Article 3: Trash Talk

[nancyd]

I have no idea how most residents feel about this Trash dilemma. I wish there was a poll of residents. I'm an educated woman, but this is confusing. My fault to a large degree....didn't have time to do all the research ahead of time.
As a senior, I cant haul trash anywhere. Our property taxes are high and we can't even get our trash hauled? That to me is incredible!!!

Anyway, I would like to have some idea how residents are voting. If I cant haul trash off property, I will have to vote YES.
I can imagine this is going to be messy in more ways than one. See you tomorrow.....
Nancyd

[mrs.freddie]

Nancy,
Voting yes will keep our curbside service, the Town will just be contracting with Casella instead of Duffy's.  There is a lot of information regarding what is included with Casella's proposal, so I would email the select board for those specifics.

Voting no will move our Town to join the Northwest Solid Waste District, and you will still be able to get your trash and recycling picked up at your house.
You'd just call one of the haulers and hire them, and then your curbside service continues as you're used to.  You may pick any hauler that gives you the best rate, and may also decide if you'd like your trash pickup to be on a different day.  You'd also be able to hire a hauler to come every other week if you're a senior citizen that doesn't generate a lot of trash.  That may drop your monthly rate. 


Here is the link to the Northwest Solid Waste District for your reference: http://nwswd.org/
Here is the link to the State of Vermont Act 148 page: http://www.anr.state.vt.us/dec/wastediv/solid/Act148.htm

I hope this is helpful, Nancy.

[nancyd]

Thank you! I appreciate your explanation. Oh one more question... If we vote NO, our property
Taxes will be reduced? And if so, I wonder by how much?
My best,
Nancyd

[mrs.freddie]

I'm not 100% on the actual figures, Nancy, but from what I understand about what the cost is to join the District, it's a fraction of a percent on our tax bill.  Keeping curbside will cost more through our property taxes, however, you would pay to hire your own hauler by voting no so that cost would be front and center as a monthly fee.  Curbside expenses through the Town (voting yes) you'll pay yearly or however you're set up to pay your property taxes, but I'm not sure if waste disposal is itemized per household on the bill.  I'd check with the Town on that. 

[BHA]

Kind of late for most people I'm sure but one additional thought:
If the town joins the waste district, there are many items they will take (some at cost) that the haulers will NOT take. I'm not even sure what to do with those things now. I guess there are the 'special' days like hazardous waste day (and why is clothing considered hazardous waste??). But that means you need to save it all up and take it to the collection point on the specific day (April 18 last year). If the town is part of the waste district you can get rid of all that stuff 6 days a week at the Georgia station whether you choose to contract for curbside pickup or not. For the items that cost, you will pay either way but you won't be storing them in your house or garage for up to a year.

[mrs.freddie]

BHA-That flyer sent out to residents a while back with the little recycle symbol magnet on it, contains a lot of wrong info.  Please do not use that as a guide for what is recyclable!  For example, clothes are not hazardous waste .

**** STYROFOAM is NOT RECYCLABLE!!!***.  It does NOT matter if there is an arrow on the container with a number in it, no styrofoam is recyclable, so do not put any in your blue bin!  On the flyer, it says you can recycle any Styrofoam, but all Styrofoam is trash  Even if it has the recycle arrows with a number in it....it's all trash.

All your recycling you currently set on the curb is taken to CSWD's Materials' Recycling Facility (MRF) in Williston.  They have sorting equipment that separates paper from plastics, metal, glass, etc, and Styrofoam clogs up those machines.  The to-go containers you get from Steeple Market, ARE recyclable.  Those are ok for your blue bin.

For what you CAN put in your curbside blue bwww.cswd.net and search in the A-Z list. 

This wouldn't effect voting one way or another because if you have any kind of curbside service in Fairfax, private or town-contracted, that hauler will take your recycling the the MRF in Williston. 

[BHA]

Thanks for that correction. It might be of value if an accurate sheet was sent out since I suspect I am not the only person who ASSUMED what was sent was accurate and would not think to look for anything else. I am also glad that I do not clad myself in hazardous waste every day!

