Trash pg 1 9-5-24

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Category: Current Issue

Trash: No payment;no pickup
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
PUTNAM — Some residents noticed the next phase of the town’s new Casella trash program. Yes, the town is serious: If you don’t pay the trash collection fee on time, trash pickup stops.
As promised, by mid-August those who had not pay the first half of the trash collection bill saw their trash hang out at the end of the driveway, untouched.
The bills for trash collection went out with the town’s tax bills. The charge for a 95-gallon cart (bin) for a year is $395. The charge for a 65-gallon cart is $350 a year. Both programs include the required 95-gallon recycling carts.
The trash bills went out to about 2,400 property owners. Like a property tax bill, payment is split in half, with the first half to be postmarked by Aug. 1. The second half is due at the end of January 2025.
As promised, said Town Administrator Elaine Sistare, the town gave Casella a list of those who had not paid their trash collection bills. And then those carts were not emptied.
On Aug. 26 the list included 100 to 200 names of those who had not paid. “Don’t pick up trash from these sites. When folks noticed their trash wasn’t being picked up, the payments rolled in. “We were getting a couple dozen each day — 100 or so payments in the last four or five days,” she said last week.
Some who were on the “not paid” list had actually paid. Another glitch was those whose tax bills are paid by a mortgage company, from escrow. Sometimes the trash bill just wasn’t noticed in the tax bill envelope. The town may consider making it a different color. The list is being double checked with Casella’s list and corrected.
Sistare said she is pretty pleased that 100-plus property owners or more have paid in the last few days.
The town will ask Casella, probably in mid-September, to pick up the carts of those who still have not paid.
She added that she’s confident “we’re on target as far as revenue from this.” The goal is for the (user-paid) system to be self-sustaining. The selectmen’s goal is for this to be self-sustaining,” she said.
At the beginning of the program the town ordered 500 65-gallon carts, figuring that would cover the number of residents who would opt out of the 95-gallon carts. But more than 500 residents opted for the 65-gallon carts. Those who did not get one were put on a waiting list.
Sistare said in mid-October or into part of November, when the first round is settled out, “65-gallon bins can go to those on the wait list. We need to see how many (65-gallon carts) come back,” she said. If a resident swaps out for a 65-gallon cart, when they come into the Town Hall in January to pay the second half, the bill will be adjusted.
Blight Officer Russell Downer, this fall, will continue watching for trash problems. Sistare said if trash bags are overflowing out of the bin and it’s still there two or three weeks later that will be dealt with. “I haven’t seen any blowing trash,” she said.
Bulky waste is another matter. When the new program started in earnest July 1, bulky waste was no longer collected. Sistare has seen several instances of couches or chairs on the curb. “I will say that nine out of 10 times, when they get a letter from the blight officer, they respond to the letter,” she said. “The goal is compliance, not revenue,” she added.

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