Hello my fellow citizens! This is another thread to talk about the new Pay As You Throw system of trash disposal. The intention here is practical; what are your strategies for coping with this transition? Composting and Recycling are key, this is a given. So what’s your plan? We signed up early on for curbside compost collection. It is awesome. For a family of four, weekly pickup of recycling and compost has reduced our trash accumulation to 2 to 3 price chopper plastic bag’s worth. It’s kind of amazing,actually.
First, we bought a composting container from the town. I don’t remember the cost, but it wasn’t much. We line our container with a paper bag from the grocery store, which is compostable, and prevents our bin from being a royal mess. I highly recommend a bag of some sort for your container. As far as trash goes, we line a tiny, 2 gallon trash bin with a plastic bag. Finally, we recycle anything and everything we possibly can. The end result is that we don’t have a lot of trash for weekly pickup. It’s kind of fun if you think of it like some sort of game or challenge, although I admit that it was annoying at first to deal with three containers of waste-but we soon enough got used to it. It is now routine.
adjustments
We’ve been composting since for years with an indoor composter. We put paper in one bin, and cans, bottles and plastic in another and do full recycling.
The new addition to the mix will be a container for composting the stuff the indoor composter won’t take, so we’re basically planning on adding a single (smelly) container we hope won’t be thrown around or damaged during pickup.
This will require a change of habit to put things into the 2nd compost container that used to go into the trash, so my main goal is to make an easy to read list of what can be composted. I find the materials sent out to be un-useful for this purpose, and will make my own that are more clear and simple.
This will also require the purchase of an extra bin and lid for compost.
I anticipate needing to shave about $160 -$180 from our other items in the yearly budget to pay for this new expense. For me, this will mostly come from avoiding parking downtown as much as possible and stopping donations to local groups when I have a few extra dollars.
Not that hard to do, but there are likely consequences as money is diverted to pay for bags rather than other local things.
Buying individual bags must be done during work hours, so this will take some time away from work, too.
indoor composting ideas
You are right about the smelly indoor compost, Chris. We keep a separate container in the refrigerator for especially smelly items: bones, meat scraps, egg shells, grease, etc. Yes, it is another container taking up space, but it does help mitigate the stench.
I could be easier..
Maybe someday (and I hope soon) Brattleboro can welcome the “single stream” for recycling. One container brought curbside instead of two. I think Hinsdale begins single stream this August.
I see no reason, since the stores are not profiting on the sale of the bags, why they can’t also offer a single bag purchase. This seems to be one demand (complaint) that would be the easiest to resolve! Question; are these bags also going to be subject to sales tax; does anyone know?
While is wonderful to read the success stories people have offered on the results they’ve been realizing in their efforts to comply with the mandatory, or participate in matters of trash, compost and recycling, it’s clearly also going to be a big problem for some. I am hoping that once PAYT is in full force that it will not end there!! I feel there needs to be some tweaking for the benefit of those who have clearly stated the difficulty they believe they’ll have. I have some faith that this will happen.
Most everyone in town is doing what they can to recycle or reuse and I feel as a whole, people are very mindful. While PAYT is an incentive to reduce what we send to the landfill, there will still be a need for landfill use and for those who cannot afford the cost of the bags, something needs to be put in place (and right away!) to give or reduce the cost of at least two bags per month. I use “two bags” for example because I’m noticing it’s more of a hardship for those living in single households on fixed incomes. Giving something to those households shouldn’t end up such a horrible burden on the town and it’s clear that at least in this forum, those who are feeling the cost effect have already established habits of recycling. (no worry they’ll “abuse” the free bag theory)
I gave up the compost idea because I found a real problem with maggots for much of the summer. I’ve rethought that and decided that I’ll utilize curbside again but I’ll be more selective as to what things ‘ll include to try and solve that issue at least in the summer months. I don’t see why the smaller households would need to use even the smallest containers curbside.. they’re too big for most of the apartments in town, and a single person would not fill one weekly; (in my household, we didn’t fill one with three people) even if we all had the needed space, in matters of organic material, it’s not a good idea to wait for the container to fill before sending it to the curb. For those with space issues, I think there’s probably room to improve this process, too. I’m not hot on complaints that getting it all out to the curb is a hardship any greater than what we’ve all been doing so far.. we’ve got recycling bins and at least one bag of trash to put curbside; the additional trip would be for the compostable materials, I assume.
