[Steve]: So hello, everyone. Thank you for being here tonight for our waste collection public meeting. My name is Steve Smerdy. I'm the director of communications for the city of Medford. And we'll get started here and get to the next slide. So here's the agenda for the meeting tonight. We'll do a quick Zoom poll to see how many people here have completed our waste system feedback form. The mayor will give opening remarks, which will be followed by a brief presentation. Then we'll move to public comments. We're allotting roughly three hours for public comment and we'll reassess at 9.30 p.m. If there are a few people that are left to speak, we'll finish it up there. But if there's still a considerable number of people who have yet to speak but wish to do so, then we will schedule an additional meeting to make sure everyone is heard. Next slide. Tonight you'll hear from Mayor, sorry, go back Alicia. Tonight you'll hear from Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn, our DPW Commissioner Tim McGivern, Director of Planning, Development and Sustainability Alicia Hunt, President and Founder of Garbage to Garden, the City's composting vendor, Tyler Frank, and the City's Waste Consultant Jeremy Drake of Zero Waste Solutions. And just a reminder that if you have any specific questions or comments, please feel free to reach out to us at waste at medford-ma.gov.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_04]: Next slide.
[Steve]: Just a bit of housekeeping for how we're going to manage the meeting tonight. The chat will be disabled, but if you need any technical help, you can direct message troubleshooting staff for assistance. During the public comment portion, please use the raise hand function in the React menu, and we will get to you. For security reasons, we've disabled video for participants due to Zoom bombings that the city's experienced at other public meetings. So please keep your comments to two minutes. We want to get to as many people as possible, so a timer will appear to show how much time is left. If your question overlaps with one that is being shared, please feel free to thumbs it up or heart it to show support. We're here to listen tonight and we'll use the information that we gather to update our frequently asked questions section on our website at medfordma.org slash waste dash system. This meeting is being recorded and it will be available on our website, the city's YouTube channel, and on Medford Community Media. If there's more you want to say, but you didn't get the chance, please feel free to fill out our feedback form if you haven't already done so, or email us at waste at Medford dash ma dot gov. And there's a QR form right here on the screen that you can scan and that will take you directly to the form. So yeah, we'd like to know if you've completed the feedback form. So I'm going to launch a poll in just a moment here to see who's done that. So hold on one second. Let's give a few seconds here for people to fill out. Okay, now I'm going to kick it over to Mayor Wango Kern to give some brief remarks.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Thank you, Steve. Can you hear me?
[Jessica Healey]: Great.
[Breanna Lungo-Koehn]: Good evening, everyone, and thank you for being here. I know there's a lot being said about this change to our trash collection, and we definitely want to hear your thoughts on the program. It's clear that there is some anger and frustration out there, that's understandable, and hopefully you are able to voice your concerns tonight and through our survey, and learn more about why this change is occurring, as well as how you can best reduce your household waste. Please take the time during this meeting to tell us what your frustrations are, what your needs are, how you don't think this will work for you, or how you think it will work for you and why, as well as what ideas you have, what has worked for you to reduce waste, and what suggestions you have so we can potentially adjust our plan accordingly. and make as many people as possible happy with this change. The state is proposing a food waste ban, from what we understand, for residential trash in 2030. They've done some for commercial already, and I think they're proposing fully commercial waste ban in 2027. Residential will be 2030 again. We have been very proactive. to get it and we've done what we can to get ahead of that ban. We're getting as many people as possible into our free residential curbside composting program. 80, 100 plus residents have already enrolled. You're seeing other cities explore this option as well, as food waste is a main driver of collection costs due to its weight. By diverting food waste from our trash bins and our incinerators, we're not only reducing our overall trash tonnage, but we're lowering our collection and disposal costs. Composting, recycling, implementing containerization in our business districts, and making commercial properties secure their own trash collection service encompasses our overall waste strategy that prioritizes sustainable environmental practices and protects the city and our community from significant rising costs. You'll hear more throughout the presentation. shortly, but it will be a short presentation and we'll go into greater detail on our waste system and planning process. I appreciate everybody for being engaged and hopefully willing to learn more about our waste goals and priorities. And I hope you're able to not just educate you, we're hoping to educate you, but also have you provide some feedback so that we can adjust as best we can. So thank you again, and I'll now turn it over to our Department of Public Works Commissioner, Tim McGibbon.
[Tim McGivern]: Great, thank you very much, Madam Mayor. Let me just get myself situated here. Thank you, everyone, for being here. My name is Tim McGibbon. I'm the Commissioner of Public Works here at the City of Medford. I'm also a resident. So a lot of these contracts are very large. They're long. And our plans for these are long term when it comes to waste. So we've been working on this since early 2023, just the start of 2023. And it's been quite a journey. And we're going to talk a little bit about that. So rising disposal costs over the next 20 plus years is something that is a well-known prediction at this point. Our current collection contracts go through June 2035. So again, we're thinking long-term. We're trying to set ourselves up to be protected from increasing disposal costs as time goes on. Excuse me? I'm just going to read this quote here from John Fisher, MassDEP Deputy Division Director. He could not be here tonight. The average reported solid waste disposal fee has increased from $87 per ton in 2021 to $103 per ton in 2024. This cost is expected to continue to rise in the future. 40% of trash is shipped out of the state. That's important to know. Disposal capacity in Massachusetts is very limited. Whatever we don't reduce, reuse, and recycle and compost has got to go somewhere. And currently, our trash is going to the Saugus incinerator. So it's literally burned. The proposed statewide 2030 residential food waste ban that the mayor mentioned is also a very important point. MassDEP already bans food waste and trash for businesses in institutions that generate more than a half a ton of food waste per week. Now they're looking to expand that ban to include food waste generated by Massachusetts residents as well. The state estimates that 21% of statewide trash is food waste. Data from the Saugus incinerator suggests that 31% of our trash is food waste and compostable paper, which are materials accepted into our residential compost program. 53% of our trash is recyclable or compostable in our curbside programs. In addition to food waste and compostable paper, other materials that take up a lot of space in our trash can be collected through other curbside collection programs, such as yard trimmings and leaves, paper and cardboard, metal, plastic, and glass, et cetera. Over half of what we are throwing away by weight can be removed from our trash by using the programs currently available to us. Next slide. Right, program achievements, this is a good one. And it's fun for me to talk about because it shows how much work we've been doing since early 2023, when we started conceptualizing and thinking about, you know, the need to renew or, you know, get new contracts going and create a new waste program here in Medford. Mayor mentioned a little bit about that. Alright, so I'm just going to read these. They're big things that you know we've hit in this program curbside municipal composting which a lot of people know about 8100 households currently enrolled and where we're, you know, obviously. In a sense, just getting going there, but more to do more frequent yard and leaf collection. So our services is going from 16 weeks a year to 20 weeks per year. We've received a couple of mass DEP grants, which paid for the kickoff of curbside composting. We've currently received two Distinguished Industry Leadership Awards. The Outstanding Community at the Northeast Recycling Council's 2025 Enviro Leadership Mayoral Award at the National Recycling Coalition. So very exciting. And another one that's dear to my heart, the business district improvements. The business districts are now quote unquote clean, no more trash bags on the sidewalks, over spilling trash, smelly boxes, etc. All businesses are now recycling as well in these business districts and throughout the city. The trash tonnage, which of course we pay for, has decreased since July 2024, and we are moving in the right direction. There was something else I needed to read. This will be it. Um, so just a little bit more about item 6, the trash is decreased by more than 5% since initiating the new program. That reduction has saved the city about $80,000 in avoided disposal costs. And that's from food waste and yard trimmings that are kept out of the residents' trash can. So, again, that's $80,000 savings. And, you know, So those dollars are basically directed to organics processing facilities instead of the incinerator. So there's a lot to talk about with compost and kind of why that matters. But we're going to move on for now and go to the next slide. And I'm going to hand it over to Alicia Hunt. Thank you, Alicia.
