This new system would save money in a couple of different ways. One was to reduce the personnel on each truck since one person could do the pickups versus two or three under the old system. The other way would be to reduce the amount of tonnage going to the incinerator by increasing the amount of recycling.
This proposal was introduced in conjunction with a new contract that the town was signing with NESWIC. This was a compact of communities that had been put together in the early eighties to construct the incinerator up in North Andover. At the end of that contract the tipping fee the town was charged for each ton of trash was $140 per ton.
With the contract expiration the town was now free to negotiate with any incinerator or land fill and the result was the fee dropped substantially to around $73 dollars per ton. Since the town disposes of nearly nine thousand tons a year you can see that the savings were significant.
The new automated pick up system was implemented this past July and so far the program has lived up to its billing. Knowing that the tax payer would be moving out of their comfort zone with a new system, the town and DPW leadership took great pains to reach out to every homeowner with a variety of different education programs. Mailings were sent, demonstrations were set up at various town events, local cable news and other programming was used to tout the benefits of the new system.
When the kick off date came around on July 1, I took a long ride around town to sample the results and found that the participation was remarkable. Every where I went I saw the blue containers standing on the side of the road in proper position like toy soldiers at attention.
So how has the first quarter gone? According to DPW Superintendent John Sanchez just about as advertised. Year over year the numbers look like this. Last year for this quarter we had approximately 1905 tons of trash, and recycled 280 tons of paper and 115 tons of mixed plastic and glass. This quarter we have 1575 in trash, 350 tons in paper and a whopping 170 tons of glass and plastic. The net result is that in a short time we have increased our recycling rate from about 17% to nearly 32% on an annualized basis.
As time goes by and a little more effort that rate can still be increased substantially. Town management is right on with this issue, in good times or bad it simply makes no sense to throw money in the trash.
