Where does the money for trash pick up come from?

Taxes. It is part of the town budget just like the Police Dept and Schools.

Be courteous and slow down before passing the trash truck; you would not want to hit one of the guys jumping off the truck. I like it when the driver waves me around. Cold, icy thankless job I'd think.

That's what I thought. So those that don't recycle and have to pay for trash removal will get a tax credit... right?

Also I hope we can consider trash pickup every other week and recycling weekly. I have 8 large bins of recycling right now and one bag of trash. If everyone recycles as they are demanding, then I'm sure we're not the only household with it piling up in those 2 weeks.

Will the town fine itself for each of it's buildings?

My taxes pay for trash pick up.

Would make more sense to make the large yellow topped wheelie bins mandatory rather than allowing use of any receptacle.
The recycling vehicle is manned by a single person and is equipped to mechanically empty those bins. It is not really equipped to handle manually emptied varying sizes of receptacles and expecting the driver to manually heft all that stuff is unreasonable.
Applying the estimated $98,000 annual savings (as documented in the green flier) against the $40 charge for a bin that were free originally would appear to make some sense too.

Ok, let me get this straight. Several years ago the town's recycler Intergrated Wast delivered wheeled bins to some but not all residents at no charge to encourage more segregation of recycled waste. Many of my neighbors got two bins, originally one for paper, one for glass and metals. When I requested a bin I was told they were not available to everyone so I had to wait. Now, in addition to the trash police visually checking my family's recycling efforts, I'll have to pay $40 each for a receptacle that my neighbors got delivered to their homes for free.. If the Recycling Commission is serious about this effort they best make sure that it is fair and equitable to all tax payers.

We are down to a barrel a week of trash for a family of four. Every bit of junk mail, opened envelopes, cardboard packaging, non-foil Christmas wrapping paper, magazines, newspapers ends up in a recycle bin. Some pickups are full just of paper. This is no big deal.

We recycle heavily put were not some of the lucky few to get the free barrels. Now we must use smaller barrels with a farce of stick (covered with packing tape). It seems if theyt are going to mandate a change and penalize people, it should be faily administered

Mike, have you ever tried to use the stickers? They are paper and do not stick to plastic barrels. I agree there is no oibligation to buy town barrel, but there is an obligation to buy 1 or more smaller barrels with a weight limit. According to the WRC mission statement, this seems way outside the original intention for the group.

how about the poorly written, sarcastic, threatening, and condescending letter all Westford residents got included with our giant tax bills. who is the genius who drafted this letter? get a clue. if you want to encourage residents to recycle do it in a nice manner. not with sarcasm and threats. the recycle contractor misses my house half the time and im left on my own to call/chase them down with no success. i often have recycles piling up for a month at a time at my house because of this. how about fixing that. once a week recycle pick up would be a good start? either way treat residents with proper respect. town officials are not about the towns residents. not by a long shot.

Dan I totally agree with your comment about the letter. I am already an active recycler and composter. But the attitude expressed in the letter made me take offense anyway. Disgusting way to speak to the community. I expect an apology .

My family recycles. Our recycling is often overflowing after one week. It is really hard to go two weeks without recycling. When I talk to people who do not recycle one of the main reasons is keeping track of the schedule. Going to a weekly recycling pickup would make it a lot easier on residents and increase compliance.

It is not clear to me who made this decision. The letter is clearly from WRC, but they state via the FB page that it was the selectman who decided to remove trash pickup for non-recyclers. Yet if you read the minutes from the selectman meeting, they just blindly approved the WRC letter. Does WRC have the power to set policy for trash pickup?

Recycling has been mandatory for years. It is only now that there are steps to actually enforce it. I have no issue with wanting to enforce it. However, I did find the letter to be rather rudely written and a bit snarky. I think there are much better ways to communicate the enforcement.

We do actively recycle and fill 2 larget yellow totes on a biweekly basis. Recycling takes work and quite honestly is somewhat of a pain but we still do it. While you don't have to separate and recycling of papers, magazines and mail is easy, you do have to wash/rinse out the cans, milk/juice cartons, yogurt containers, jars, etc before recyclng. I would love to see recycling occur on a weekly basis just so there is consistancy in pick-ups and so that I could have less space in my basement devoted to this.

The letter is your classic power trip by these folks. The better than thou attitude is brutal.

