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As Trash Grows, Places to Put It Don’t

All Connecticut towns have a trash problem: People continue to generate trash, but many of the nearby places to put it have closed or soon will, and the state’s waste-to-energy plants are at the end of their useful lives. While a longterm solution to the shortage of disposal options awaits, some towns are taking more direct approach to address rising disposal costs by reducing the amount of trash generated.

In Old Saybrook, the Board of Selectmen (BOS) is starting to explore options for coping with the coming trash crisis. Last month the board heard a presentation on the Save Money And Reduce Trash (SMART) plan. Other Connecticut and Massachusetts towns that embraced this approach saw their transfer station’s trash volume cut almost in half, but because the plan requires a change in residents’ behaviors, successful plan implementation also requires education and general acceptance of a new approach to household trash disposal.

With the SMART model, instead of residents buying their own commercial garbage bags, only SMART bags would be accepted for disposal at the transfer station. The SMART bags would be available for sale at the same stores that currently sell commercial garbage bags.

The BOS would set the price for the special SMART garbage bags. Large ones would cost more than medium or small bags. In one pricing model, a 13-gallon tall kitchen bag might cost 60 cents while a large 33 gallon bag, $1.10.

“This program is really awesome. Every town that uses it cuts their trash in half,” consultant Kristen Brown of WasteZero-SMART Trash told the BOS. “When a resident buys a [SMART] bag, they pay for the bag plus the estimated trash weight for disposal. [A SMART Trash Program] shifts a little bit of the cost of the transfer station to the user.”

Brown is a consultant working with the Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection in support of towns that choose to adopt the SMART trash program.

If the Town of Old Saybrook were to implement a SMART bag program, the BOS would apply it only to those residents who currently take their trash to the transfer station for disposal, but currently pay no fee for the privilege. The cost of the SMART bags, which includes the cost of the bag and the disposal cost for the trash that fills it, would be a new user fee for those residents.

Households that don’t dispose of their trash at the town transfer station—for example, those that rely on commercial trash haulers—would not face the additional fee. Revenue generated from SMART bag sales could help offset town costs of transfer station operation and trash disposal.

Brown said that 15 to 20 percent of the state’s trash is actually shipped out of state for disposal. With the number of landfills shrinking and the state’s waste-to-energy plants at the end of their life, trash disposal costs will continue to rise.

In Old Saybrook, residents currently are not charged to dispose of their trash at the transfer station.

“If we wanted to move this forward, we would have to pass an ordinance,” said First Selectman Carl Fortuna, Jr., at the July 10 meeting.

Before an ordinance could be adopted, draft language would need to be reviewed an approved by the BOS and a Town Meeting called to act on it.

Brown suggested that if the town decided to try the program, that it start as a pilot program. She also encouraged the selectmen to have a couple of public meetings to present and explain it.

The BOS took no action on the SMART plan proposal at the July meeting.