Longmeadow DPW Business Manager Lisa Okscin speaks at the Select Board meeting on March 2
Photo credit: LongmeadowTV
LONGMEADOW — Longmeadow DPW Business Manager Lisa Okscin discussed updates and recommendations on the trash and recycling in town with the Select Board at its meeting on March 2.
The town’s new automated curbside program began in July 2025, and the DPW has been working with residents to swap recycling carts for a different size since December 2025. The requests are about 45% through, with around 164 houses left.
“Right now, we’re just swapping to what you requested,” Okscin said. “If you have a different change, we’re giving you what you want and we’ll deal with a second swap later if that’s what we want to do.”
So far, the swaps have been done by appointment with residents going to the DPW with their current cart to pick up their new one. Okscin said there are considerations of working outside business hours to swap the carts if people work during the day, as well as transporting the carts to homes if residents don’t have a vehicle to transport.
Also being looked at are lost or damaged carts and what the price will be to replace those, along with if there will be a charge to residents who did not sign up for a swap and will want one in the future. The purchase of the carts costs the DPW $60 for the 96-gallon, $57 for the 64-gallon and $53 for the 48-gallon.
“Do we want to set prices to pay for, if, you know, your car drove into your garage and just smashed the cart and they need a new one,” Okscin said. “We will need to set a price for that and decide if all cases require a price.”
Okscin said that the DPW is still collecting cardboard at the recycling center while it’s open on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon. During the holidays, some residents had to be turned away because of the high amounts of cardboard, but the DPW plans to resolve that for the next holiday season with additional dumpsters or more hours during the week with the dumpsters being emptied more often.
The recycling center will return to its full hours in April, which will be Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The DPW is also looking at an issue with Waste Management, the national waste hauling company it signed a contract with in early 2025, where the new blue bags for overflow trash are difficult to get into the truck.
Okscin said the trucks empty at the top, rather than the old trucks, which emptied at the side, and throwing the bags by hand is difficult. Additionally, trying to put the bags into the cart after it’s been emptied is difficult as well when bags are filled in a way that doesn’t fit into the small trash barrel.
“[Waste Management] have reached out to us and want to know if we’re willing to look at our program and see if there’s anything we can do,” Okscin said. “We obviously can say, ‘we’re taking no action, this is our program, they signed the contract that’s what you got to do,’ but we do know from residents, a lot of people say the trash carts are so small.”
She said the DPW could look at the option for people to pay for and get a larger trash cart, or to receive a second 35-gallon cart. She said they do get grants for having the 35-gallon cart, which comes out to $4,400 of the MassDEP grant.
“We will actually have about 200 extra 64 gallons when we do all the recycling swaps just because that was one of the defaults and not many are taking it back,” Okscin said. “We could always put black lids on those carts, then we wouldn’t really need to be doing a whole other purchase and it would lessen the inventory that we have at the DPW.”
Okscin said her recommendations to the Select Board are to set a price for the swaps, replacement carts and any future swaps, as well as a transportation charge if the carts need to be dropped off at the house. She said West Springfield charges $25 and she suggests $15. She also asked the Select Board to look at a direction to move towards for the trash carts, if it’s something worth doing.
Vice Chair Vineeth Hemavathi asked if the town would be paying Waste Management for every cart if residents were able to buy a second trash cart. Okscin said if the program stays the same, there will be no renegotations, but a second cart is changing the way trash pickup goes, so there is potential that they would add around $2 extra per cart. She added that upsizing the carts, such as from 35 to 64 gallons, isn’t changing much so there wouldn’t really need to be any renegotiations.
Select Board member Andrew Lam said his concern is that there could be a lot of pitfalls, such as a limited number of 65-gallon carts.
“Let’s say we had, you mentioned 65-gallon carts, well we have 200 of them,” Lam said. “When you start doing this, we give out 200, then people are going to be very upset that they wanted to do it. Second thing is, you say ‘oh, you can buy another 45-gallon cart for $60,’ but then the town pays extra ultimately for every time.”
Okscin said there would have to be a fee on adding a cart because the resident is using more trash for hauling the second cart and tonnage of going over. The hope for the fee would be to cover all that, which Lam asked for how many years with Okscin replying as long as residents have it.
