by Ben Myers ·
Friday, February 6, 2026
Distributing Harvard trash bags to town residents is not a system. A system provides predictable and timely results. Finding and buying trash bags is a time-consuming effort, because the bags seem to be delivered to stores irregularly, if at all. The town website has a list of stores with bags available. Well, one store, Westward Orchards, is closed for the season. On Saturday, I went to the Shop ‘n Save in Ayer, and the kiosk where the bags are sold was closed. I guess that my best chance of scoring some garbage bags is to print the list of stores on the town website and tape it to the dashboard of my car, then drive around until I’ve found trash bags.
I spoke to one store owner and was told that stores cannot mark up the price of the bags, and that the claimed motivation for selling trash bags is that it attracts customers who buy other items. That store no longer has any trash bags. I can state without a doubt that when I buy Harvard garbage bags somewhere, it is a mere coincidence that I also buy something else. Well, maybe next summer when tomatoes and other veggies are in season, I’ll buy bags at Westward Orchards.
What can be done to make trash bags more readily available? How about having them for sale at Town Hall? This is not ideal for people unable to get off work to buy bags, but it would help. Or sell them at the Transfer Station? How about allowing sellers to mark up the price of bags sold by a dollar, and maybe two-fers for an added buck-and-a-half? The list of sellers of Harvard trash bags on the town website needs to be accurate for the time of year, and at least show which street or highway each store is on.
To say that the system is broken implies that there is a system for selling the trash bags. Harvard needs a system to sell the bags, so we all do not drive around trying to find trash bags, using up gasoline and our own valuable time. Can the town government of Harvard design a sound working system to distribute trash bags?
Ben Myers, Westcott Road