hello everyone thank you for tuning in to belmont in thirty i'm joanna jewell a senior multimedia journalist for the belmont citizen herald in wicked local belmont dot com and today we're going to talk about trash and recycling and the changes to those two disposal systems in belmont and with me to do that are belmont public works director j marcotte and recycling coordinator mary beth c vendor so can you tell us just a little bit about that sure so our new contract is with waste management we had russell disposal incorporated for twenty years and we're moving in a different direction with automation and waste management is number one mandarin company in pretty much the world so july one starting july one we're going to be converting to an automated trash and recycling collection system which means everyone will be issued a sixty four gallon trash container and a ninety six gallon recycling container that  picked up every week and recycling picked up every other week ok so from what i understand these barrels are going to be delivered to people's homes around the end of june correct we're just going to kind of show up one day kind of unannounced  right on the street in front of people's homes so if the neighbor isn't home they should kindly real it over to the to the driveway otherwise it'll just but but i think you know i think that that should be fine i mean they're barrels that could blow away they're pretty they're pretty heavy heavy rolls and i'll help get the word out to people to remind your barrels are coming this week so what can you tell us about the new trash barrel it's sixty four gallons ok and so it's sixty four gallons it's on wheels it will be black so people need to take their trash and we highly suggest that they bag it because it will keep their barrel cleaner you know because the barrel cleanliness is up to the residence but in terms of if there's any maintenance that needs to be done then they will call the d p w office so i think you would have no problem doing three of those i think if you have small about rolls and smaller bags you'll be able to fit more now if someone's having a party and they know that i have a lot of trash and they what will they do we will be accepting overflow bags ok they will be sold out and i said sold they're going to be roughly around three thinking about outside of town for the people at my shop in our life and our or watertown or whatever that's great so that again that's going to be for over four bags are going to be a thirty two gallon container they are and they'll be very distinct and tell me how the trash is going to get picked up so you'll be placing your trash at the end of your driveway or a curb you know not to block your driveway some people do that do that just because that no one can park in from their driveway or whatever and they're usually gone these days and i need to be spaceball three feet apart from any obstruction or any other object like my mailbox or ok that they the drivers get to be pretty good with  automated arm and they can get into some pretty tight areas and so you're on your trash day and if you're it was your cycling they need to be separated by two feet i believe or even less  at the end of your career driveway ok so that sounds simple enough and it has a lead and it's on wheels so i mean at the end of the day when i come home it'll be empty and i'll just wheel it back to where i keep now let's talk about recycling because when we don't recycle every week right but we're going to have a recycling a new recycling bin similar to the trash barrel but it's actually bigger right and i'm six count down and also has a lid it's also on wheels but it's blue right yes but it up they'll have different color lids how can you explain the different color so you pick up half the town roughly that's why it's every other week ok recycling you know when you are recycling chart of what is acceptable recycling yes because this is single stream recycling now it's no longer dual strips so yeah this lid has some very helpful pictures on it of what to recycle and what not to recycle right  basically if it's not on the start then a truck so that's helpful cause it's right on the lid i can just refer yes it so there's actual photos of what can go into the car and there is a list in it's text and what they don't want you to do but if you want to put something in there and you don't see the image don't put it in to ask about it and i know there's some pretty common things that people may not realize that you're not supposed to recycle such as styrofoam yes and labels yes and you sent me a few other pictures of some other patterns very strong yes and the biggest culprit is bag so i think a lot of people will want to keep their recycling in a bag in the kitchen and then bring out the plastic bag and put it on the car we don't want that no no so you can use your old recycling bin keep it in the house and f closed and would have to get a pick up so on a day that i have both trash or recycling i'll we'll both barrels out leave them on my curve and curb her about two feet apart make sure there's no obstruction around them if they have overflow bags put those own as well and then the automated truck is going to come in and take it away and then at the end of the day we'll my barrels back it sounds simple enough and the barrels are pretty easy to manage because they're on wheels they have lids which i think is great because that could help solve the rat issue for example like i know that some people are nervous about it and i know that you going to be doing a lot of education so if people know you're having an event the event is april tenth yes our community conversation talking trash that's at seven pm at town hall or at the beach streets as at the time hearts were ok and then you'll also be a town market with we all carts all you know something that else that we need to talk about that's very important with how things are going to change with waste collection and belmont is bulky items because currently you can put out anything on trash day but how is that is it going to change with this new contract bulky is going to be the biggest change for all the residents in town we had that audit by d s m back bulky item per week and it needs to be scheduled and that means it needs to be called then turned to d p w administration noon the day before your trash collection ok and then the next day or you've picked up just put it bulky item ok but it also means that if it's where the example they gave was like a lamp a lamp can fit in your trash that's true or you can even put it in over a full bag there are certain things though that won't go item on on the once a week there are certain things like electronics like televisions and washing machines that have to be disposed of differently than a bulky items will how do you how do you get rid of something like that people do not and they even call us up in may and say i have a christmas tree after the snow melts yes and so in the past it could be put in the trash during trash day that's not going to happen anymore and waste management is not does not consider that a way because they are going for two weeks the first two four weeks in january they're going to pick up christmas trees so that's your only time to get rid of christmas trees that the right wreaths a lot of wreaths don't get picked up because they have wire in them and they might shred a chip these christmas trees so we have to be thrown out in the car ok in your trash we're actually going to  do it like watertown burlington and many of our neighboring communities so it's not a new thing automated trash pickup it's been around for about thirty year right so how is it going to benefit how is this change going to benefit belmont so there's many benefits it's a more efficient system the way we collect trash recycling right now is it's very cost prohibitive it's requires