[Alicia Hunt]: Good afternoon. Good evening. I'm Alicia Hunt. I'm the city's director of planning development and sustainability. And like Tim, I also live here in the city of Medford. So just a few quick things here. So some of this gets confusing. We talk about percentages and stuff, and sometimes it's confusing because trash is collected by volume, right? We talk about our 64 gallon trash can, but we pay for it by weight. Our compost, it reduces the weight. So that's gets out what's heavy and wet. So sometimes when we say that it could be like 50%, we're talking about 50% of the waste because of that is the compost by weight, not necessarily all. And so we, that goes back and forth. The recycling reduces the volume. That's where we get out what's big and dry. And we also, the yard and leaf waste takes care of both what's heavy and big. One of the things we will note is that we have a fairly high contamination rate in our recycling. No plastic bags in the recycling. I'm taking this opportunity to say that. Don't bag your recycles, your recycling. And I'll get to that. So the new collection schedule, and to be clear, we're talking about 19 months in the future. I think maybe we're down to 18 months now. Effective July 1st, 2027. Food waste, the composting would be weekly in the 12-gallon cart. Trash every other week in the 64-gallon cart. That would be the same day as your recycling. Recycling is every other week, and that's in your 96-gallon cart. And then yard and leaf waste is 20 weeks a year, and that's in paper bags or 32-gallon barrels, bundles. you can choose what to put it in, but not plastic bags again. Thank you. Back to Tim.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, Alicia. Okay, so this is a nice slide here. Kind of shows the big numbers that help understand the changes over a long period of time. Annually in collections, and just so everybody understands, there's two costs with trash, collection and disposal. Collection is the more expensive thing, but disposal adds up pretty quickly as well, as the middle number shows. So a million dollars annual collection savings every year. This is basically what we save by switching to every other week trash collection. So that's really where the cost really hits home. 4.6 million dollars total disposal savings. from composting and waste reduction combined over the life of our contracts. And, you know, $13 million in total savings over eight years. This is our anticipated savings to the end of our current contracts. We anticipate more in the future. And I also note that there's risk involved here, so it could be higher, too. We can't necessarily predict trash disposal or the recycling market in the future, but we're going to do the best that we can. All right, next slide, please. So the idea behind what you see here and the additional costs shown below is the direction that you're going to be seeing, I think, already 116 cities and towns throughout the state. But it's a pay-as-you-throw program. So there's a minimum baseline of service, which is free. And then if you need more than that, then you have options. This is important because every family is different and there are different amounts. It's important to note that the every other week additional recycling bin is shown there, $6 a month. That kicks in at the beginning of that every other week program. Let's see, make sure I'm getting everything here. So for trash, also, I want to point out that not only can you lease an additional card for $12 a month, but you can buy overflow bags for $2 a bag. Let's see. One thing that's also important to note, since we know recyclables can be big households with large families may need more recycling space. So the cost of an additional recycling cart will drop from $12 to $6 per month. This is an incentive to get residents to recycle more, to make sure only trash goes in the trash carts. All right, next slide. Thank you. To Alicia.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yep, and the next slide is for me, for benefits. So there are a bunch of different things that are going on here. Tim has talked about the money. We're also preparing for a potential state ban, where we believe that the state has announced that they would like to start banning residential food in your regular trash, basically requiring composting starting in 2030. We'd like to clean up our recycling streams, making them cleaner. One of the things that we are hoping to do is to do more education around this as well. I'm working with the library right now to arrange for some education to help people understand a lot of this better. improved air quality, that we'll see a 33% reduction in collection truck trips through residential areas. And those trucks actually cause a lot more damage to our streets than residential regular vehicles do. So that'll reduce the wear and tear on residential streets. And it'll move us towards our climate goals and towards the zero wastes as outlined in our climate action and adaptation plan. One other piece that I meant to mention earlier is that people have asked me a lot, why don't we move to every week recycling as part of this? And there are a lot of studies out there that show that communities that move to every week recycling do not significantly or noticeably increase their recycling rate, that they seem to have about the same rate as communities that do every other week recycling. And so I'm going to hand this over to Tyler for one minute here.
[SPEAKER_44]: Hi, I'm Tyler Frank, president of Garbage to Garden. So we worked with the city to launch Medford's curbside composting program last year, and we have experience with this. We also provide the service for the city of Boston and in other communities. One very bright spot here is, as has been said, in Medford, with over 8,000 households signed up and separating their food scraps today, that's 43% of everybody. Medford is the most successful composting program in the state. And, you know, we do often hear from people who weren't used to separating their food scraps before, how surprised they often are, how much they actually do generate, how much of that yucky stuff they're able to separate from their trash. Compostable waste is 31% by weight of the trash. And just so everyone knows about this, anything that's from a living source is compostable in this program. If it grows, it goes. That's including meat and dairy and bones and paper towels, as well as compostable plates and cups and forks. So there's a lot that we can divert this way. And also we're using more secure latching bins, which keep rodents out. So our drivers dump them by hand. weekly, and if we find a hole chewed in a bin, it's not very common, but we've replaced those on the spot. So we're able to make sure that the food waste is not a food source for rodents. And food waste is currently collected weekly in Medford on the same day as trash, and that weekly service will continue.
[Jeremy Drake]: Hi, everybody. My name is Jeremy Drake. I'm with Strategy Zero Waste Solutions. We're the city's solid waste consultants. I wanna share three benefits of Medford's recycling program. Alicia touched on this earlier, but first, recycling saves space in your trash cart. A lot of recyclables are big. Cardboard boxes is a great example. So break down the boxes, maximize the space in your recycling cart. Second, recycling conserves natural resources. We've known this for decades, that making products from recycled materials uses less raw materials, and it saves energy. And because of that, third, recycling reduces environmental impacts from resource extraction. So let's take, for example, an aluminum can. Those can be recycled indefinitely. Recycling that can into another can is much less impactful to the environment than mining for bauxite, then refining it into aluminum, and then making a can. So what can you recycle in Medford? The graphic on the screen shows what you can and cannot recycle across the state. This is from RecycleSmartMA.org. Go check that out for details. And then finally, an update about recycling in Massachusetts. Paper and plastic cups are now accepted in your curbside cart. So a good guideline to follow to ensure recyclables can be recycled is to make sure they're empty, clean, and dry before you put them in your cart. If you have any questions about your recycling service, contact the city's partner for recycling. That's WM. The information's there on the screen. And I will pass it on back to Alicia.
[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you, Jeremy. So moving forward, the city is listening to public concerns and we're open to suggestions for how to improve. We are also working to help residents prepare. Over time we've said that some things need, people need to choose what to do to be best for the environment and now we're coming to as a city and saying reducing our trash and reducing what goes in the waste is an important thing for Medford residents to be doing. So the next community meeting, after we listen to you all tonight, will be January 28th at 6 p.m. We're gonna do that one in City Hall in the City Council Chambers. We are working on educational workshops. We're looking to do them over the next year and a half. We'll post them on the city's event calendar. I've been talking to the libraries. We'll definitely be hosting some of them there. We are absolutely open to hosting workshops around the city as well. And the schools, Medford schools are working with Garbage to Garden to implement school composting. Garbage to Garden has a lot of experience with rolling out composting in the schools and this has been part of our plan from the very beginning. So you will see composting coming to a school near you soon. And Tim, back to you.
[Tim McGivern]: Great, fantastic. All right, just gonna go over some of the housekeeping rules before we jump into public comment. So Stephen, over these, I'm just gonna go over them real quickly again. I think we actually gotta go back one more slide. Go back one slide. Oh no, back. Yeah, this one. So general chat is disabled. Direct message the troubleshooting staff in the chat if you need technical help. Use the raise hand function in the React menu to be placed in queue. And if you can't figure that out, just wave your hands around, someone will find you. You're going to get two minutes to speak. That's really just because there's a lot of people here and a lot of people want to speak. And we want to give an opportunity to as many people as possible. And I see some of you are already taking advantage of the fun reaction emojis and sending them across the screen. Thank you very much. Please keep them respectful. And I guess have fun. And we'll be watching those as well. So with that said, we can go to the next slide. This is just a repeat listening session. It's being recorded, so you'll be able to go back and reference it or tell your neighbors about it. And if we've run out of time or there's something long that you want to say, it's not going to fill something more than two minutes, please, we want to hear from you. So we have a feedback form and other ways to get in touch. So with that said, let's go to the last slide, and we can get going. All right, Christine's iPhone. I'm going to ask to unmute. And just start with your name and address. And please pay attention to the time. Thank you very much.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'm just going to tell you that I'm having trouble screen sharing and running the timer app at the same time. Hopefully I can get that started. OK.
[Chris Bennett]: Christine's iPhone, I believe you can begin to speak. Hi, this is Christine Bennett. I live on Martin Street in Medford. And I had a couple of things that I wanted to bring up. In the manner of the way that this is being presented, first of all, I'm not really thrilled about. The first question was how many people have filled out the form. And it really wasn't a form that was being asked to fill out. It was more of a survey. And I felt it was an extremely biased survey. The second one was there's no acknowledgement of those people who have already followed all of these things, who have already taken care of their own compost for many years. And I'm also looking at this expectation of large families being held to the amount that they're being asked to do. In one particular case, they're saying, OK, you can always use another barrel and you can rent that barrel for X amount of dollars per month. We had an issue that our barrel got stolen and we were asked to pay for that barrel. So what happens if somebody gets two barrels and all of a sudden that stuff all starts getting done. Other people are using that. Do you know what I'm saying? It just isn't making sense unless we have an ability to do all of all of those things to really ensure that the people who are renting those barrels get to use those barrels. There's too many open gapping gaping Areas that we're not taking care of and we're being that that survey was Absolutely biased and I kind of felt insulted by it Okay, thank you very much, thank you we will
[Tim McGivern]: And if, just to help me out, if folks could just take down your raised hand afterwards, just so I can kind of keep track of who's in queue, that would be very helpful. Thank you very much. Thank you, Christine. All right, S. Wong is next. S. Wong. S. Wong, are you there? All right, we're going to move on to the next person, Uli. So Uli, I'm going to ask to unmute.
