ve seen it in other towns, no reason to believe S.B. will be any different. It will be much easier to do this than it will make a tough dicision or stick to a budget. This is just another way for them to spend and tax.