Petition Launched To Can Concord's Pay-As-You-Throw Program

CONCORD, NH — A Concord woman has created an online petition on Change.org to encourage city officials to end its "pay-as-you-throw" program for solid waste disposal and go back to paying for trash collection via property taxes.

The petition, created by Jennifer Williams, makes nine points for eliminating the program — nicknamed "the purple bag tax" by opponents when it was first proposed in 2009.

Some of the reasons include the extra burden of cost on residents, that some take advantage of others by dumping their trash in private dumpsters and public trash cans, or allow trash to collect outside of homes and porches. The quality of the bags themselves which "do not hold up for their price," and often rip or won't hold the amount of trash they claim to hold were other reasons.

Williams said it could take months, maybe even years, for the program to become financially viable again when the COVID-19 emergency order ends, and the recycling program, with its own limits, has not lowered the weekly cost for the bags. She was prompted to create the petition after seeing "an uptick of people" online talking about eliminating the program after it was suspended. Instead of just watching multiple Facebook group conversations about the idea, she decided to put together the petition.

"The community itself doesn't view the purple bags as a need for the citizen of the city and it is more of a burden to them than anything," she said. "I have seen comments and even walking around myself a good chunk of the porches of houses have become mini-dumping grounds. This is most likely due to the cost of the bags themselves. I have seen multiple times myself people dumping trash into the trash bins at the parks due to these purple bags."

These issues, she believes, comes down to the cost of the bags and their lack of quality.

"They claim the small bags or large bags can hold up to 30 gallons of trash this is just not true," Williams said. "The local government thought that this would have people create less trash but that is also not true as trash is just piling up on porches or inside of homes as people cannot spend on these bags weekly. It is only going to get worst with the loss of jobs from the pandemic as well."

The city suspended the program April 20 in an effort to lessen a potential cost burden on residents due to COVID-19's economic collapse. The suspension was proposed by Concord Mayor Jim Bouley and was approved by a 14-to-1 vote. The lone dissenter was Ward 4 Councilor Meredith Hatfield.

City officials estimated that the lost revenue between April 20 and the end of June would be less than $200,000, with a presumption that the emergency order by Gov. Chris Sununu would be lifted — something that does not appear to be happening any time soon.

For the fiscal year 2021 budget, the city has budgeted $1.17 million from the sale of bags and another $389,000 for "PAYT Containers" — a program the city created to collect revenue for solid waste removal from multi-family associations and apartment complexes, according to Stefanie Breton, the public information officer for the city. That would be a loss of more than $1.56 million in revenue that would need to be put onto property tax bills.

Additional tonnage and collection costs might be needed, too, since the city has seen about a $10,000 per week increase in disposal and collection costs since the suspension of the pay-as-you-throw program, Breton said.

Presuming the pay-as-you-throw program were eliminated, the tax rate would go up about 0.36 per $1,000 valuation on every property in the city, whether they had solid waste pickup or not, to make up the $1.56 million, according to Breton. On home valued at $250,000, it would be a $90 a year increase.

Thirty gallon bags that hold 20 lbs. of trash are $2.50 a piece while the 15 gallon bag, which holds up to 10 lbs. of trash, costs $1.25 per bag.

Pay-as-you-throw was created around 11 years ago when the city needed to find a new way to raise revenue due to increased waste management expenditures as well as retirement and other costs passed down to cities and towns by the state. Before fiscal year 2010, it was always included in the property tax bill.

The change though did reduce trash collection. Between 2009 and 2010, the city's trash tonnage dropped from nearly 15,000 tons to more than 8,300 tons — a drop that was sustained five years later, according to a municipal report. At the same time, recycling rose from 2,300 tons in 2009 to nearly 4,900.

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