[Denis Dettling Kalthofer]: Hi. Actually, this is Dennis. Dennis Detling-Kalto for 120 North Street in Medford. Hi, Dennis. Hi. So first, I want to thank the city for Garbage to Garden, the increased yard waste pickups, and business recycling. Those are good developments. I want you to know that we compost with Garbage to Garden. We recycle whatever we can. But we are only two people. Obviously, there are larger families, as someone mentioned. My concerns are rats and the volume of trash. First of all, not everyone participates in Garbage to Garden. despite the fact that the city pays for it. People have to pay for the bags. There's also packaging of food, plastic packaging, paper packaging of food, and single-use plastics, and diapers. Okay, so these are all things that are going to, at least the packaging of food and food waste in the trash barrels will attract rats. Also, I think that asking people to rent extra barrels will be resisted. It will be seen as a reduction in services. And also people need to be aware that you can't compost tissues that have been used for personal use. It's disgusting to put one's own germs into the soil that's going to be used by other people in their gardens. So if you really want to be effective, and also many people have already overloaded their barrels. Paper towels that are used with detergents to clean surfaces cannot be composted. If you really want to reduce waste, I suggest that you ban single-use plastics in grocery stores. We reuse our single-use plastic bags, but it's impossible to do this forever. And styrofoam in deliveries. There should never be styrofoam anywhere. Thank you.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, Uli. All right, we're going to move to Megan Fuller.
[SPEAKER_33]: Yes, Megan Fuller, I live on Woods Road. So I'm concerned about sanitation like others, and as was mentioned, the the non-compostable waste that still attracts rodents, and also the overflow bag option. When you were listing kind of wins, you talked about the removal of these overflow bags from businesses, and now they're going to be put on the streets, and I'm concerned about the hygienic implications of that. I also think there's a little bit of a disconnect in the program because from the city's perspective, trash is measured by weight, but from our perspective, trash is measured by volume. And the current proposal here reduces the total amount of trash collected by volume by 40 gallons per every two weeks, which is quite a lot. And I think if it's reason if people are going to do that, we need some guidance on how on how how to reduce by volume our trash to that to that extent. And I think as well, there will be times when people who are mostly okay, for example, throw a party and have overflow trash with these tighter limits. And so if there could be some sort of dumpsters or somewhere we could put sort of one-time overflow, unexpected, unusual, I think that would help.
[Tim McGivern]: Great, thank you very much. All right, now we're going to move to Citizens of Wellington. Name and address, and you have two minutes. Oh, I'm sorry, I did the wrong one. Cheryl's iPhone, I'm just gonna mute you again, and we'll get to you next, sorry. Citizens of Wellington.
[Alicia Hunt]: You have to send it again, they unmuted and remuted pretty quickly. You may be correct to unmute to them.
[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, I'll do it again.
[SPEAKER_07]: Hi, can you hear me now? Yes, hello, welcome. Hi, so I would like to remain anonymous, just know I am a citizen of Wellington Circle. I've been here since I was born. Is that okay with you guys?
[Tim McGivern]: Is there an address you can give us?
[SPEAKER_07]: First Street. Okay, thank you. So I have a few questions to be said. As we all know that trash brings rats and rats are known to harbor and transmit diseases. They also bring in other larger and dangerous wildlife and especially dangerous towards pets. And then also what will be done with the $13 million in savings? Will that be allocated? Will there be a cut in taxes as the services provided are being cut in half? What about compost smell? It is widely known that many, especially during the summer, keep their scraps inside until they can be collected. There's also the increase in flies from both compost and trash that now has to sit there for two weeks. And then going back to with the new latches and improved on them. Just today, I saw numerous compost bins being knocked over from wind and spilling. Will also City Hall and other public buildings be collected weekly? as those are currently collected weekly, or will they also be collected every other week? What are also Waste Management's thoughts on this, as they are the provider of our service? And who will be enforcing this new policy? Will it be the police enforcing it? And who will be liable for tenants with landlords that don't care?
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you. Thank you very much. Valuable questions. All right, we'll move to Cheryl's iPhone. Please state your name and address, and you have two minutes. Thank you. Let me try one more time. Cheryl's iPhone, I'm gonna click S to unmute right now.
[SPEAKER_20]: Sorry, got it. That's okay. Sorry, can you hear me now?
[Tim McGivern]: I can hear you, welcome.
[SPEAKER_20]: Thanks, sorry. I live on Sampson Road. Just quickly wanna say, yeah, I'm surprised by this just by everybody else. And when you're looking at the discourse on Facebook, there's people in there that'll have to be like, well, I can do it, why can't you? Well, I will tell you, I compost, I recycle, I go down to the extra recycling bin behind the DPW. where people are kind enough to just throw whole boxes in there, and I've actually pulled them out and broke them down myself just so I can get boxes in there. My recycling bin's usually full. By the end of two weeks, I have two barrels. I have me and my husband, my granddaughter's over a lot. We always have people at the house. For the most part, both of my barrels are getting full, but I recycle, I compost, I don't know what else I can do. I'm glad I have the composting, but what sucks is that we have the rats. I used to compost my own waste for my gardens, and now, yes, we have a composting service. To buy compost from garbage to garden is actually pretty expensive, so I don't use their service for that. I don't know. I don't think it's right. I am not a big family, but I have two dogs and two dogs worth of poop for two weeks. Not pretty. Middle of the summer with the composting bins. You know, sometimes I might have room to throw, you know, garbage, you know, food waste into the freezer, whereas somebody said, just throw it in the freezer. But I don't always have space for that. And yeah, those bins can stink. I am constantly fighting with the rats around my house. I am constantly going down the holes and killing them. And the problem is, I got people who can't even pick up garbage around their own houses. And it's just gonna get worse.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, Cheryl. We appreciate the feedback. All right, we'll move to Billy. Billy, I'll ask you to unmute. Name and address, Billy. Hello. I'll give Billy one more minute here, just a few more seconds. Billy? All right, thank you. All right, we're going to move to Kim. Kim, please name and address.
[SPEAKER_43]: Hi, everyone. I live on Maple Ave. I've been a Medford resident pretty much my whole life. My first question is for the two people, Tim and I think Alicia. You currently live in Medford. Are you currently practicing this?
[Tim McGivern]: But I don't think we should be answering personal questions tonight. We want to take your feedback, though. But we do live in Medford, yes.
[SPEAKER_43]: I'll take that as a no, thank you. I echo what Megan Fuller said, and I hope that she runs for mayor. Megan, get in contact with me. I'm on Maple Ave. You should run for mayor. You would crush it. We clearly need some new leadership in here. They are not listening to the people. I'm grateful for all of you here speaking up. But this is pretty embarrassing. It's pretty embarrassing that we have to come on here on a Monday right before the holidays and fight with our town about something we never got to even vote on. Yeah, that's really all I have to say. I'll look forward to you answering that question, Tim, about whether or not you're actually doing this right now while asking all of us to do this.
[Tim McGivern]: I'm not sure. I'm on the city contract just like everybody else. So when it goes into effect, my services will be what I showed you just like yours. So thank you very much. All right. Let's see. We will move to Milva McDonald. Milva, I'm going to ask you to unmute. Name and address, please.
[Milva McDonald]: Hi, thank you. I'm Milva McDonald at 61 Monument Street. First, I just want to thank everyone who's been working so hard on this for the last few years. Commissioner McGivern, Director Hunt, the Solid Waste Task Force, Garbage to Garden, and our Solid Waste Consultant. I think it's really impressive the way you've been able to come up with a plan that addresses our climate goals as well as the budget issues the city is going to be facing. I've read a little bit about pay-as-you-throw programs, and I believe I read that it's over 160 communities in Massachusetts that have them. And the statistic that I saw on the MassDEP website said that in pay-as-you-throw communities, households produce 32% less trash, and that's pretty considerable. So I'm really excited that we're moving towards this. I think that not all pay-as-you-throw communities are able to offer free composting, so that really, I think, gives Medford a chance to do maybe even better than that. And I am really proud to live in a city that's been a leader in terms of environmental issues. We composted for many years. I had four children at home, and I know it's hard to reduce trash, but even with my four kids at home, we never filled up our bin. And I'm excited that you're going to be giving programs that are going to help people sort of address some of the challenges of making less trash. I see this as very positive. I don't see it as a reduction in services because the free composting to me is a huge increase in services. And I think that we're going to see some issues, but it's clear that we can address problems as they arise. And I'm glad to see Citi listening and taking people's concerns seriously and working to address them. So thank you to everyone who's worked on this.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, Melba. All right. We're going to move to Robert Carney. Robert, name and address. Two minutes to speak. Hello, Robert.
