Most Framingham Councilors Luke Warm To Trash Disposal Crisis Solution

On September 26, 2023, the City Council had a regular meeting in which a discussion on trash & recycling collection illuminated multiple issues:

1. The City Council's general inability to require informative, actionable reports from the administration.
2. The inability of some Councilors to quickly grasp obvious solutions when presented, and reject impractical ones.
3. The critical importance of informed, compelling public comment from activist community members.

For the past year at least, there has been no reporting of any substance to the City Council on the overall maintenance and condition of the roads, nor that of city buildings, nor that of the water & sewer system. All these critical infrastructure assets seem to draw little Council interest, despite the fact that the City Charter in Article II 7a&b, specifically states:

“The council may require any officer, member of an agency or employee to appear before it to give any information that the council may require in relation to the municipal services, functions, powers, or duties which are within the scope of responsibility of that person and within the jurisdiction of the council.”

Therefore, it was a great relief to see Councilor Adam Steiner break the ice by requesting a report on the state of trash and recyclable collections from the Department of Public Works (DPW).

Although DPW could have focused on smaller issues like trash/recyclable barrels not being emptied properly or left too long on the street, they chose to provide a compact, incredibly informative report of immense value to anyone interested in finding out what really is going on in Framingham city operations.

The DPW presentation was made by the Director of Highway and Sanitation, Kathryn Ronconi, who must rank as one of our most capable staff, both from her command of the material and from the remarkably effective way her operations are run. The presentation may be viewed at:

https://legistarweb-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/attachment/pdf/2194482/ADDED_Framingham_Sanitation_Division_9.26.23.pdf

Note however, that this posted online version has not yet been updated to the latest costing for trash: $117/ton and $1,592,370/year.

The major message from the report is that, with landfills nearing capacity, Massachusetts cities and towns have to reduce their trash streams. The state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) aims to reduce that trash stream by 30% by 2030, and by 90% by 2050.

The corollary to the capacity problem is that disposal costs are rising as shown in the graphic taken from the DPW presentation. From FY23 to FY24 trash disposal costs rose from $102/ton to $117/ton. In a city where the annual property tax levy rose just 1% in the FY24 budget, annual cost increases of 16% are budget breakers.

The immediate goal for the city has to be to start reducing the trash stream, to begin addressing the MA DEP 2030 goal and to lower costs.

The further problem for the city which came up in the discussion around the presentation was the fact that the brush and leaf dump at Dudley Rd next to Farm Pond is scheduled to be capped and closed in 2027, so the city has to find an alternate site for that composting operation in the next 4 years, which will involve finding the capital for that shift and a suitable 6-acre site, so DPW will be stretched trying to accomplish that.

Fortunately, there is a solution in sight, as 40% of the current trash stream is food waste which is compostable. The city has no in house experience with food waste composting, but the private sector is buzzing with activity in this zone. In particular, Black Earth Compost is already doing weekly curbside compost pickups for 365 households in Framingham. That number could be accelerated greatly if the city would do what Natick and multiple other cities and towns have done (Brookline, Newton, Lexington, Belmont, Canton, Wakefield, …), which is to partner with Black Earth Compost, choosing them as a preferred vendor after a competitive RFP process. Natick increased its number of subscribers to more than 1,200 by partnering with Black Earth Compost. Natick subscribers pay $114.99/year. Framingham subscribers pay $161.98/year due to our smaller scale and lack of city partnership with Black Earth Compost.

With Adam Steiner bringing the topic into play, the Black Earth Compost/RFP approach drew support in the meeting from Leora Mallach and Cesar Stewart Morales. However, most Councilors are sitting on the sidelines when an obvious solution is at hand.

It is true that the DPW Director, Bob Lewis outlined a plan where when the switch from the current Dudley St leaf & brush dump is made in 2027, he might add food waste composting to his effort. But that will be very late in the day, and he won’t handle the full waste stream, including meat, due to the city’s inability to handle the rodent problem. So that approach seems highly impractical, as there is no site, there is no capital, the city has not done food waste composting before, has rodent related restrictions, and there is a highly efficient private sector company, Black Earth Compost, operating at a much larger scale today. Further, Black Earth Compost already handles a large part of our leaf waste composting at $180,000/year and they just started a school cafeteria composting collection pilot at Dunning Elementary School. Black Earth Compost is a vetted and reliable vendor for the city.

We should cut to the chase and go the RFP route now.

Never was the case for this made more articulately, than when Diana Porter, an activist with Energize Framingham, rose for public comment. I will leave you with the video clip of that, which is well worth the 2 minutes it takes to view. If she ever runs for Councilor, she will get my vote.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmTiaf0aLZA

Notes:

The entire City Council meeting segment on this topic can be viewed at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zaM90e8f8s

For more details, see also a prior article on curbside composting at: https://framinghamobserver.substack.com/p/framingham-mayor-polite-but-non-commital