two people sometimes three the pending and if it's yard waste three people need to be doing trash right now we have two people in the truck that collect the trash this will be one person operation operating the arm reduces on the insurance  liability that the other holler has because of less injuries because the drivers and inside not exposed to the elements or the constant you know twists and turns that the normal driver or operator has she is me yeah it's going to be neater it's going to be everyone's going to have a universal car in the streets are going to be lined up yes they will look a lot different well mark when blown trash will not be all it should be reduced  limiting people's trash so now you know everything is unlimited right now now you have a sixty four gallon with an overflow so we're actually putting a woman on trial and you know one book you know per week tips so that but encourage more recycling most likely should see it we should see reductions in trash and we should see increases in hers i don't but what you don't want to see is increases in in wishful recycling drastically so so right now we have a low contamination rate in recycling and we don't want people putting things that are not on the photo into their recycling it's a big problem and this  meaning everyone in belmont everyone in burlington everyone everywhere if they do that it will keep costs low for processing yes as we all know there's been a big change  due to china's ban on sick america yes so if someone's concerned that they won't be able to manage these barrels maybe they're an older resident and they're just concerned  that what what should they do i have a list they have been calling i put their name on a list and i tell them they are going to get the cards delivered to their house in front of their house they have to call when that happens and  we will go and visit them to see best how they're going to accomplish this and what they can and cannot do because we don't want to put a stress on them to get it in so we will definitely find a system easily do it good the cards are designed in a way that they or when you put your foot on the bottom bar and you tip the top they're designed in a way that they are virtually not virtually but they're pretty their operations particularly with the roots we acknowledge that some of the routes may be heavier than others and that may affect your trash and recycling day that what i'm trying to say is that in an effort to even out the week by the by the day waste management might recommend or suggest to us that we need to shift fifty stops because it's closer for us on a tuesday than it is on this wednesday more overloaded but we haven't got there yet we don't know what simulating curve that's what i'm trying to say yeah i was going to ask you what well that you know and what do you think the biggest challenges will be we're going to have a lot of calls in the beginning but it'll be worth it in the water around because after four five six months which is which is why we're here today what would you say are the biggest mistakes people make marybeth in your job you see a lot of this one of the things that cause a lot of  problem is if there is a large clean out and people just i mean the who literally wrote to the car no rhyme no reason so it's it's just extremely time consuming so this will force people to be neat you have to be mean yeah in there won't be any more clean outs so this is why we're doing a lot of p r because you really should look around your house and you feel up thinking oh i want to get rid of this and get rid of that and it's a whole dining room set you know are going to be allowed to put out a whole dining room set it might take weeks to do that you know nine weeks right so people have to get used to first just throwing things to the curb is maybe calling up some charities and seeing if they could donate that if they're in good condition so i think people are just going to have to have a different checklist when they go to throw something away it's like ten it be donated  recycled does it have to specifically be sourced separated to be recycled or thrown out a certain way like household has it is waste or can it go in my household trash so there's a little checklist that you talking about every public forum that we're in that if you have a large amount of bulky items to get rid of now's the time to do it because it will be very difficult meaning time consuming because it's one item per week metal so that's a big thing that people have kind of been hoarding in their houses because there's really no way of getting rid of it unless it and like it very well will have by not von's there so they'll take that but i need something like the metal bed frame old uncoded pots and pans and file cabinets that are all metal mostly has to be all metal i don't want someone showing up with a  i'm working mainly is a very busy month for charities so i'm hoping to get furnishing hope here to have to take household goods on the smaller side so might be you know a small kitchen table and shias and lamps that are all in good condition that you you would want it you don't want to donate to these charities anything you would want to use doing anything for earth day which is what april twenty second yes no is it april twenty second yes it is so that's a sunday so i'm looking to the twenty first i guess i can say it now it's just in it's you know beginning stages and that's also school vacation week end of it it is so we might not get that many people but we would like to have a greening clean sweep and maybe we can do it the weekend afterwards perhaps but is that mother's day i don't have to look at a calendar they don't i thought it was mother's day but that or the day before the day before ok so maybe we should do it the month of may but i would like to try to get some residence and boy and girl scouts and students to come to three parks pick up some trash bags gloves and utensils to pick up trash and pick up these parks and around the parks just to show how much litter there really is that we have going on and if you can't do it then maybe at your house we'll give you a little tip sheet online and you can just go out and do it in front of your house and in your neighborhood what do you recommend people do with their all barrels once they get their new barrels their barrels are you know recycling so usually during recycle day we bulky rigid plastics and there's no market for those so you cannot take it down to recycle day hoping that people will be use them if they have barrels that are thirty two gallons or smaller and they can use them for yardley or battles if the recycle bins you can give them a good cleaning keep them in the house and use them as storage or use them from the recycling from the house to the cart i'm hoping i'm really hopeful that maybe the market might come back and so we might be able to now right and overwhelming when you see these cars loaded with cardboard so yeah it's a service that we're going to provide and it's i think it will be contagious to waste management to single out the cardboard that's really great tenth and i think i'd sounds to me like it's not going to be that difficult i mean i'm a belmont resident so kind of looking forward to getting these new barrels and in doing this and if anybody does have questions should they call they can call me the other get d p w on me specifically and my number is six one seven nine nine three two six helpful information well and we're going to have to update it because of the new single stream recycling and also be patient with us we'll get it up to speed and that website which will also put up on the screen is that's that's great that's great i think it's going to be fine everybody would be fine so thank you for tuning in to this this show today about one in thirty if you have ideas for a future show you can e mail me belmont