Harvard is about to get SMART. The Select Board voted at its Dec. 18 meeting to approve the Transfer Station Committee’s recommendations to switch resident trash disposal to the Save Money and Reduce Trash (SMART) program starting July 1, 2019, and continuing for at least two years.
Under the SMART program, annual Transfer Station stickers will be priced at $80, and users will need to purchase proprietary trash bags at a cost of $1 for a small (15-gallon) bag or $2 for a large (33-gallon) bag. Seniors (65 or older by July 1) will receive either 30 small bags or 15 large bags for free with their sticker purchase. The proprietary bags will have a special color as well as the town logo so that Transfer Station attendants can easily spot rogue bags.
Bags will be available for purchase at a variety of locations in Harvard and some of the surrounding towns. The only business the Transfer Station Committee has spoken to so far is Moore Lumber & Hardware Co. in Ayer, which agreed to sell the bags, but the committee has a list of about 10 other possible vendors, including the General Store.
An annual Transfer Station sticker currently costs $250. Under the SMART plan, that amount would buy a sticker ($80) plus one large and one small bag per week or three small bags per week, with a bit of money left over. The senior discounted sticker, currently $35, will go away. Everyone will pay $80 per year for a sticker. Transfer Station Committee Chair Tom Philippou told the board that he believes the free bags seniors will receive will carry them through “most of the year,” and if the program is financially successful enough, the board could consider providing more free bags to seniors in future years.
The financial model for Harvard’s SMART program uses revenue from sticker purchases to cover the cost of operating the Transfer Station as well as recyclable disposal, and revenue from bag sales to pay for solid waste (unrecycled trash) disposal. Philippou said this is a more equitable model because users who throw more trash into the trash compactor will be directly paying for its disposal through bag purchases.
The primary goal of the program is to reduce the amount of municipal solid waste generated by the town, currently about 1100 tons per year, and the hope is that the town’s waste disposal costs will also go down. Irene Congdon, a consultant with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), assisted the committee with preparing the financial model, which was used to set the initial sticker and bag prices. Congdon, who has helped many of Harvard’s neighboring towns convert to SMART, said that many of those towns have seen a 50 percent reduction in solid waste since switching to the program, but urged the committee to use a more conservative reduction of 30 percent to calculate how much lower disposal costs would be.
Disposal, recyling costs linked
But much of what doesn’t go into the trash compactor will go into the recycling bins instead, and how much total disposal costs will change depends on which of those bins see more use. Committee member Libby Levison told the board that the recycling market is currently “really low,” especially for commingled plastic and cans. According to Department of Public Works Director Tim Kilhart, disposal costs are currently $80 a ton for solid waste, $72 a ton for commingled plastic and cans, and $35 a ton for glass. Paper disposal is free.
Because of the volatility in the recyclable market, Select Board member Alice von Loesecke said a 30 percent reduction in solid waste may or may not result in the reduction of disposal costs overall, so sticker prices may need to be adjusted after the first year. She asked Philippou and Levison if they were going into this “with their eyes wide open.” Levison assured her they were but added that other countries are starting to accept recycled materials, so there is hope that the recycling market may rebound. Von Loesecke cautioned that she had seen reports of some of those countries dumping recycled plastic into the ocean. “We have no control over that,” she said, but noted that it should be a concern.
The town has received grants from the DEP to cover the initial purchase of bags as well as for educating residents on how the program will work. The committee plans to send out a mailing to every resident and hold public information sessions in the spring. More information about the SMART program is available on the Transfer Station Committee webpage at harvard.ma.us/transfer-station-committee. Committee members told the board that they welcome questions or comments from residents; email addresses of those members are available by clicking on member names on the Transfer Station Committee webpage.
