Waste management is a problem everywhere in the country, but nowhere as bad as it is in a small municipality with dozens of restaurants and hotels. Each produce dumpsters full of waste on a daily basis, almost all of which is the result of serving their guests and customers, the large majority of whom are not local taxpayers. Those entities should then be paying the town to handle their excessive quantities of waste of all types. Those businesses benefit from their non tax-paying clients and the tax payers of the town should not absorb the costs of their waste streams. I encourage the town to investigate managing that waste streams in lieu of considering charging taxpayers for their family refuse. Additionally, those same businesses, along with the many "tourists product" stores, regularly produce dumpsters full of empty packing boxes in which they received their products, food, beverages, etc. I have regularly witnessed local contractor's refuse trucks, first emptying the general refuse dumpsters into their compacting trucks, immediately followed by emptying the "cardboard only" dumpsters into the very same truck, along with the general refuse, and then dumping it all in the waste compactor at the recycling facility. How does this make sense to anyone? If our community waste stream is being overwhelmed with recyclable cardboard waste from these businesses, instead of that recyclable waste actually being baled and potentially recycled, where is the logic in that? This too should be addressed by those considering a methodology to reduce our waste stream, along with the costs associated with handling it.
"A user-based system is the best way to incentivize the reduction of trash."
That is a factual statement. How then to implement it? It's pretty simple.
Install scales for all commercial trash haulers. Weigh the vehicle before and after dumping. Charge accordingly. The trash haulers will pass the costs to their customers. The restaurants will pass the costs to their patrons as will the souvenir shops.
For town residents who haul their own trash to the transfer station, install multiple smaller scales. Don't issue special trash bags or tags; don't charge by the bag (which could be big or small or heavy with glass or other heavy materials); charge by the weight. Residents will either compost food scraps and separate out items that could/should be recycled to lessen their trash fees, or pay more for the convenience of not paying attention to composting, recycling, and separating out non-allowed materials.
Multiple smaller residential trash scales should be provided for residents to weigh their trash before their vehicles enter the transfer station's dumping areas to prevent queues. Residents should be charged at the scale. The town should decide how the fees should be collected. Onsite or paid monthly.
Recycling by residents should continue as is unless improvements are offered and can be incorporated.
Commercial haulers of large amounts of packaging materials, including cardboard, paper, inflatable air bags/tubes, etc. should be charged by volume load (i.e., 1 pickup truck load, x dollars; 1 dump truck load, xx dollars, etc.). Any person or business caught dumping large quantities of materials in the residential recycling bins should be fined heavily.
If there is some inconvenience to town residents created by weighing their trash before dumping it, it will be more than adequately compensated for by ending the subsidization of the large users of the transfer station.
It's long past time that a widow, or family of four residing on School St. or Ledgelawn Ave, who produce very little garbage, stop paying for the large quantities of garbage that the tourist industry produces.
Waste management is a problem everywhere in the country, but nowhere as bad as it is in a small municipality with dozens of restaurants and hotels. Each produce dumpsters full of waste on a daily basis, almost all of which is the result of serving their guests and customers, the large majority of whom are not local taxpayers. Those entities should then be paying the town to handle their excessive quantities of waste of all types. Those businesses benefit from their non tax-paying clients and the tax payers of the town should not absorb the costs of their waste streams. I encourage the town to investigate managing that waste streams in lieu of considering charging taxpayers for their family refuse. Additionally, those same businesses, along with the many "tourists product" stores, regularly produce dumpsters full of empty packing boxes in which they received their products, food, beverages, etc. I have regularly witnessed local contractor's refuse trucks, first emptying the general refuse dumpsters into their compacting trucks, immediately followed by emptying the "cardboard only" dumpsters into the very same truck, along with the general refuse, and then dumping it all in the waste compactor at the recycling facility. How does this make sense to anyone? If our community waste stream is being overwhelmed with recyclable cardboard waste from these businesses, instead of that recyclable waste actually being baled and potentially recycled, where is the logic in that? This too should be addressed by those considering a methodology to reduce our waste stream, along with the costs associated with handling it.
"A user-based system is the best way to incentivize the reduction of trash."
That is a factual statement. How then to implement it? It's pretty simple.
Install scales for all commercial trash haulers. Weigh the vehicle before and after dumping. Charge accordingly. The trash haulers will pass the costs to their customers. The restaurants will pass the costs to their patrons as will the souvenir shops.
For town residents who haul their own trash to the transfer station, install multiple smaller scales. Don't issue special trash bags or tags; don't charge by the bag (which could be big or small or heavy with glass or other heavy materials); charge by the weight. Residents will either compost food scraps and separate out items that could/should be recycled to lessen their trash fees, or pay more for the convenience of not paying attention to composting, recycling, and separating out non-allowed materials.
Multiple smaller residential trash scales should be provided for residents to weigh their trash before their vehicles enter the transfer station's dumping areas to prevent queues. Residents should be charged at the scale. The town should decide how the fees should be collected. Onsite or paid monthly.
Recycling by residents should continue as is unless improvements are offered and can be incorporated.
Commercial haulers of large amounts of packaging materials, including cardboard, paper, inflatable air bags/tubes, etc. should be charged by volume load (i.e., 1 pickup truck load, x dollars; 1 dump truck load, xx dollars, etc.). Any person or business caught dumping large quantities of materials in the residential recycling bins should be fined heavily.
If there is some inconvenience to town residents created by weighing their trash before dumping it, it will be more than adequately compensated for by ending the subsidization of the large users of the transfer station.
It's long past time that a widow, or family of four residing on School St. or Ledgelawn Ave, who produce very little garbage, stop paying for the large quantities of garbage that the tourist industry produces.