SPRINGFIELD — The City Council officially approved changes to its trash fees and regulations ordinance during a Nov. 26 hearings meeting, more than two months after DPW Director Christopher Cignoli proposed the updates to the full body.
One major development to come out of these modifications is the bulk item fee for mattress and box spring disposal rising from $8 to $16, which is a change that will go into effect on Feb. 4.
The rest of the modifications to the ordinance will go into effect immediately.
In a past council meeting, Cignoli explained the reason for this disposal increase is due to mandates put in place by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection in November 2022, which state that municipalities are now required by law to recycle mattresses and box springs, causing a massive increase in cost that city now has to cover.
He told the council that in the past, the city collected about 2,500 mattresses per year, along with other bulk items. Since the change in the law, he said they have seen the number of mattresses triple.
“Since the mandate has been put in place the costs associated with the disposal of mattresses has risen to $204,000 per year, with the revenue collect only being $58,000, creating a deficit of $146,000, that now has to be covered through taxes,” Cignoli said.
The modifications also mean that the city is capping mattress collection at an address to 15 per year and five per appointment.
During the September council meeting, Cignoli said the DPW in the past has collected 35 from a single address one time as a result of landlords cleaning out one or more apartment buildings.
“We’re trying to figure out a way to stem the illegal import of materials from other places,” he said of the mattress issue.
In an announcement of these modifications on the DPW social media page, Cignoli said that due to the new requirement by the DEP, the collection of bulk material in the city now requires additional manpower and vehicles, which has resulted in the DPW now reducing total bulk appointments a day from 80 to 65.
“Five years ago, everything went on one truck,” Cignoli said. “Now if a resident has a couch, a television and a mattress to be collected we now have to send three trucks as they are all being disposed of at different locations.”
He said that since the new DEP requirement has been put in place, the city has witnessed a massive increase in the number of units being collected, which has now risen to over 7,250 per year and has contributed to a deficit for the city.
In addition to these bulk pickup changes, the ordinance addresses the problem of radioactive waste, which Cignoli said has been huge problem for the city.
During the mid-September council meeting, he explained to the body that people, or their pets, who are undergoing radiation treatment cannot dispose of medical waste in the trash.
Cignoli said this issue occurs six times a year. When asked how the DPW knows the trash is radioactive, he explained that trash is scanned for radioactivity at the transfer station. When it is found, it must be handled differently and shipped to a safe location by a third party.
The truck the waste was transported in must be taken out of service until the vehicle’s radiation levels are safe. This can take up to six days, he said. Trash barrels along the route the truck followed are scanned with Gieger counters until the source is found. Cignoli said the resident is given information of proper disposal and noted hospitals will sometimes accept radioactive medical waste. He said he would not fine the person unless they were a repeat offender.
There is a schedule of fines in the existing ordinance, but they were set to $0. Now, with the modifications, the fines have each been raised to $250.
Other changes were made in the ordinance include pickups beginning at 6 a.m. rather than 6:30 a.m. and clearer language around the use of extra bag stickers, yard waste drop-off at Bondi’s Island, revocation of trash service and the appeal process for trash service revocation.
Residents can read the full ordinance by following the link: https://tinyurl.com/2tvxubpk.