The link http://cswd.net/recycling/a-z/ is CSWD. I ASSUME it is Act 148 driven and the same statewide. 

I guess the people at the Williston MRF must be busy every week with picking styrofoam out of the my recycles and that of others. I was surprised to see it on the "recycle" list but am quite happy to recycle everything I can. I couldn't figure out why ground meat trays had no recycle number, they look the same as all the others to me. Ray at Georgia Market didn't know either so I ASSUMED that maybe ground meat was more likely to "taint" the foam. Guess not! The site does say that styrofoam is recyclable but not in Vermont. More densely populated places generate enough to make it economically viable, ASSUMING people clean the food trays (I expect the biggest problem is with those that held meat) which is a big assumption.

[mrs.freddie]

BHA-that flyer, I was told, was created by one of the sb members and mailed to the entire town. I went to the Town Hall the day I got it in the mail to ask who made it and why!? Poor Stacy!! I was confused about who made the flyer and thought she did momentarily. She did not and I guess it wasn't an "official" town mailing.  I brought it into work the next day and it was not well received at CSWD. Staff works hard to educate people that  recycling arrows and a number do not necessarily mean it can be recycled, especially emphasizing Styrofoam as an example.

You're right that the MRF sorting crew spends a lot of time pulling out Styrofoam, so much  so that CSWD had to create a contamination policy so haulers bringing in large amounts of Styrofoam (and other non-recyclable items like plastic grocery bags) will educate their customers. There is a fee per ton if the load is deemed 'contaminated' assessed on the hauler.   If there is too much contamination, the load is rejected and sent to transfer station as trash.  It's important to get the correct information out there and seeing that flyer was pretty discouraging. Thanks for posting a better link to the A-Z list!

[BHA]

Oh my. I wonder how many loads of recycles Duffy picked up that went straight to the trash stream.

How do we get this corrected? Especially if it was sent out by the town (but NOT officially?). It has been on my refrigerator for, what, about a year?? And everyone has been "recycling" things we are not supposed to recycle all that time? Certainly no one from Duffy's ever let me know I was not supposed to put styrofoam in the recycle bins and sometimes it was big blocks not just less obvious meat trays mixed in with the paper, plastic "bottles" and metal cans.

[mrs.freddie]

BHA-First thing you do is take that flyer down and recycle it .  It is detrimental to CSWD's outreach efforts in our District for this flyer to be rampant in Fairfax! 

Replace that flyer with one downloaded and printed from this page:
http://cswd.net/recycling/recycling-bins-decals-and-posters/

Again, all recycling we put on the curb goes to the MRF in Williston, so even though these are CSWD stickers, the 'how to' information still applies.

Styrofoam=TRASH.  ALWAYS.  I almost divorced my husband for putting Styrofoam in our blue bin one Thursday...he's still sorry

If you'd like to learn about those recycle arrows and their corresponding number, click here and read about 'resin codes':
http://cswd.net/recycling/plastic-resin-codes/   Point being: arrows and a number on your plastic does not necessarily mean it can go in your blue bin. 

If you kept the front page of the flyer that stated: Recycle vs Trash-Act 148, please note that it's pretty much all inaccurate.  The State isn't looking to fine everyone to 'make money', first of all.  That's portrays Act 148 as a 'bad' thing, even though it's purpose is to keep our state from turning into a landfill.  One landfill is already at capacity in this state, and the second is filling up rapidly.

The "60lbs of trash" is wrong.  Most haulers do not have a mechanism to weigh everyone's trash can/bag/cart each week, then record it per household.   It is estimated by the volume of the container, not weight, and it'll be important for residents to know the volume of trash container we can put out each week on May 1 (start of new contract with Casella). 

