Garbage has been a hot topic in town for the better part of a month now.
More specifically, the talk has centred on the cost of the tags that get affixed to garbage bags before they get tossed onto a truck. Those discussions culminated in town council passing a motion to raise the cost of bag tags to $4 and baking that price into the yearly tax bill.
Absent an official poll, the very least we can say is anecdotally council’s decision wasn’t a popular one. Between letters to the editor, online chatter and in-person deputations, the overwhelming consensus on those who have spoken about the matter is residents are opposed to it. Granted, anything that raises taxes is going to be met with opposition-no one is ever going to happily pay more taxes. No matter how this gets sliced, residents are now paying $4 for the exact same service that just last month cost $3-and it’s the second such increase in the last five years.
To his credit, mayor Terry Richardson did a great job outlining the reasons behind council’s decision. He raised a valid point that many may have overlooked in that the price of bag tags does more than cover the cost of picking up a bag at the end of a driveway. Whether a truck picks up 20 bags or 200 bags, drivers still have to perform their weekly routes. At the very least, his explanation touches on the ‘why’ of their decision. That doesn’t mean everyone has to agree with it-and there’s little chance of that happening anyway.
Those opposed make very strong points as well. One of the original main reasons behind introducing bag tags was to encourage residents to think twice about what they stuff into a garbage bag. Anything placed into a clear recycle bag or blue bin is picked up free of charge (though as Richardson noted this service isn’t actually ‘free’, they still have to pay the drivers to collect it). Meanwhile if residents have to pay to place a sticker on every bag of garbage they place at the curb, they’ll be more likely to recycle as much as possible. Go green, save some green. This new program all but squashes any incentive to do that. If paying for bag tags is no longer voluntary, there’s no financial benefit to reducing waste. There is of course the very noble reason of doing what’s best for the environment, so hopefully anyone already doing this will continue to do so. There is definitely some irony to the fact this decision was made just three days after Earth Day.
Like any municipal decision there really is no perfect solution here. No cure-all that would make every resident satisfied while keeping costs the same. The fact the town’s Waste Diversion Committee wasn’t consulted, as pointed out by councillor Bill Martin, is surprising. Whether it would have resulted in another outcome is hard to say. It is however one valuable resource that could have brought a new idea to the table.
-Adam Prudhomme