[Robert Carney]: Hi, Tim, thanks for having me today. So, first of all, I actually want to propose a compromise that I think could help move us in a direction of waste reduction while keeping weekly service. So, here just I think what could be interesting to think about let's take a 32 gallon equivalent limit per week idea but keep the weekly trash pickup and let me just hear me out here what I'm proposing here is from what I understand waste management already has the ability to weigh the trash it collects. I'm wondering, is there a way to impose, like, maybe with a pay-as-you-throw program, some type of weight limit or, like, periodic weight report of how much trash you're throwing out, you know, on a weekly basis, and then charge residents over that, or have citywide bags, a limit on how many you can buy? Because the thing that I'm concerned about is really trash being out there for too long. Certain food-related packaging can attract flies and rodents. And I'm concerned about that being in the trash for two weeks. Think about the plastic and foam-like wrapping for the meat and smelly fish out there. Same thing with diapers, especially I'm thinking about young families who might want to use cloth diapers, but maybe they're living in a house that doesn't have a washer and dryer hookup. I think things like this are things we really don't want to have in the trash for a long time. I also have concerns about sanitary enforcement in the city. Some of my neighbors already have overflowing trash barrels or barrels that lack proper lids. It feels like it's rat central in South Medford. And I think we need to get these issues resolved before we further limit residents abilities to put things to have, you know, more frequent traffic. I just think let's get that under control first, but I do support the spirit of what you're trying to do. So I do thank you for having this conversation. And I live at Hicks Ave, so you have my address for the record. Thank you. Oh, wait, actually, one more thing. Sorry, Tim. I also want the city to continue the conversation, Tim, I've been having with you and the mayor about resuming and starting services for all townhouses with the money saved from this project. Thank you.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, Robert. We're going to jump out of order real quickly, because Billy, who was in line before, fixed his headset apparently. So I'm going to move to Billy, and then I'm going to go back to Alessandra's iPhone and proceed with the queue from there. So Billy, I'm going to ask you to unmute again. Welcome. Name and address, please. Hello.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you hear me? I can. Welcome. OK. Perfect. Thank you. Billy Fosstreet. Um, I think it's just a bit frustrating that, you know, I think a lot of us like recycling and want to expand it. We like compost and want to expand it. Um, but really the, the problem that I'm most concerned with is how this is going to increase the rat population. And, you know, I saw one of the wins was about healthier air quality, but it just feels like we're, we're trading that for all the health concerns from how many rats we're going to be bringing, especially in the summer, especially people with pets, people with babies. I just, I mean, one thing that I would hope the city would consider is what ways are we going to mitigate the rat population? Like, for example, I think some towns have shown that putting birth control in rat populations is actually one of the best ways to get them to stop. So I hope you're looking into those kinds of things. And I just really hope it's frustrating to hear like, Oh, don't worry. It's a year away. Like I plan to live here for many years. So I'm just hearing I've got one more year without a massive rat problem. And then many years with a massive rat problem. So I just really hope the city would consider. Walking back from this expanding compost, expanding recycling, but it just doesn't, you know, if one house near me out of 200 houses doesn't do a good job and they attract rats, we're all going to have rats. And it just seems like. the psychology, the behavioral of the community maybe isn't really being fully considered. It just seems like we're on a collision course for a ton of rats. And I really hope we would consider just walking back from this. We don't have to be locked into this, even though this is what we've said we're doing.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, Billy. We appreciate the feedback. All right, back to the top of the queue, Alessandra's iPhone. I'll ask you to unmute. Please list your name and address. Thank you. Alessandra's iPhone, you're up if you choose to speak. All right, I'm gonna click ask to unmute one more time, see what happens, and then move on. All right, Alexandra may be having some problems. So I'm going to lower your hand. If you get your audio issues worked out, please raise your hand again. Jessica H is next. Jessica H, I'm going to unmute. Please let us know your name and address, and you'll have two minutes.
[Jessica Healey]: Can you hear me?
[Tim McGivern]: I can. Welcome.
[Jessica Healey]: I'm Jessica Haley, Lock Road in Medford. I just want to know, is it the mayor who signed for this or is it someone else in the city? Do you guys know like who signs the contract?
[Tim McGivern]: We aren't necessarily answering questions tonight, but that is the mayor is the signatory as the executive for contracts that the city holds.
[Jessica Healey]: Okay, no, I was just wondering why she's not here for this listening session that so I'm pretty confused on that aspect.
[Tim McGivern]: She was earlier. Yes. And she I believe she's in the audience now.
[Jessica Healey]: I'm not I don't know that for certain school committee meeting. So if you're not listening to this. So I just earlier one. Right. So I would like to know what's going to happen with my big thing is animal waste. I already have holes in my barrel. The rats have already chewed through. And so what do we do like cat waste, dog waste, baby diapers? because when we had people come around here to handle the rats, they said the big thing is like dog waste. Make sure you pick up your dog waste, you throw it out. Well, we do that, but now sitting in the trash for two weeks is gonna be pretty disgusting. And the rats, it's just gonna attract them more to the barrels that they chew through. I compost, I use a disposal. We don't throw food outside. but we have a bigger family and we're always full at the end of the week. So I'm not sure how this is going to work. And for these questions, are you going to like put them online to kind of answer what we're asking?
[Tim McGivern]: Yes, we're going to be updating the Frequently Asked Questions section that's on the website. And the website is on that slide there. Yep. So there's a lot of feedback. Just so everybody realizes it's worth repeating, there's a lot of feedback. A lot of people want to speak. So we're trying to take the most common, frequent questions and provide some answers. And if we don't have answers, as was mentioned before, or if there's a gap somewhere, then we're going to try to fill that. Tweak the program, make updates as as needed. So that's that's really what the goal is here. All right. So thank you Jessica. You're welcome. All right. I'm going to mute you and lower your hand and then we're going to move to Daniel. I can't see the whole name actually, unless I go. One second, Daniel Rosenwig.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_23]: Hi, I'm Daniel Rosenswig. I live on Wilson Street. I'm native to the greater Boston area, but pretty new to Medford specifically. I'm already composting. That's a great program. Thank you. I'm wondering how much of our trash cost is for collection versus how much for disposal. along the same lines of Robert who spoke recently, I'm not that concerned about paying for a bit of extra volume, but I am concerned about having it sit there for two weeks. And I'm particularly concerned that excess might sit outside proper containers, and therefore more exposed to animals. You have said that extra containers are available for a fee, but they only make sense if you'll overfill every week, and not if you overfill on an erratic basis. I do think that composting will help to reduce the volume, but I'm concerned it won't reduce it enough. Another speaker mentioned that pay-as-you-throw has reduced waste by 32% elsewhere. But in order to make things work based on our existing consumption, it would have to be reduced by 50%. And that's a lot. I also think that our waste limits should be dependent on the number of residents. The limit that might make sense for a two-person household might not make sense for a six-person family. And if we could have different limits, depending on your household size, that might make a big difference for all of us. And the tighter our limits are, the more that becomes an issue. You know, right now, if we have some spare room, maybe it's not such a big deal that we all have the same limit. But when it becomes really tight, I think that'll matter a lot more.
[Tim McGivern]: All right, thank you very much, Daniel. T Silvestro is next. T Silvestro, I'll ask you to unmute. Please, your name and address. Thank you.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_01]: Hello?
[Tim McGivern]: Hello, welcome.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_01]: Hi, my name is Tony Silvestro. I live at 5 Royal Street in Medford. My biggest concern is I live in South Medford and the rat population. I've already lost one dog to leptoporosis in 2021. During the height of the pandemic with all the rats But I also have two dogs and I have a lot of waste and I'm also a senior citizen. So my biggest concern is how do you think the senior citizens are going to be able to reel that cart out two weeks every other week? It's going to be heavy. It's going to be full of all kinds of crap. Pardon my language, but I just, I don't understand it. And if you're going to save money, are you going to give it back to us seniors and our tax bill and lower taxes? Those are my big concerns. And, but the biggest one is the rats. And I have had to hire exterminator. I have rat boxes all around my house. And the house across the street from me is an apartment building. They have their barrels are so overfilled. It's not funny. And half of it when it blows, blows down my driveway. So those are my big concerns. And that's about all I have to say. And I'm going to tell everybody, please make sure your dogs are vaccinated for leptoprosis because it's not a fun thing to see your dog die from it. Thank you very much.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, Tony.
[Unidentified]: I don't know.