The idea that the guys working the trash truck will decide if they take your trash or not based on if they see recycle bins outside is a total joke. what about weeks when there is trash pick up but not recycle pick up? what about fam vaca weeks when a family is away and may only have one bag of trash but not enough recycle to put out that week? having to leave recycle bins out all day after being emptied to prove to the trash collectors you recycle is ridiculous. mandatory recycle is fine with me, I recycle. but the childish ways the town is threatening to enforce it is so poorly thought out its offensive to our residents. a positive approach would be much more appreciated and effective. someone a little more tactful should draft future communication pieces for the WRC.

Sam ,you are right on. Someone sitting in a Westford town office with nothing better on their mind then scaring residents into recycling and what consequences to expect if they don't. Must be someone with no real experience in business and how to deal with people. Sounds like someone used to dealing with only children. The majority of residents already make a solid effort to recycle anyway to help the town. With all the money in recycle the town saves our taxes keep rising anyway.

Take a look at the members of the WRC more closely and all will become clear!

I got a kick out of the letter. I actually laughed. Keep in mind....and I mean no offense by this....the town has to write to the lowest common denominator in communicating messages, and some people need to be told repeatedly and very plainly to do something.

On the recycling cycle, yes, weekly would definitely be better and more likely to reduce the number of times full bins are carried back up the drive because I got the week wrong!

On a lighter note, take heart. When I lived in Japan a couple years ago, recycling was mandatory. Rubbish went in clear bags so it could be inspected and if there was a recyclable item in it, the bag stayed at your curb with a nastygram attached. And in Japan, there are SEVEN categories of recycling, each with it's own bin or drop off location! Comingling in Westford is easy in comparison to that!

I wonder how IPC came up with that 100k number. It doesnt seem supported by any of the stats on the WRC page. Recycling tonnage is up 4% over while normal trash is up only 1% (total of 8k additional in a year) and Westford's recycling tonnage per household is double the national average. To save 100k we would need to double our recycling, but I don't think 50% of people are not recycling at the moment.

IIRC, there's usually a penalty over the throw rate for recyclables in the main waste stream.

If the WRC had attempted to convince me by the correctness of their argument, instead of threatening me I would probably have enthusiastically embraced the project. Instead I have written to the Attorney General for an opinion if I was being threatened with refusal for trash pickup in spite of a large tax bill. Doesn't anyone review these letters that go out???

Perhaps if trash has not been picked up we can load it up and drop it off at the home of one of the WRC members. Surely they will have no violations.

To be fair to the WRC, it was a seletmaen-approved decision to make it mandatory and they are the enforcing body still. The WRC can take blame for the tone of the letter and for asking for the enforcement actions (if they happen), but it is the selectman that rubber-stamped the idea with little comment or concern about the reaction. Better to show up to a selectman meeting than write to the AG. This is a good example of small town government. Those people that show up and give time get thier opinions enforced on others, but everyone has the option to show up.

Get rid of town garbage collection like most neighboring towns did tears ago because our magic money tree is going broke and 2014 says J Ross is going to be a killer. Strong arm our teachers with we are going broke but refuse to cut any luxuries from the town budget? Pathetic and won't happen again. Money mismanagement appears to be an issue nobody is investigating seriously here in town. Where is the accountability?

Wash the recycled containers? Cans? milk/juice bottles? Really????
I've never washed my trash and don't plan to start now. I'll be happy to segregate recycles from regular trash. Have been doing it in Westford for almost 20 years. But washing out recyclable stuff takes time and resources that I refuse to waste on my trash.

I just got home from a long day away. I placed one rolling tote, two bins and one trash barrel out at the end of my driveway well before dawn. I returned home this evening and have found my trash gone. All of my recycling is still sitting exactly where I left it this morning. 
Hhhhmmmm....I thought this was going to start 2.1.2013. Was there a holiday, snow storm, power outage or some other random act of God to explain why my recycling is still sitting at the end of my driveway? 
I do wash all of my recycling before placing it in the bins. I was really freaked out a couple of years ago, when I noticed a dead mouse in one of my bins with the tin cans and juice cartons. I keep my recycling in the garage between pick ups. 
I thought they were going to leave the trash if I had not put out the recycling. It's vice versa at my home. What's up with this

I would bag it up and put it out in next weeks trash.

Ooooppppssss....never mind. The recycling guy just showed up. It's 7:00 p.m. He's usually here by 7:00 a.m. Maybe, the regular guy is on vacation this week.