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THE MALDEN ADVOCATE – Friday, August 9, 2019 Page 3 City presents plan to toss PAYT trash bags By Barbara Taormina A n end to Malden’s blue-bag Pay-As-You-Throw (PAYT) trash collection era is finally on the horizon. City officials have developed a plan to replace the bags with 65-gallon toters with wheels to be used for weekly curbside trash pickup. The trash inside would still need to be bagged, but there would be no more flimsy, hard-to-come-by official blue bags that local rats enjoy chewing. City Planner Ron Hogan presented the proposal, which also includes new 32-gallon recycling bins, to the City Council on August 1. Instead of the $2 bag fee, residents will pay a monthly $10 waste and recycling fee that will be tacked onto monthly water bills. Buildings with six or less units will receive barrels and bins for each apartment, and it will be up to property owners who pay water bills for multifamily buildings to decide whether to pass the annual $120 fees on to tenants. The plan includes other details, such as a significant fee discount for seniors, who typically put one blue bag of trash out on the curb each week. Residents will have a chance to weigh-in on the proposed plan during a public meeting REFORMS | FROM PAGE 1 a press release this week supporting MaldenCORE’s slate of proposed reforms to confront systemic racism within city schools. The organization also expresses support for MaldenCORE’s plan to rally at Malden High on Aug. 26. when teachers and administrators will be attending the first day of professional development of the new school year. In addition to the press release, Zane T. Crute, president of NAACP’s Mystic Valley Branch, wrote to Mayor Gary Christenson, Superintendent John Oteri, members of the School Committee and the Malden City Council to express support for MaldenCORE’s five demands for reform, which include a written school policy for action and accountability involving reports of differential treatment and race-related inequalities. Crute also said the Mystic Valley Branch supports MaldenCORE’s demands for measurable goals toward hiring professional staff of color and the reinstatement Erga Pierrette, the district’s only adjustment counselor of color, who was that will be scheduled sometime in September. Meanwhile, a detailed outline of the proposal is available on the city website on the Trash and Recycling page. “This is a balanced approach to solving one of our most challenging problems,” said Mayor Gary Christenson, who highlighted all the work put into the proposal by Hogan, Public Works Director Robert Knox, Mayoral Assistant Maria Luise and Controller Charles Ranaghan. Although residents have been complaining for years about the PAYT system, other factors have also pushed the city to make a change. Back in 2011, when the city signed a 20-year contract with JRM Hauling and Recycling of Peabody, the market for recycled material was healthy. JRM offered the city free recycling because the company was able to make a profit selling Malden’s used paper, cardboard, bottles and cans. Although that market has seen ups and downs, recycling businesses like JRM were hit hard last year when China, which bought about half the world’s recyclable waste, banned most imported recyclable material. China was being swamped by contaminated materials that were causing prolaid off last year. The NAACP’s Mystic Valley Branch has also endorsed MaldenCORE’s demands that the district provide ongoing anti-racism and cultural competency training for teachers and staff and that city schools adopt an inclusive curriculum that reflects the experience and background of Malden students. Both the Mystic Valley Branch’s press release and Crute’s letter contain language that highlights the urgency some people feel about the school district’s problems related to race, ethnicity and culture. The press release “implores” Christenson, Oteri, the School Committee and the City Council to “act now to make vast improvements in the public school system to make schools a safer environment for the diverse constituents of Malden.” But Christenson, who is also chairman of the Malden School Committee, feels that some of the concerns raised by Crute and his organization were based on an outdated assessment of an evolving situation that school leaders are working to address. “I was discessing problems and environmental issues. But the problem isn’t just international market disruption. According to JRM, 40 percent of Malden’s recyclables are contaminated with greasy pizza boxes, dirty bottles and other unwelcome waste that needs to be sorted out and disposed of with other unredeemable trash. JRM’s solution was to inform the city that they were instituting a new fee for loads of contaminated recyclables that would add about $630,000 to the city’s annual bill of $2.6 million for waste collection and disposal. Hogan suggested that JRM could not unilaterally change their contract with the city by adding a hefty new fee. But what the company could do is simply leave visibly contaminated recyclables on the curb, and that could lead to all sorts of trouble for residents. So rather than taking an adversarial approach, the city has been working with JRM on changes that would benefit both residents and the company. The proposal now on the table would add $200,000 a year to JRM’s fee in exchange for single-stream recycling. No more sorting paper and plastic – everything would go in the new 32-gallon recycling bin. There would also be increased fees for appointed not to have had the opportunity to speak with the Mystic Valley Area Branch of the NAACP prior to their press release to inform them of the work already being done to achieve racial equity in our REFORMS | SEE PAGE 12 hauling that would start at an additional $50,000 a year and, in time, increase to $100,000 a year. “The 65-gallon barrel is enough for the vast majority of residents to dispose of their weekly trash,” said Hogan, adding that the barrels would hold what residents have been packing into two blue PAYT bags. Stickers, which are expected to cost $2, will be available for overflow bags Councillors feel the proposal is a great start to ending the blue bag regime, but they look forward to public meetings, feedback from the community and crafting a new waste disposal and recycling ordinance. They also agreed that the city needs to do more to educate residents about recycling. 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