Council tosses 'pay as you throw' pitch

SMITHFIELD - Reacting as it might to a ticking briefcase, the Town Council last week stayed warily distant from a proposal to make residents pay extra for yard waste pickup.

The plan, floated by Recycling Coordinator Gina Barbeau, would require residents to set out yard waste in special bags that would cost them 90 cents each, with the income going to offset rising municipal costs for the now-free pickup service.

Barbeau said the Central Landfill in Johnston is limiting the amount of yard waste the towns can dump there for free, and that this year, overage charges to Smithfield will total $14,500.

She told the council that a "pay as you throw" plan would make up such shortfalls without the need to raise taxes, and would be fair because each household would pay according to how much lawn and yard waste it generates.

She said the proposal could include one spring and one fall event where residents could drop off limited amounts of yard waste free at the town highway garage.

While praising Barbeau for creative thinking and a detailed presentation, the council begged off any immediate action, tabling the idea. The council's thoughts were focused on last year, when it was flooded with phone calls and e-mails after simply permitting a reduction - later rescinded - in the number of yard waste pickups.

"You would have thought that we murdered somebody," said Councilman Stephen Archambault.¬ ¬ ¬ ¬ 

Archambault and others on the council, while not summarily rejecting Barbeau's idea, reacted as though she had tossed them a set mousetrap.

Archambault said that in an economy "where people have had to change their lifestyles just to survive," adding another expense would surely cause discontent. He described the council's role in such a situation as one of setting public policy - deciding what services local government owes its citizens.

He said there are ways of budgeting for the increased costs of the program short of raising taxes.

Council President Ronald Manni added that Barbeau's idea, which she said is used in only two other communities in the nation, would require "a lot of study."

Barbeau said that for the coming year, after the town dumps the 539 tons of yard waste it is allotted for free at the landfill, it will switch dump sites to the private Smithfield Peat Co., which will charge $19.50 a ton. She said that will save $5.50 a ton over continuing to use the landfill once the free dumping cap is exceeded.

Barbeau said that under her plan, the 30-gallon paper bags, similar to commercial yard waste bags but imprinted with the town seal, would cost the town 46 cents each, and that the town would pay an additional 33 cents a bag for disposal at Smithfield Peat. A management firm called WasteZero would charge 7 cents each to supply bags to local retail stores, bringing the total to 86 cents a bag.

She suggested allowing the retailers to make 4 cents a bag, which would bring the total cost to the consumer to 90 cents. She said commercial trash bags cost about 50 cents each.

Barbeau said residents could put out an unlimited number of bags, while under the current no-charge system they are limited to eight bags.

A spokesman for the WasteZero firm said that while only a few other communities use the suggested system for yard waste, many more have similar systems for other kinds of trash and find that it works well.

He told the council, "Once you get by that 15 to 30 days of phone calls, the rest of the year is going to go very smoothly."

The council set no specific date for further discussion on the issue.