Frequently Asked Questions about
'Pay As You Throw' for Acton
- What is Pay As You Throw ('PAYT').
- 'Pay as You Throw' describes a variety of variable-rate systems that encourage
households to generate less trash. With Pay-As-You-Throw incentives, households recycle
more, compost more, and buy goods with less packaging. This lowers the overall cost
of solid-waste management and passes on the costs of trash disposal to households more
equitably.
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- How does it work?
- There's many varieties of PAYT. For Acton, the system under consideration uses a
fixed annual price to use the transfer station that covers the fixed costs, with special
bags to be purchased at local stores. The cost of the bags would pay for the disposal of
the trash. Bags are made of recycled-content plastic, are opaque for privacy, and
tinted for easy identification. Residents would continue to place the bags into the
disposal area at the transfer station.
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- What about recycling and charitable donations?
- Recycling of leaf and yard waste, newspaper and cardboard, glass, metal and plastic
containers would be offered at no additional charge – without having to put these
items in the special Acton bags. Donations of clothing and deposit plastic beverage
containers to charities, such as Community Supper, would continue.
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- Doesn't it take a lot of time and money and hassle for the town to deal with the bags?
- No. Acton can work with a state-approved bag vendor. State approval means the town can
proceed quickly and easily, without requiring multiple bids. The vendor delivers the bags
to local retail stores that want the extra traffic. Some of the money from the bag
sales goes to the bag vendor, and the rest goes to the town or the curbside provider. The
bag vendor takes care of all the logistics of manufacturing and delivering the bags to
stores. Households can buy the extra bags whenever it is convenient for them. The town
spends no extra time or money in managing the bag purchase and distribution.
- What's the financial benefit to households?
- Households now have control of their disposal costs, instead of being forced to
subsidize households that choose to throw out nore than they do. Households can adjust
their trash disposal costs simply by creating less waste: by choosing purchasing
options that use less packaging, and by reusing, recycling or composting what they might
otherwise throw out
.
- Will I pay less with PAYT or with a fixed-price system?
- That depends on how much trash you throw out. In the first year, a typical household
reducing their trash by 20% to a bit under one and a half bags per week will pay the same
as they would pay under the proposed fixed sticker fee. Senior households throwing
away an average of one 16-gallon bag per week will pay the same under PAYT as in a
fixed-sticker system. PAYT users in other towns have gotten better over time at recycling
more, putting more trash in each bag, composting and reusing more, buying stuf with less
packaging, and so on.
- What's the financial benefit to the town?
- A PAYT system reduces trash volume, and thus trash disposal costs. Two-thirds of the
cost of running the transfer station is the trash disposal cost. PAYT also increases
recycling rates, which will be a net benefit to the town financially, especially as
markets for recyclables for many years to come. In a well-designed PAYT system, there are
few extra administrative costs for the town to compete with these savings.
- How come the town saves money right away with PAYT, but the average household pays the
same?
- The company that handles the printing and distribution of the bags takes some money for
each bag. That ends up costing residents a fair amount each year. If the residents choose
to continue Pay As You Throw, the town will look in to whether it can save additional
money by taking care of printing, distribution and accounting on its own. That would also
allow for a wider variety of bag sizes.
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- Is it fair that I should have to pay so much for my trash?
- Trash disposal *is* expensive, and costs are rising. That's hard for everyone. Pay As
You Throw distributes the costs in proportion to how much trash you produce. Under the
current fixed-fee system, anyone throwing out less trash is subsidizing households that
pay more - and that definitely isn't fair. A Pay As You Throw system provides a reward
people for finding ways in which they might throw out less.
- Has this been done before?
- There are more than six *thousand* communities in the United States now using PAYT
systems. They work well, and they are spreading fast. Concord uses one. Maynard uses one.
Boxborough is proposing to use one. 101 Massachusetts communities use PAYT. We can learn
from other communities what varieties of PAYT systems could work well for Acton, and which
wouldn't. The Massachusetts DEP and the US EPA has a lot of research on how different
systems have worked.
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- Won't this encourage illegal dumping?
- The Mass Department of Environmental Protection found that studies of communities in
Massachusetts and around the nation with PAYT programs show that increased illegal dumping
is NOT a problem in most communities. The US EPA recommends making sure that there are
appropriate local laws against illegal dumping, that there is some publicity about the
penalties, and that there be some stepped up enforcement in the early months after the
PAYT program begins.
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- What's the environmental benefit?
- Experience has shown that total trash volumes drop quickly, significantly, and
sustainably with PAYT systems. That means less environmental damage caused by trash
disposal, trash collection, and the production of goods in the first place. Households
react to PAYT by using less packaging, reusing grocery bags, and composting and recycling
more. More recycling reduces the need for "virgin" resources extracted
from
forests, oil reserves and mines, so we use less energy, reduce emissions of
greenhouse gases and other air and water pollutants, and conserve natural
resources. More on environmental benefits at: http://www.nerc.org/fsheets/ma-factsht.html
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- Less stuff being produced and disposed of reduces greenhouse gas emissions, which helps
slow down climate change, which is why the Acton Climate Action team supports a Pay as You
Throw system for Acton.
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- How are bigger items handled that don't fit in bags?
- Most of these items already are handled in the current system, and will continue to be
handled the same way - large metal items will be recycled, appliances, frniture, and many
large items already have special charges associated with them, construction debris is not
allowed, and so on. The transfer station may need to adjust or expand their charges a bit
- this is what other towns have done. Also, the town is discusing allowing some items that
would fit in a bag if broken down, to be disposed of by attaching a PAYT bag to the item.
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- Do we have enough information to proceed with a trial on October 1st? Shouls we wait?
- The main unknown that is specific to Acton is our exact residential trash volume. (This
has been obscured by the brokerage program) Since
the PAYT program includes an income stream from the bag sales in proportion to trash
volume, it is a safer way to deal with this particular unknown than a fixed-sticker
system.
The other unknowns are not specific to Acton & can be resolved by taking advantage of
the extensive experience and research done on other towns that have already used PAYT.
For example, the town has had to estimate the average weight per bag. There are a number
of references that provide estimates generally from 20-30 pounds per bag. The Town staff
has chosen a number for bag-costing purposes -- 35 pounds per 33 gallon bag -- that
includes plenty of safety margin.
More info:
US EPA has a huge web site on Pay As You Throw
http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/payt/intro.htm
State DEP has PAYT info, focused on the practical benefits and logistics of
setting up PAYT systems:
http://www.mass.gov/dep/recycle/files/paytfact.htm
Here's a list of MA towns using PAYT, with conatct names and numbers:
http://www.mass.gov/dep/recycle/files/paytlist.pdf
The 'Reason Foundation' has an extensive independent study of Pay As You Throw:
http://www.rppi.org/ps295.html
Acton 'Life After NESWC' info is here:
http://www.acton-ma.gov/boards/Life_After_NESWC_Committee/default.asp?id=205
- Brought to you by the Acton Climate Action Team (ACAT), committed to reducing
Acton's contribution to global climate change. This page is http://www.actonclimate.org/payt.html.
More about ACAT is at http://www.actonclimate.org
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