[Tim McGivern]: Next up is TK. TK, when I unmute you, please your name and address, and you'll have two minutes.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_10]: Good evening, Tom Cubilis at Toro Avenue in Medford. How are you all? My comment is essentially around the Pay As You Throw program. In other Massachusetts communities, residents have the option to choose their hauler. That would mean multiple haulers could potentially go down your street on a given day. All it takes is one home to request a haul, and now we have two trash trucks going down the road. Has that been thought about? And also, is that built into the metrics regarding the use of trucks on roads and the damage to roads and our mission's targets? Thank you.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, TK. All right, next up is Erin Dalbeck.
[Unidentified]: I don't recognize that name.
[Tim McGivern]: I'm going to ask you to unmute. Name and address for the record, please. Thank you. Hi, there.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_12]: Can you hear me?
[Tim McGivern]: I can, Erin. Welcome.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_12]: Thank you. I don't have a lot to say. I just wanted to say I'm in favor of this new trash program. I've seen personally how composting has decreased my family's need for weekly trash pickup. I have a dog and we have a container that does lock and it stays outside. And I've never seen any rats around my compost or in my trash area or in my dog's poop bag area. Um, I just really love the idea of how this is sustainable. Um, I like the mission behind it. I like that it's going to save our city money. Um, and, um, I feel like it's just the future of our country and what we should all be doing, um, to adapt. Um, and I think that's it. So thank you for all your work.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you. All right. Next is Stephanie. When I unmute you, please your name and address for the record, and you'll have two minutes. Thank you. Hi, Stephanie.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_18]: Hi, I'm Stephanie Bama. I live on Broadway. So Broadway is owned by Medford, but I'm actually not sure how much of this applies to my service because the road is owned by Somerville. But anyway, I think it's a great presentation. I understand it's been long in the works. I'm not an expert in this area, but I do stay abreast of sustainability information, and I, from what I understand, pay as you go. And, you know, the composting availability and everything, this is directionally, as maybe was also reflected by the awards and the rankings, like this is directionally where things are going. Also, based on my travels in other countries, the places where their waste management is, like, you experience it the best. They have pay-as-you-go systems like Japan, for example. So anyway, I think it's great work, and I want to support it, and my suggestion is that perhaps you could in the future touch more on the plans that the city has with the rollout. Could any part of it be progressive or gradual, and as it rolls out and people adjust to it, what are the interim points of feedback and possibilities for adjustment? For example, if people need loaner bins or, you know, increases in their volumes. So perhaps addressing some of that could help assuage concerns. Thanks.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, Stephanie. Good suggestions. Right. We're going to move on to Patty Kaya. And Patty Kaya, when I unmute you, could you please list your name and address? And you'll have two minutes. Thank you. Welcome, Patty.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_26]: Hi, Patty Kaya, Monument Street. And I only have one question, though I do have a couple of comments. The question is, how do we stop this? How do we stop this train before it leaves the station? I disagree with reducing the cadence of garbage pickup for all the same reasons that many people have said on this call, have said in social media, have said on the 1400 signatory petition against this reduction in such an essential public service for all of the environmental concerns that we're trying to address. My problem is that this should be the absolute last resort. Taking away weekly trash pickup should be the last thing you do, not the first thing you do. And there are people on this call that have come up with solutions that would reduce some of the volume and the waste product that we're talking about before we would cut people's essential service for all of the health and safety concerns that people are concerned about. So we didn't vote on this. We didn't have any input. And my last comment is about the way that outreach has been handled by the city. It's almost like you think you can educate us into submission, as if we're all too ignorant to understand the environmental context of the problem, the greater problem. We think it's the wrong solution to the problem. So you can keep trying to educate us. We're not too dumb to understand. We think it's the wrong solution. We don't ignore the fact that there's a problem. And we're asking you to rise above. and try something else first. Try other things first. That's the problem. The survey was incredibly leading questions. This educational event tonight isn't about listening, it's about telling us that we're too dumb to understand why you're doing it. I would like some more respect from the city. Thank you very much.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, Patty. I know I respect every single one of you. So it's that. All right. Thank you. We're going to move on to Jen. Jen, I'm going to ask you to unmute. And of course, as a reminder to everybody, I'm trying to do this out of the utmost respect for all of you. So Jen, if you could list your name and address, and you'll have two minutes. Thank you very much.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_25]: Hi, Jen, so got ski place dead road. I'm just gonna piggyback a little bit on what Patty was saying. I feel like the city has been, you know, pushing toward having a half of the pickup that we have right now but they're not addressing the fact that. There are not currently that many options for reducing the amount of trash that we have. There are certain things like soft plastics and styrofoam in particular that are very hard to recycle or get rid of other than in the trash. I think before we implement something like this, the city needs to have a harder push toward finding ways to recycle soft plastics, to recycling styrofoam, so that we can have the room in our bins that it could be a lesser pickup. But right now, we live in a society where there's a lot of soft plastic packaging. There's a lot of styrofoam. You know, if I get a piece of furniture delivered, it fills up my entire bin for the week. There's nothing I can do about that. There's no place to recycle that. My other concern is how do we avoid illegal dumping? As we saw with the mattresses, when the city started implementing the having to pay to have mattresses picked up, I've had to call the city more than once for mattresses that have been dumped in random places, like my kid's school, for example. How is that not going to happen with trash going forward when people don't have room in their bins? And the third thing is, I'm not sure why the city is not pushing for other solutions. Like, for example, we have this great online community called Everything is Free Medford, where people can post things and have other people pick them up, which keeps thousands and thousands of pounds of things out of the trash. Why the city is not pushing that more as an option for posting things to keep things out of the waste stream is just beyond me.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, Jen. That was good feedback. We're going to move on to Charlotte Cahill. Charlotte Cahill, I'll ask you to unmute, and please report your name and address, and you'll have two minutes.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_06]: Great, thanks. Hi, Charlotte Cahill. I appreciate you creating this forum tonight and giving us an opportunity to provide some feedback. I want to start by just sort of echoing some of the public health and sanitation concerns that other people have shared regarding the shift to weekly or biweekly pickup. I'm not going to repeat everything that others have said on this, but would just add that I think one thing that's getting lost a little bit in some of the messaging around this is that the city's goal for composting is to have 19,000 households composting. If that goal is achieved, that's three quarters of households in the city. meaning that one in four households will still have food waste in their trash. And federal guidelines recommend weekly pickup of all food waste precisely for the kinds of public health reasons that folks here have been raising. So just want to really kind of like emphasize that point. And I think the other thing that folks haven't, some people have talked some about like, cuts to an essential service. And what I want to call out really directly is that this is like creating an equity issue when you're cutting an essential public service. What this cut is doing is reframing a public health and sanitation service that should be the responsibility of municipal government and turning that into a conversation about the consumption choices that individual people are making. And that's happening without any real meaningful effort that I can see to provide alternatives. So this isn't just about educating people. It's not about telling us that we're going to have access to the same recycling and compost programs that we have now. But what else can be done here?
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, Charlotte. And just to correct some information that you're putting out there, the compost service will go universal. So that's everybody who has eligible trash service now gets compost as well. So thank you. All right, we're going to move to Catherine.
[Alicia Hunt]: Tim, can we just make that a little bit clearer? Sure. Because I've seen that out on the web before. When we say our goal is 19,000 households composting, 19,000 households is 100% of the households on the city's waste trash system. The total number of households in the city that is a higher number, those people are on commercial composting programs that are not run by the city. So our goal is 100% composting, 100% of the eligible households composting.
[Tim McGivern]: Correct. Thank you, Alicia. Now we'll move to Catherine. Catherine, I'll ask you to unmute. If you could report your name and address, you'll have two minutes. Thank you.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_15]: Hello. Welcome. Hi. Thank you. I think I missed it the first time. Catherine Bradshaw Street, Medford, lived here all my life. So the couple of people ahead of me did touch upon what was on the list of things that I did want to mention. I do want to ask, though, I didn't see how we're going to, the city's going to make out with paying less money to go to the burning and saugus versus the difference that we make in garbage to garden. That was one thing I felt, unless I missed it during the presentation. I did want to bring up the illegal dumping, though. So I travel down commercial to Riverside a lot. And before those apartments that are going to go up where CKS is, there's a lot of illegal dumping. It's dark over there. There's TVs, furniture. Um, so I think we're going to see a lot more of that, maybe not only there, but as other people had said, you know, the mattresses being dumped when you get furniture, people leave it out in the street. I've, I just want to mention, I have called, Four times from May to September, people leaving furniture out. You're supposed to pay for it. They don't want to pay for it. And then the city is saying to me, well, where is it? Why is it there? Oh, well, if you live there, like if someone dumps in front of your house, it's your responsibility. Well, I didn't put it there. I mean, I think that may be happening. And then maybe not to mention, possibly the fistfights that will be happening when people are using other people's trash barrels. I think those are things I just wanted to put out there, and thank you very much for listening.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, Catherine. Appreciate it. OK, I'm going to move on to Nicholas Guirleo. Nicholas, I'll ask you to unmute. If you could report your name and address, you'll have two minutes. Thank you. All right. Switched real quick. Main note of gotcha. Hopefully I did. If not, I'll do it again.
