Board of Health Decries Delay on Waste Hauler Reform: Asks for Progress Report
Photos: courtesy of City of Minneapolis and the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio.
The Board of Health sent a letter to Town Manager Paul Bockelman and the Town Council on August 25, asking for a progress report on the Waste Hauler reform that had been unanimously endorsed by the board in January of 2022. The proposal called for a town contracted waste hauler and curbside compost pick-up. Subsequently, in August 2022, Town Councilors Shalini Bahl-Milne, Ellisha Walker, Jennifer Taub, and Andy Steinberg joined with Zero Waste Amherst to sponsor a town bylaw. That bylaw was referred to the Town Services and Outreach committee, where it has continued to languish. Funding for a consultant was approved by the Town Council in November 2024.
At the September 4 Board of Health meeting, Public Health Director Kiko Malin said that she met with Bockelman who admitted that the Waste Hauler reform had “dropped off his priority list, and that’s not acceptable.” He continued, “I’ve picked it up again and I’m talking to these [two] consltants.” Malin told the board members, “I’m going to keep reminding him about this.”
The Board of Health’s letter states:
Dear Town Manager Bockelman and Town Council,
At the August 7, 2025 Board of Health meeting, members of the board unanimously voted to urge the Town Manager and Town Council to move the waste hauler proposal forward. We request especially that the Town Manager promptly hire a consultant to write a Request for Proposals. That request of the Town Manager was unanimously approved (August, 2024) and funded (November, 2024) by the Town Council.
Since January 2022, the Board of Health has supported the transition of Amherst’s waste hauler system to a town-contracted system with a proportional pay-as-you-throw fee structure including curbside compost pick up. In January 2022, it unanimously passed a motion to support it and asked for “input from the Town Council and the Town manager for action on the Zero Waste Amherst’s proposal- to move the proposal forward.” In June of 2022, the Board asked the town again for a progress report on the proposal. By August 2022, a town bylaw had been proposed by council sponsors Shalini Bahl-Milne, Ellisha Walker, Jennifer Taub, and Andy Steinberg, with Zero Waste Amherst as a community sponsor. The proposed bylaw was referred to a council standing committee, the Town Services and Outreach committee, where it remains without any movement forward.
The Board asked for a progress report again in May of 2023. We find the delay in moving this proposal forward inconsistent with public health goals.
We are very concerned that nothing has been done in the last 9 months, since the Council funded the hiring of a consultant. If there has been difficulty securing a consultant as we have been told, we ask that the process be transparent and that the Town Manager explore all recommended avenues to secure a consultant. Some of our members have had ideas for consultant referrals which we will forward to the Manager if appropriate.
The Board believes that the implementation of the proposal would significantly address climate change related issues, reduce waste in Amherst and lower refuse collection costs for town residents. In addition, it would reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and pollution in adjacent climate justice communities (defined as an area where residents, often low-income or people of color, experience a disproportionate burden of environmental hazards and have limited access to resources and decision-making power regarding their environment). Both of these are major public health goals. Every day, Amherst residents send at least twice as much trash to landfills and incinerators as we would under this proposal.
We invite you to attend a Board of Health meeting to give us an in person update at your earliest convenience.
I had a bear on my porch last night, here in downtown. Having thousands of tasty treat snack size composting bins out on the street every week might make the bear problem much worse.
Food waste is already prohibited from disposal in landfills. My waste hauler has active recycling and food waste diversion programs. Creating a local bureaucracy with compost inspectors poking around does not sound efficient to me. It does sound intrusive and wasteful.
Joe, I’m looking forward to convincing you on this! Most people dispose of their food waste with their trash. That is just as tasty as in a compost bin.
I’m guessing your waste hauler is USA Waste and Recycling. It offers compost pick up but doesn’t advertise it so very few are signed up and they charge an additional $15/month for the service. Opt in programs just attract the do gooders and don’t make that much impact.
Massachusetts is simply behind other states in waste reduction. By contracting with a hauler, we could require a pay as you throw system, automatically incentivizing waste reduction by up to 40%, then we could reduce by ANOTHER 40% by removing the compostable materials. Yes, other municipalities have goals of reducing waste by 75% or 80% and are making good progress. USA does virtually nothing to reduce waste in these ways. Here’s an example of ZWA’s model municipality and its fees via Republic Services. https://www.republicservices.com/municipality/louisville-co/rates
My personal preference would be for the town to provide all of our waste services, or to provide them regionally but this option would also provide very deep waste reduction.
history on this goes back well over a dozen years (pre-city’s solid waste master plan, begun in ’14). We have the plan, we have the technology, we have no will. “Nero fiddles while the city burns” (literally in some areas of these lands).
Sand bags, more studies, delays, forgetfulness, other priorities… what will it take (and THS one piece is but a small measure in what’s needed – only for the 50% of the city or private homes, no?. Plastics not even mentioned).
Amherst claims to be environmentally friendly but its actions regarding waste and recycling reflect the opposite. The cost of an annual dump sticker is $135, and the sticker is only good from July to July. So if you purchase it in June for $135, you need to purchase a new one a month later. Surely there can be a way to make the sticker good for one year, regardless the month of purchase.
A lot of people would like to visit the dump occasionally to dispose of bulky items that do not belong in the trash. But $135 plus whatever the DPW charges for the specific items is pricey and a strong disincentive to do the right thing. There used to be a Take It or Leave It shed at the dump. Apparently it was maintained by a private citizen who is no longer able to do it. No one at the DPW feels like taking on that task, so that service no longer exists. Another strong disincentive to recycle one’s useable belongings responsibly. Now they’re likely to end up in the trash.
I participated in the annual hazardous waste disposal event yesterday at Wildwood School. It required preregistration and a fee of $20 (or more depending on the amount of materials to be disposed of). I was given a specific time to arrive. The slow-moving line at Wildwood School spilled out onto Strong St., creating a bit of a traffic nuisance. Several cars ahead of me pulled out of the line and turned around. It’s time-consuming and expensive to dispose of hazardous materials responsibly. So much easier to simply pour the nasty chemicals down the drain into the Town’s water supply.
Of course, the Town’s most egregious anti-environmental action was the demolition this week of the perfectly serviceable 30-year-old addition to the Jones Library. Thousands of tons of debris headed for a landfill somewhere…
There is a sizable number of town residents, like myself, who pay for both curbside pick up of trash by USA Waste and Recycling AND a transfer station sticker, so that we can dispose of hard to recycle materials like electronics, etc. I pay $550/yr for USA trash and recycling pick up, $135/yr for a transfer station sticker to dispose of hard to recycle materials and $360/yr for USA compost pick up, or $1045/yr. total. That’s with using a 32 gal trash container picked up every two weeks. I could use the transfer station and have all of that for $135/yr but I, along with 3200 other Amherst households, just don’t seem to have it together to do that. If the town had a contract with our hauler (or did it in house) and charged everyone a small fee for the transfer station services, all of us could have it all for much less. See the Zero Waste Amherst survey of TS and USA users done for the town. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Zosn1eqzRdz1quzzX6Bejy3vx0eJlTWs/edit? slide=id.g221aaa677ac_0_213#slide=id.g221aaa677ac_0_213. (The S. Hadley info is now outdated.)