PITTSFIELD— Before the city rolls brand-new trash and recycling toters up city driveways, officials will roll out an education campaign to help residents adjust to the change.
Websites, social media posts, brochures, public meetings, radio and television appearances, personal outreach through community organizations are all on their way, with the goal of teaching residents to save money by throwing out less and recycling more. The first round of toters are expected to be delivered to residences next month, with delivery through mid-November.
On Wednesday, workers from the city and Casella Waste Management were shooting video on location in the residential neighborhoods off Williams Street. The footage will be used in a social media campaign showing residents how the new collection system will work.
The standard-sized toters will allow Casella to collect trash with a mechanical arm, rather than having trash collectors gather bags and bins and dump them into the truck by hand.
“We recognize that the success of the program is really going to depend on the success of our educational campaign,” Mayor Peter Marchetti said in an interview with The Eagle on Friday. “So it's important that as we pledged to the [City] Council, we will be sure to provide all the information [to residents]."
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“It’s a ‘tell ‘em again, tell ‘em again, tell ‘em again' process,” he said.
Outreach could also include a table at First Fridays next month, at the city farmers market, and at informational sessions in English and Spanish, said city Public Works and Utilities Commissioner Ricardo Morales and Administrative Services Director Catherine VanBramer.
“It’s important to get everyone in the mindset for this change,” Morales said. “We’re having weekly meetings with Casella to see this through.”
City Administration Director Catherine VanBramer said a multilingual approach is part of the strategy. The first mailer is already on the city website in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese, along with instructions on how to install Casella's smartphone app. The city also hopes to work with neighborhood and community service organizations to get the word out, she said.
New habits take time— and there’s already an understanding that buy-in will not be universal or immediate. During a City Council hearing on the plan, Councilor Dina Lampiasi said she’s driven city streets on collection day and seen households without a single recycling bin at the curb.
Morales has already spoken with counterparts across the state who have previously taken this big step. Their message? Be patient: There will be a learning curve.
“Brace for impact,” Morales said he was told. “It’s going to come quickly. There will be a lot of work during the transition. And there will be issues. But as with a lot of things, they will be taken care of by the system. Ultimately, people adapt.”
After years of false starts, in June the City Council adopted a modified “pay as you throw” system with standard-sized trash and recycling containers on wheels— toters, as they’re better known— to encourage recycling and reduce the growing cost of collecting and hauling trash and recycling.
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In fiscal 2024, the city spent $5.1 million on its municipal solid waste and recycling program. According to Marchetti and Morales, the new contract would save Pittsfield taxpayers $80,000 a year.
If residents can increase what they recycle from 10 percent to 25 percent of the total materials collected, the city could save another half-million dollars annually, city officials told councilors and residents.
A pair of contracts with Casella— one for collection, another for hauling and operation of the transfer station on Hubbard Avenue— were signed in July. The company is paying for the toters, which will allow it to use automated collection trucks on city streets.
But it will take buy-in from residents to improve the city’s 9-to-1 ratio of trash to recycling and realize the savings that come with throwing out less and recycling more. The average city household throws out nearly a ton of household trash every year, more than any other county community. At $122 per ton to haul it away under the new contract, that adds up quickly.
In contrast, the agreement sets a recycling tipping fee of $75 per ton, most of which the city gets back by selling the recycled material at the Springfield Municipal Recycling Facility or MRF (pronounced ”murf"). The more the city recycles and diverts from the trash, the more money it will save.
While the city hopes for a September start date, a specific timetable for when toters will be delivered and in which neighborhoods is not yet chiseled in stone, Morales said. But a step-by-step process already is underway. The mailer going to residents will be followed by a brochure accompanying the delivery of the first recycling toter; the first trash toter will come later.
Casella Waste Management will provide the city's 17,300 residential trash and recycling customers with two 48-gallon containers on wheels: one for recycling, one for trash. Additional recycling containers are free, but additional trash containers will cost $40 every three months ($160 per year)— that’s the “pay as you throw” element in the plan.
Recycling is still on alternate weeks, with cardboard and paper one week, plastic and bottles and cans the next.
The contracts with Casella also set a transfer station fee schedule setting prices for annual stickers, pay-as-you-throw garbage disposal, and yard waste, once the facility opens in November. A resident sticker will cost $120, or $80 for seniors age 65 and older, and yard waste-only punch cards will cost $20, or $1 per bag for up to 20 bags.
Disposal fees for trash will be $3 for 15 gallon or smaller bags, $5 for 32-gallon bags, and $8 for contractor bags.