[Alicia Hunt]: You may have hit the one next to him.
[Tim McGivern]: Oh, yes, I hit Fred. Fred, I'm going to unmute you again. Oh, you already did it himself. Thank you, Fred. And I'm going to try Nicholas one more time.
[Nick Giurleo]: Welcome, Nicholas. Good evening, Nick Giurleo, Forty Robinson Road. I would like to just begin by pointing out that during the existence of the Solid Waste Task Force, a survey was put out. Over 700 people were polled. About 60 percent of the people who were polled in the survey contained a question asking directly, do you want this change? About 60% of people polled said no. Only about 20% of people could actually commit to a yes response. Now you compare this to the survey that was recently released, which doesn't ask directly, do people want the service change, right? And it's full of loaded questions and really, really unscientific. in a lot of ways. So my question for the city is very simply, will the city make a decision here that reflects what the majority wants? Based on that poll, based on what people are saying here tonight, it seems that overwhelmingly, and based on what people have said leading up to this, it seems overwhelmingly that people don't want this. So will the city listen? Will the city propose an alternative? And I fully understand and respect the financial implications of this tough choice, but will the city propose an alternative here? that reflects what the majority wants. Thank you.
[Tim McGivern]: Sure, Nick, you've got a little bit of time left. I just wanted to ask a clarifying question. Was there a specific element of the program that you were speaking about?
[Nick Giurleo]: The service change, obviously, to bi-weekly trash collection.
[Tim McGivern]: Okay, you just didn't say it. I had a feeling that's what you're talking about. I just wanted to make sure it was clear. Thank you. All right, we're going to move on to Fred Roach. Fred, I'm going to ask you to unmute. If you could say your name and address, you'll have two minutes to speak. Thank you very much.
[Fred Roche]: Go ahead. Yes, hi, 77 Whittier Road in Medford. I just want to go out there and say that I'm totally opposed to this. Big surprise. Second thing is I spoke to two landlords today at a social event. They don't live in the city. Neither landlord knew anything about a trash change. So I don't know what kind of notification's gone out, if any. And this decision's already been made, and this is being rammed down the residents' throats. And I've lived in the city for 65 years, and in 65 years, this is gonna be the worst decision I've ever seen from the city of Medford. And second of all, I have scrapped plans to build an ADU. because of this. So I don't know if your millions of dollars in savings is going to calculate what you're going to lose, but that's my thoughts on it. I won't waste my time anymore because I'll be wasting my time.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, Fred. Just same question I had for Nicholas. I believe you were specifying the part of the program where it goes to every other week as opposed to like universal compost or other aspects of the program.
[Fred Roche]: Absolutely. I just wanted to clarify. I have some time remaining, so let me comment. There's been no soliciting of the citizens with regard to how they feel. And if whatever's been done, it's been disregarded. And that's really unfair. And this decision is going to come back and haunt the city. It really is. Thank you very much. Have a good night.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, Fred. To Sarah Burnt. Sorry if I'm mispronouncing that. Sarah Burnt. I'm going to ask you to unmute. And if we could have your name and address, you'll have two minutes. Thank you.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_19]: Hello.
[Tim McGivern]: Hello. Welcome, Sarah.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_19]: Can you hear me? Oh, there we go. Hi, Sarah. Nice to see you all. Thank you all for being here. I live on Sharon Street. Echoing what others are saying, waste costs are up because plastic waste is a problem globally now. I don't think we are going to only compost our way out of this one. I think it's going to take a more holistic approach. Our family already composts everything that we can. We try to reduce waste as much as possible. We visit the local plastic free refillery on Boston Ave, Trove Green Preservations. If you haven't heard of it, it's a great way to cut down on some of that packaging for your household goods. But like others have said, I'm also worried about trash sitting. You know, we're pretty rat free here in West Medford so far, knock on wood, but we really, really don't want to see what's coming from Somerville over here. across the river and, you know, dog waste, diapers, like people have said, the food waste, meat packaging, all of those are going to be really, really smelly. I think, you know, the program in in its intent is really great. But I think adoption is going to happen when we make things easier for people, not harder. I think we should be thinking of this more holistically. Like, can we increase soft plastic recycling to keep that part out of the trash? Can we provide free compost bags for families to drive them towards the composting program? So if we could just have maybe a little bit more of options instead of feeling like, You know, we're punishing residents for having trash. Maybe we try to think about this as a way to explore other areas for reducing trash overall. Thank you.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, Sarah. Appreciate your comments. Okay, we're going to move to Shayna. Shayna Simenstein. If you could please tell us your name and address, you'll have two minutes. Welcome, Shana.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_20]: Hi, I am on in Hillside, and I just wanted to thank everybody in the city for trying to address the really challenging problem of waste management, because. Um, the cost of waste disposal is increasing and like we are running out of places to put trash. And I think this is a, and so like I'm in full support of trying to find creative solutions to deal with this. Um, and, um, I guess I had just a couple of questions. Um, I think to reiterate a few other folks who have, like are in support of this, but also have some questions. Um, and one is. Um, what is the city going to do about all of the residential buildings that don't qualify for this? Um, because they have more than four or six units. I don't remember what the cap is. Um, especially when the 2030 ban on food waste takes effect from the state. Um, and then my other question, um, is, uh, yeah, like what is the city doing to kind of like holistically address this issue in addition to like trying to cut down on the waste stream through trash pickup, but like through reducing plastic at the grocery store or takeout containers, et cetera, just to like help residents achieve the goal of having like half as much trash as they currently do. Because I think like what I'm hearing is a lot of the concern about this is like fear of not being able to fit everything in your bin. So I feel like, Um, you know, having the city work on, like, tangential issues that could help reduce waste, um, would be really helpful, especially in, like, the next 18 month lead up, uh, to this rollout.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, Shana. Appreciate the comments. And it looks like we have Alessandra back. Alessandra's iPhone is next. So go ahead and unmute you. If you could let us know your name and address, you'll have 2 minutes. Alessandra's iPhone, you hear?
[Alicia Hunt]: Kim, she told our troubleshooting staff that she was having trouble clicking the unmute button. Right. Alessandra, if you want to message your comment to our troubleshooting staff, one of us could read it out for you, or you could email it to waste at medford-me.gov. that you see on the screen there. I'm really sorry that you're having technical trouble.
[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, sorry about that. Let's try it one more time for good measure. That doesn't work. Move to Jim Bennett. So Jim Bennett, get ready. All right, Jim Bennett, I'm going to go ahead and ask you to unmute. If you could give us your name and address, you'll have two minutes. Thank you.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_31]: Oh, there we go, thank you. Yeah, I have a lot of the concern to a lot of people with this every two week pickup, but some of my I think the intent is good about reducing trash, doing more recycling, but I find our program is not. We do the standard recycling for the state. I understand that, but there are a lot of the programs and styrofoam is not very recyclable, but there are places will accept it in there, not in their curbside, but they have places you can bring it. For that fact, the recycling compost we have, I'm there at least every two weeks getting rid of cardboard, because yeah, you can put cardboard in your recycle bin, but try fitting everything in there with cardboard. It doesn't work. And when you go to the compactor, you'll find a lot of people just have a lot of stuff that shouldn't be in there. Hard plastics, baskets, styrofoam. and I recently I saw someone say that they don't flatten their their cardboard so that that's an issue um and I think that's great that it's there I mean years ago I remember bringing bottles down and breaking them down at the city yard probably in the 80s but what I kind of my other question too is in the contract my understanding is the contract was signed two years ago if that's not correct correct me And in the consideration of the contract, do we look at different vendors? Do we look at dual stream? I mean, right now we, we dump all this paper in there with all the other stuff. It's not, it's a contaminated, more contaminated than a dual stream. And then there's a multi stream, which is a step beyond that. Did we look into dual stream? Cause I know that's available in this area. I looked up a chart on the DEP. And I don't know if that was even considered because you get a better product where you divide in your bottles, your cans and your plastic. So, I don't know if that was considered or not. That'd be 1 of my questions. It seemed to be, it would be better recycling cleaner, non contaminated.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you agent. So, we did go through a lengthy RFP process just to make sure folks understand that. So lots of things were considered. So the RFP process was comprehensive and lengthy.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_31]: So that information is comprehensive, but did it consider other streams or.
[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, comprehensive, that's what that means. So all options were considered, yeah.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_31]: All right, because single stream, I always, I was never for single stream. I remember when we did paper and we did our bottles and our cans. Thank you, Jim. And I was very happy with that. Thank you, Jim.
