City Asks Readers to Take Survey on Blue Bags

The following was submitted by the Mayor's Office. 

Recently Mayor Gary Christenson assembled a volunteer group of Malden residents to thoroughly examine Malden’s waste disposal process and the Pay-As-You-Throw (PAYT) program. The group will issue a report along with recommendations to the Mayor about potentially modifying the program based on a review of data and input from the community.

A survey of nine questions has been prepared that will aid the group in its report and recommendations. Below are several facts about Malden’s current waste disposal program that may be helpful to you when completing the survey.    

To take the PAYT Survey, please click on this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9DH2VZB.   

The survey will be available on the City’s website beginning Tuesday, November 13^th for a limited period of time.

The PAYT group is aiming to make its recommendations to the Mayor early in 2013. Thank you for your participation!

Did you know?

• $68 per ton is the cost JRM charges to dispose of solid waste (Note: This does not include JRM contract baseline cost of $1.675M per year)

• JRM does not charge Malden an additional fee to collect recyclables.

• $1.3M is the average annual revenue from the sale of Pay-As-You-Throw (PAYT) blue bags.

Tonnage Handled by JRM

Solid Waste Type

2007 (Before PAYT)

2011 (After PAYT)

Difference

Solid Waste

20,988 tons

10,423 tons

-10,565 tons

Co-mingled Recyclables

593 tons

1,506 tons

+913 tons

Paper and Cardboard Recyclables

1,483 tons

2,565 tons

+1082 tons

Glossary:

• Commingled Recyclables – Glass, plastic, and metal
• Dual-Stream Recycling –Separation of paper and cardboard recyclables from glass, plastic, and metal (commingled) recyclables
• Improper Dumping – Disposal of household trash in a manner other than in official city trash bags (can include disposal in public trash containers, transportation of trash to other cities and towns, or disposal in places of employment, among other practices)
• Pay-As-You-Throw (PAYT) – Malden’s program of requiring residents to purchase official city trash bags for regular household trash
• Municipal Solid Waste – Regular, non-commercial, household and public trash, not including recyclables
• Single-Stream Recycling – One bin for all recyclable materials – glass, plastic, metal, paper, and cardboard