WESTFIELD – The City Council voted last night to approve a resolution authorizing the executive branch to enter into a five-year lease-to-own agreement for 13,000 trash containers needed to initiate a single-stream recycling program in the city.
The single-stream recycling program is doing away with the bins used to collect paper products in one bin and glass and metal items in a second bin. The bins will be replaced with residents’ current 96-gallon containers which, under the single-stream program, will be used to collect all recyclable materials.
The proposed lease-to-own contract is to acquire new, smaller 64-gallon containers for collection of residents’ solid waste trash at an annual cost of $116,899 over the life of the five-year contract.
The program is intended to reduce the volume of solid trash being collected by a third, a substantial cost avoidance, and to increase the volume of recyclable materials being sent to the Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) located on Birnie Avenue in Springfield. The MRF recycles materials from 78 communities in the four western counties of the state.
Mayor Daniel M. Knapik sent the resolution seeking authorization to enter a five-year, lease-to-own agreement with Municipal Capital Markets Group, Inc. to the City Council at its Aug. 21 session. The City Council is required to approve leases of more than three years as part of its financial oversight.
The 11-1 vote approving the resolution followed the recommendation of the council’s Legislative & Ordinance Committee which discussed the recycling program Wednesday night.
At-large Councilor Brian Sullivan, L&O chairman, said last night that as a result of that Wednesday discussion “the committee decided not to hold up the single-stream recycling program.”
“But there is some concern about the city’s fleet of trash and recycling trucks,” Sullivan said. “(New) trucks will be needed anyway whether we go to single-stream or not.”
Sullivan said the L&O had requested Dave Billips, acting Department of Public Works director to prepare a plan to upgrade the fleet of trash and recycling trucks.
“We requested Dave to get us the financial numbers on how we‘re going to pay for those new trucks,” Sullivan said.
Wednesday night Billips said the two issues are separate and that even if the City Council does not approve the single-stream lease agreement, the city will still have to replace the aging fleet of trucks equipped with an articulated lift arm needed to lift the trash and recycling barrels.
“The (present 2003 model) trucks have reached the end of their life cycle,” Billips said. “The bodies are rusting out. Even without the single-stream plan, we’d have to get new trucks anyway.”
“We are developing a capital plan,” Billips said. “We can rent a couple of trucks until we get to the point where we can lease-to-buy. These are completely separate issues. If you do or don’t go single-stream, we’ll still be back here in a couple of weeks for money to replace the trucks.”
At-large Councilor Cindy Harris, who cast the dissenting vote last night, said she had several concerns about the adequacy of the proposed single-stream recycling program.
“I have a couple of questions,” Harris said. “Single-stream is a great program, but I will vote ‘no’ on this. People are upset because this program is replacing the larger trash containers with smaller ones.”
At-large Councilor James R. Adams said that he too shared Harris’ concern and had asked Billips and Casey Berube to clarify the policy.
“I asked if trash will be picked up if it’s not in the (65-gallon) barrel and if people will be able to purchase an extra barrel,” Adams said. “They said these are some of the things they will consider.”
At-large Councilor Dan Allie said he knows of larger families, who recycle, but “are still filling the larger (96-gallon) containers. I think we are making a mistake going to the smaller barrels.”
At-large Councilor David A. Flaherty said the program makes him “a little nervous” because of the cost of shipping a greater volume of recyclable materials to Springfield.
“We’ll be paying someone to drive to Springfield instead of to Twiss Street,” Flaherty said.
Ward 6 Councilor Christopher Crean said the concept of single-stream is to reduce the volume of solid waste the city has to pay to ship to a landfill or incinerator.
“We’re going to single-stream to encourage people to recycle more,” Crean said. “And they will be allowed to recycle more types of materials. Other communities have done it very successfully and profitably.”
Ward 2 Councilor Ralph Figy said “this will take some adjustment by residents, but it’s something we’ll work on.”
Ward 5 Councilor Robert Paul Sr., said “I have not heard any complaints, but I have heard a lot of support” for the single-stream recycling program.