[Tim McGivern]: All right, we're going to move on to Ted Blake. So, Ted, I'm going to ask you to unmute. If you could let us know your name and address, you'll have two minutes to speak. Thank you.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_05]: Hi, Ted Blake, Toro Ave. I'm going to skip some of the things that other people have said. Concerns about dumping was one of the ones. Concerns about single stream plastics, like making sure this is addressed not just on the citizens and the residents, but on the grocery stores and things like that. The two other things that I just wanted to chime in that haven't been mentioned. Number one, kind of going along with dumping is just the idea of like, I anticipate like, I don't know, people just like filling up the bins at the parks and things like that. And so I'm just wondering if that's taken into account, just like if that there's going to be increased volume there. And the second one was if there's any potential solution for having a transfer station that's open to residents. I know other towns have transfer stations you can bring things to. either in addition to or instead of the pay-as-you-go bags.
[Tim McGivern]: Thanks. Thank you. And just to make sure folks know, Bedford does not have a transfer station. It requires land and a whole different set of permitting, so we don't have one. Anyway, thank you. We're going to move on to Christian's iPhone. Christian's iPhone, when I unmute you, if you could list your name and address, and you'll have two minutes. Thank you. Did I say Christian? I meant Christine. Sorry.
[Chris Bennett]: Thank you. I got a little confused by that.
[Tim McGivern]: I don't know why. I think, you know, maybe my eyes are starting to cross.
[Chris Bennett]: Using this single stream recycling, I'm thinking like how much money we could probably get just on paper and cardboard alone. I mean, a lot of cities and towns use that, but by using a single stream, we're wasting just the chance of getting paper. I'm sorry?
[Tim McGivern]: I think that was a rogue microphone.
[Chris Bennett]: Okay.
[Tim McGivern]: Yeah.
[Chris Bennett]: So I just wanted to know, like, we're using single stream. We could be getting money back on paper and and cardboard and all that. I wanted to know if the city is paying for the concurrent composting. I know that we received a grant, but what will the future cost be? I just wanted to get that question out. And then, Mr. McGiven, I know that you've questioned a couple of people saying, you know, what was it that they were talking about? What was it in regards to? And I think the actual advertisement for this particular Zoom said, if you wanted, we wanted to hear about our upcoming changes to our waste collection system. So I would assume that it would always be regarding the once every two week pickup.
[Tim McGivern]: That's why I asked. I wanted to be sure because we also have universal compost as part of this program.
[Chris Bennett]: Yeah, but that's not, that, that doesn't seem to be the concern that most people have. It's the major concern is that you're asking people to pick up once every other week. And that would be, you know, that, that's the part that would impact most people.
[Tim McGivern]: Correct. Yep. And that's exactly why I'm asking folks to clarify, to make sure that that goes on record. If that's the concern. Yep. That's exactly why I'm asking. Thank you, ma'am. All right. All right, we're gonna move on to Ralph Klein. So Ralph Klein, if you could give us your name and address, and you'll have two minutes when I unmute you, or ask you to unmute.
[Ralph Klein]: Hi, can you hear me? Hi, Ralph, yeah, welcome. Welcome. Yeah, my concern is with this every other week, I think it's absolutely ridiculous. For a simple reason, for a bin that's a composting bin that's one tenth the size of the regular barrel, you think people are going to reduce their trash by half per week? That's a little unrealistic. I remember the composting we did back in the 60s. We had a bucket in your backyard. I gave pictures to the city council of the bin. You take it out, the swill wagon would go down the street and would stink the street up. Now, you have all this money, you're paying for this composting every week, it's supposed to be, from my understanding, but trash is every other week. Why is this one tenth size bin more important than and cuts the trash in half? That's totally unrealistic. The second problem is rats. Wherever you have construction, you have rats. Route 93, when they redid the rotary, the rats went over to the church and all that neighborhood. On Salem Street, when they did the Sink Building, they're now doing the building on the corner of Park Street. They talk about doing another one down the street. That's gonna bring rats into the neighborhood. People say, oh, no, it doesn't. We don't have a rat problem. Yeah, we do. I've seen more rats around here than I have in years. I mean, it's crazy. And they're saying, oh, well, we can stream. Well, why not make a third collection bin? for trash, for the plastic recyclables, for the styrofoam, that way there. Or give us a drop-off spot for it. You have a dumpster for cardboard. Why can't you put another dumpster up there for overflow trash and overflow styrofoam or the plastics to be recycled? It eliminates part of your problem. I mean, sitting this in composting, yeah, it's wonderful. It's small. Everybody has a garbage disposal. For the amount you're going to put in it, it's ridiculous to say, oh, every other week. Thank you.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, Ralph. Appreciate the comments. Okay, we're going to move on to Gianna Solvelletti. Gianna, when I ask you to unmute, if you could give us your name and address, you'll have two minutes.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_27]: Hello, I'm Chiana Salvaletti, Tamar Drive. I just wanted to plus plus most of the concerns others have raised tonight. I'm very concerned about the impact this will have on public health and the rodent situation in the city. I have a dog, and last summer his waist got stuck at the bottom of our bin by mistake. And so we had to wait for the next week for it to be picked up. And in the summer heat, I ended up getting maggots in my bin. And I'm super concerned that this would become the norm for us if we move forward with this plan. And after today's presentation, it sounds like a good area for improvement for our current trash strategy is resolving the contaminated recycling streams. I think at this point, if folks aren't recycling correctly, I don't have much hope that they'll be able to handle biweekly trash responsibly. But I think that would be a good place to start because we should create milestones that we must achieve before implementing something this drastic. And lastly, I feel like it wasn't previously communicated properly that the Massachusetts Residential Food Waste Ban was just a proposal, and that's how it was presented today. And by drastically changing our trash schedule this early on, I feel we're being overly proactive for something that's just in the proposal phase. I think there are much easier milestones we could achieve as a city to positively impact the environment without posing such a significant risk this early on to our city. Thank you.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, Gina. Comments are appreciated. All right, the next person is just named iPhone. So if you're just named iPhone, I'm gonna ask you to unmute. Please let us know your name and address and you will have two minutes.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_04]: Good evening. Thank you so much. I'm calling from my mom. She lives on Miami Street. I also live in Medford as well. I'm calling because Sorry, what street? Monument Street in Medford. Monument Street? Thank you. Yes, and I live in Medford as well. There's an equity issue regarding seniors who live in their homes who have incontinence issues. And my mom has lived in this city for over 60-something years. She's over 100 years old. She does not get out. She does not make as much. She doesn't make food. and we use a garbage disposal, but her trash bin is filled every single week. And we have two trash barrels that she shares with her tenant, and they fill it every week. We're getting boxes almost every week for the stuff that she has to use. We flatten the boxes. Her recycle container is filled every other week. I want to know, because I think this is a done deal, will there be a discount for seniors? Because, you know, you talk about the pay to throw. Some seniors cannot afford. And I don't think, I hope you can still hear me. I lost my part. But some seniors cannot afford. And I think we, for some people just, oh, just use the pay to throw. Just, you don't know the extra cost that can be for a senior to take that on every single month to pay for the bags or a bigger bin. And I saw some costs about $12 a month. Maybe I read it wrong. I don't know. So that's why I said there's an equity issue. Will there be a senior discount, some sort of, and we need to take that into consideration. Not every senior lives in an apartment building. And also, MFIT does not do a good job in notifying residents about issues. We should not have had to hear this on the news, especially since it was proposed and done since 2023. Thank you.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you very much. All right. There's a written comment from Alessandra. I want to read. That was the person that couldn't get on. So she submitted a written comment. I'm going to go ahead and read that. And I also want to clarify that for compost, we don't pay for the tonnage. So we're paying for the collection, but not the tonnage. That's important for folks to know. So it sounds like there was a misunderstanding out there. So I'll go ahead and read this out. This is from Alessandra. I want to know how they're going to deal with the Tufts population around here, with four and five adults per apartment throwing out trash. I live on Yale Street in South Medford, surrounded by two family houses rented to students. Landlords are absent, and there is no communication to them about this upcoming change in trash pickup. The landlords are not invested in keeping up with our neighborhood, or even their own properties, in many cases. Additionally, the communication around this was not optimal. We are hearing about this after the decision has been made. Why weren't residents allowed to vote on this? Thank you, Alessandro. Okay, we're going to move to Prabita Natarajan. I'm going to ask you to unmute. If you could let us know your name and address, you'll have two minutes. Thank you.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_29]: Hi, this is Pravita. I live on Osborne Road. I wanted to voice my support for this plan, but I also understand the concerns from a lot of residents. I understand change is hard, but we can do hard things for the greater good. I wanted to talk about a couple of things. I think the cost perspective, we spoke about that, and it is going to save the city a lot of cost. But also one thing I wanted to highlight is that, unfortunately, trash is not something that is out of sight, out of mind. We spoke about Asaga's incinerator, which means there are communities that are living close to the incinerator. landfill stations, and everything that's getting burned is affecting their air and water quality. And there is a lot of reports on the health impact for communities that live next to the incinerators. So by reducing our trash, we are indirectly helping them as well. Another thing I wanted to suggest was that is the, potentially the city can also, so the rat problem has been raised and it is a real issue. Composting well can prevent rats from getting into your compost, but also would the city also help residents replace kind of damaged or compromised trash cans, so that could keep rats away from their trash cans, potentially with dog poop and whatnot. And then finally, I wanted to say that a small group of Medford residents, we have started an initiative called Zero Waste Medford to work with the residents and help them learn about ways to reduce their waste. And we look forward to the opportunity to work with the city as well. Thank you.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you for those offers, Pradeepa. And we appreciate your comments. We're going to move on to Niver, she, her. Nevaeh, I'm going to ask you to unmute. If you could give us your name and address, you'll have two minutes.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_28]: Hi, I'm Nevaeh. I live on HCSAV. And I wanted to echo a lot of what people said. I really appreciate the thought that has gone into this and you soliciting opinions now. And I think it's a really good idea for us to be thinking about reducing our waste stream. I've been trying to do that all my life basically, but I am concerned particularly about the aspect of these changes for single-family condo townhome owners like myself who are not going to have access to trash and recycling services anymore. So basically will still be paying the same taxes to subsidize everyone else's trash and recycling services and then we'll also have to pay for our own trash and recycling and if we want to compost on top of that we'll then also have to pay for that and I'm just concerned that that's not gonna be accessible to me. And I wanted to boost some of what other people have said about providing other options. I would love to have more options of things to recycle, places to recycle them. I think the reuse communities, people have pointed out a really good idea. I think there are a lot of other solutions that could make this easier for people, but it does feel like someone else said like, this was rolled out to me. I'm a pretty new resident. I just moved here this year. And, um, it feels like almost as soon as I moved here, I got told like, Oh, you're not going to get trash and recycling or compost anymore. And you also have to reduce it and pay for it yourself. And, um, but keep paying the same taxes and that just didn't feel right. Thank you.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you. Nevaeh. Is it number 50?
