In a spur-of-the-moment decision, the Select Board voted 4–0 Tuesday night to charge $50 for the recycle-only Transfer Station sticker that the town has previously offered residents free of charge. The reason? In the words of DPW Director Tim Kilhart, “Recycling is not free.”
Although the town could once make money by recycling paper, plastic, and metal food and beverage cans, that’s no longer the case. China’s decision last year to no longer accept the world’s rubbish, which became effective Jan. 1, has only made matters worse. A preliminary report presented to the Select Board by the Transfer Station Committee this week states that as of May 2018, Harvard’s cost to dispose of a ton of trash is $72 for municipal solid waste (going to $80 in July), $30 for glass, $72 for plastic, and nothing for paper. Plus, the town pays an additional transportation charge for each truckload hauled away to a recycling plant or landfill. Currently the town is paid only for the metal that is collected in the pile of discarded dishwashers, grills, and other suburban detritus at one side of the dump.
The new fee is effective immediately. Recycle-only stickers can be purchased in person at Town Hall, online, or by mail. The cost of a regular sticker, which permits both the dumping of nonrecyclable rubbish and recyclables, is unchanged: $250 per residential household if purchased by July 1 and $35 for any household that includes a senior older than 65 years. For more details, see Harvard Transfer Station Rules and Regulations at https://bit.ly/2K2ZcGu.