I think Landlords should be asked to give assistance to the tenants from which they profit. The town could solve that by making an ordinance and I would hope they do it because what I also notice is that those who are finding it the greatest hardship are also supporting a landlord.
I don’t like having to spend more.. the cost of everything rising faster than most of us can keep up, but at least I have the benefit of having space and my own yard for composting and don’t face the difficulty of having to use a walker, cane or wheelchair. The town really needs to listen up, and take space issues seriously, too. Smaller bins? Take a tour of many apartments in town and it’s clear there’s as little space as possible. Storage facilities are growing in response to the shrinking apartment. many of them don’t even have closets!
The weight alone of diapers (adult or child) I also agree is going to be problematic for some people. I’m hoping the town can find a way to address that.. “diaper bags”? where either the weight limits are lifted or the cost is reduced? .. otherwise we might find out sewer lines plugged with them if cost is going to be an issue and that’s got to be something the town would hope to avoid.
practical ideas
Good ideas all around. We don’t eat very much meat but we put all meat scraps in a cardboard (juice or milk) container in the freezer. Then they go out frozen with the compostables. We do not cover our compost container. It sits under the sink and does not smell with only vegetable waste in it. Covering a compost container encourages anaerobic decomposition (smelly) while keeping it open to the air encourages aerobic (not smelly) decomposition.
True, the sorting and different containers can be daunting, but the overall amount of waste being taken to the curb is the same. Regarding the size of compost containers, they can be be any size you wish as long as they are clearly marked. There is no need to have that big rolling green thing unless that matches your output of compostable materials. We use a plastic storage container that cost us nothing marked COMPOST.
I was not aware of ‘weight limits’ on what goes in PAYT bags. Is this true? What are the weight limits?
How about a group visit to the Selectboard regarding the selling of individual bags? Since there is no reduced rate for buying five at a time why not require outlets to sell as few as one at a time?
Andy
I believe the weight limit
I believe the weight limit for the large bags is 30 lbs and the total weight of the filled trash barrel is not to exceed 40 lbs. Not sure who is actually going to weigh their trash- seems a little silly since right now there is no weight maximum on trash barrels. This weight info was in the PAYT mailing.
PAYT GUIDE
PAYT GUIDE
http://www.brattleboro.org/vertical/Sites/%7BFABA8FB3-EBD9-4E2C-91F9-C74DE6CECDFD%7D/uploads/Trash_Guide_–_Town_website.b_4.2.2015_(2).pdf
PITA
I will be doing absolutely nothing different except instead of having the nearly 3% property tax rate cover garbage pickup, I will now be paying the same nearly 3% property tax rate without garbage pickup.
I intend to use a bunch of large plastic garbage pails to store a month’s worth of trash outside. When the pails fill up I will take the bags out and then throw the bags into my pickup truck and drive over to the transfer station and pay my $10 (on top of wasting my time).
I’ve offered to my neighbors who are similarly fed up about the idiotic one-size fits a few implementation of this nonsense to swing by and they can toss in what they like onto the truck as well.
I’ll probably grab one package of PAYT bags just in case we need to get rid of something stinky on the quick. But otherwise I intend to circumvent this program until such time that we can use tags or stickers on our own damned bags and if a larger size is available once the preachy clowns realize not everyone lives exactly like they do and there needs to be options for people who need more than a kitchen sized bag but less than a dumpster.
A smelly tip
I can pass along one composting tip we’ve learned from having our indoor composter for the last few years. We add a bit of wood pellets (i.e., sawdust) and baking soda to help control odors.
For the town compost, the pellets wouldn’t work, since there’s no machine to heat and rotate the compost for you. Instead, sawdust or shavings for hamsters might work. Toss a handful over the composting material if it gets unruly.
Dried leaves might be another option (someone could collect leaves and sell them for this purpose..)
Using both Home Compost and Town Compost
I throw most of my vegetable-matter food waste into my own home compost, and I take my other food scraps, paper products, and kitty litter to the Project Cow bin on Ferry Road. Cuts me down to average of one small bag of real “trash” per week, which seems to mostly consist of food packaging I couldn’t totally avoid at the store.
On a related note, it’s nice to see more restaurants (Top of the Hill Grill, for example) using biodegradable take-out containers.