For example, the smaller size generic trash can is usually around 32G, the regular hauler-issued toter or cart is 64G, and the really big wheeled carts are 96G.  The Town will need to decide on what VOLUME of TRASH container each household is 'allowed' to put out weekly as a part of our Article 3 service contract.  If the Town contract with Casella is for a 64G trash container per household,  then you'd have to purchase a 'trash sticker' (the only accurate part on this flyer) for each additional 'bag' or 'container' above 64G.  64G is an example. No trash sticker on the extra bags and Casella will need to either take it and eat the disposal cost, or leave the superfluous trash bags on your driveway.  Duffy's contract included that provision, but I'm not sure how many people actually bought stickers for their extra trash bags (never saw one).   

Increasing Town recycling rates will be tough if everyone gets a huge 64G trash toter they can fill every week.  I asked Casella today what Faifax residents would be getting as far as carts, toters, etc, and was told they'd be meeting with the Town soon to hash out those, and other, details .  Stay tuned on that I guess. 

[mrs.freddie]

FYI that Casella is on the Select Board agenda for tonight's meeting at 7pm.  I plan to attend, and encourage anyone else with questions to do just what was suggested by a SB member: go to the meeting and voice your opinion. 

Thanks to ssweet for the head's up that Casella was speaking at tonight's meeting! 

[ohhman]

I sincerely hope anyone that attends goes in with an open mind, letting Casella's & the board speak, & trusting that our board will do what they feel is best for our town, which is why we have elected them.

[mrs.freddie]

Very good point, oohman, and I agree 100%  Personally, I only wish to offer my time and volunteer for more Act 148 outreach at BFA.  I love doing teaching the kids and am happy to continue to do it (for free ).

[BHA]

My Monday nights don't allow me to go to the SB meetings.

What was the general discussion re Casella?

IIRC the Article 3 details were "flexible", one of the things that bothered me about it. Vote to spend "this" much money and get "well, we don't really know" service for it. For instance the dollar value we were quoted included new trash receptacles for all but that wasn't a "must do".

My taxes will go up whether they stick with a property assessment or fixed per household payment method and I will continue to subsidize people who generate a lot of trash and recycle little. I am hopeful that "perks" like new receptacles that don't benefit people will be pulled and the increased cost of curbside collection minimized as much as possible. For instance, my family of 3 (4 when the college kid is home) doesn't generate enough trash OR recycles to need weekly pickup. Not even enough to require it every other week. All of my organics go either to the chickens or the compost pile so I don't have an issue with things maybe getting stinky if they sit around too long. I know that isn't true for everyone but maybe with a bit of effort people can reduce the physical volume of their recycles and trash (squashing plastic bottles, gable tops, etc) and we could go to an every other week pickup schedule to save a fair bit of money.

[mrs.freddie]

It was an encouraging presentation by Casella at Monday's meeting.  They are enthusiastic about running a great curbside program for residents, providing education and outreach to reduce trash disposal and increase recycling in the form of a dedicated Town waste management website and direct mailings, etc.

I think Casella is crunching numbers for 64G trash and recycle weekly for 2.5 years.  Tom suggested 64G trash bi-weekly at the 2.5 year point, and potentially reduce the volume of the trash container to 40-something gallons when food scrap collection is phased in.  Unlimited recycling will be collected weekly, and you are allowed to put your 64G recycling cart plus 10 blue recycle bins with no penalty. That's important for everyone to know.  Casella would offer a larger household a 96G container option, but for recycling only.  Trash containers distributed to residents will not exceed 64G, from what I understood.

The organics phase of Act 148 reaches the residential level in 2020, however, since organic waste is the heaviest component of residential trash, starting to roll out home food scrap collection containers, outreach and education on backyard composting etc, was discussed and the Board was definitely interested in moving the 2020 implementation date forward.  Great idea, in my opinion.  They didn't discuss if individual household waste generation will be considered, but Casella stated generally that they will work with people to address concerns. 

I'd say Casella did their homework and came in with a promising game plan.  Tom also did a great job leading the conversation in support of everyone reducing the size of their trash container, sustaining bi-weekly curbside trash pickup, and implementing food scrap collection and composting resources for residents far in advance of the state deadline.