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_28]: Yes.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you. Right, we're gonna move on to Vinny or Vinay. Vinny or Vinay, I'm gonna ask you to unmute. If you could give us your name and address, you will have two minutes.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_02]: Hello, hello.
[Tim McGivern]: Hello, welcome.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_02]: Hi, thank you for the opportunity. I'm Vinay. I'm from Osborne Road in Medford. I am for this initiative. I think the biweekly trash is the right thing to do. I cook a lot, and so after the composting, free composting, my compost bin gets filled up more often than my trash can. And I think the city is doing the right thing by getting ahead of this problem, because this is something we'll eventually need to address. I just wanted to share my opinion.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you. Is it Vinnie or Vinay? Oh, anyway, he's already muted, so you may never know. Thank you very much. We're going to move on to G. G, I'm going to ask you to unmute. If you could tell us your name and address, and you'll have two minutes.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, hi, I'm Ben Lindvig Lingler. I live on Sunset Avenue. I joined a little bit late, so I'm not sure if this has been asked. But I was really curious, has the proposal been Pitched as a big cost savings, I was curious if the city or what the city has been doing to explore actual increased municipal revenues to ensure that we maintain the same level of service as opposed to cutting services and passing on costs to residents as was just described, whether that's. In expanded containers to meet the 2 week requirement or like with the single family condo owners who have to put the bill themselves. It seems like for a city that I believe we're in the bottom 10% of. Uh, taxes as it relates to other municipalities in the state, we should be considering obviously cost to increase. That's not a unrealistic thing to be planning for. So I'd really like to understand how we are increasing municipal revenue. So we don't end up having to cut not just these services, but others as well. Also, as it relates to pests, it's not just rats. Where we live near Tufts University, it's rats. It's squirrels. They get into the existing trash bins. We've had to replace the lid on our trash containers twice in the last year due to squirrels and rats. So I think that that's only going to be increasing as well. So I want to make sure that that's understood as a problem, not just being rats, but other pests. Thank you.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you very much, G. We'll move to iPhone. That's how the name is listed. I'm not sure if it's the same one from before. If it is, maybe you have a new comment. OK, I'm going to ask you to unmute. Please give us your name and address in two minutes.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_33]: Hi, Chris from Winchester Street. Welcome. I would just like to start off by saying I never heard a thing about this until a couple of weeks ago when it was on the news, radio, WBZ, television. I think this even made Jimmy Kimmel, late night talk shows. It's even being reported worldwide. I think that it's kind of a crazy idea to go to every two weeks. You're talking about a survey. I don't know where the survey came from. Was it mailed to the house or what? Never heard of it. The whole thing that I heard about this was in the media just a few weeks ago. So I don't know how long you've been working on this. You gotta look at how long has the public known about what you guys are doing. I do not feel that trash pickup every two weeks is a good thing. People have been talking all night long about all the reasons why it's negative. Rats, there's rats everywhere in South Medford. I don't know how you guys don't know that. They're everywhere. There's the raccoons, as the other gentleman just mentioned. There's stuff, you know, mattresses just dumped because people have to pay a hundred bucks to get rid of them. I just think that the whole way this is being put out to the people is just not right. And you should really take a hard look at yourselves for just throwing this out at the public. And, you know, the other thing that's been brought up is the absentee landlords. A ton of them in South Medford, all over Medford, I'm sure. A ton of them in South Medford with Tufts. They couldn't care a crap less about trash. Trash is everywhere over here. I think you really got to take a hard look at maybe putting this on the ballot for the residents to say what they truly want rather than having this forced on them. Thank you.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, appreciate it. I have a raccoon that lives near my house too, so I know the raccoon problem. Thank you for your feedback. And also, my department picks up and pays for those dumped mattresses. So I see those costs, and I feel them as well. So that's pretty deep there. All right, so I'm going to move on to Sarah. Calbco. Sarah, I'm going to ask you to unmute, and if you could give us your name and address, you'll have two minutes to speak. Thank you.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_24]: Yes, my name is Sarah help go. I'm on Avenue. I am not in favor at this time for the every other week trash. I do already do the composting and we do do the recycling here. I'm. In South Medford, and we have over the past couple of years notice quite the uptick and. different rodents. So I want to know before something like this goes into effect, what is the city going to do? I have logged requests, I have neighbors have logged requests, nothing is being done. I have a whole series of construction vehicles, including a porta potty outside of my house. And I was told that was gonna be gone two weeks and I'm still staring at it. They assure me that that's not gonna increase the rodents, but I can sure tell you on my ring cameras, I can see them every day running in and out. And there's just been no accountability by the city and it's really, really frustrating. I have neighbors who are very clean. There are some neighbors that rent down the street so I'm sure that some of this could be coming from there as well but it's only going to get worse. I also have animals so I have the waste removal but also to the woman who has the elderly mother, I really feel for her. And that is a lot of supplies and that's a lot of waste. And it's terrible when it's in your home. You're trying to do your best to take care of them. And what are we going to do for these family members? This really needs to be considered. And the communication needs to be better. The survey was disgraceful. It was so unprofessionally written for a bunch of people who are on a board that are very well-educated. So I suggest someone go look into revising that document going forward. Additionally, I don't know how much of a 20 seconds left is not everyone goes online, not everyone has a phone that text messages. So then we need to get to the residents that don't text, don't do QR codes. Like it may be 2026 that many people have flip phones or maybe they can't even afford a phone. We need better communication to all of our residents.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, Sarah, just to just to address a couple of well, 1 thing that you said the, the Board of health has been doing a lot of work. I know on rodents. So, I know you don't think that we're doing anything, but I'm not the Board of health, but there's lots of resources. They're doing lots of citywide initiatives. We do help with them with some even the mapping of the incidences. in the DPW and also closed containers that hold our food waste is part of reducing rodents as well. I know a lot of people believe that rodents will increase when you separate and contain the food waste, but that's not what they're finding out there. Sorry, I should have muted you. I'm just trying to address the things that you said. I apologize. Then the ordinance, the Board of Health and the City Council just passed a road and control ordinance too, that's a bolstering of a previous ordinance that they had. So there's a lot of action happening there. And then please call the engineering division about that port-a-potty if you haven't already. That sounds like it might be a construction project from the engineering division. Thank you very much. I'm going to move on to Dylan Compton. Dylan, if you could give your name and address and let us know. So yeah, your name and address, and you'll have two minutes. Thank you, Dylan.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_11]: Yeah, hi, Tim. Thanks for taking comments tonight. Dylan Compton. I live on Sunset Avenue. Echo a lot of the other comments and concerns tonight. I compost. I recycle. I actually don't run out of space in my trash can, but the biweekly is a concern to me. I think there's a huge amount of dogs in the neighborhood. There's. human waste, there's things that become quite odorous, especially in the summer months. And so my concern is almost exclusively with the frequency of pickup and not the the waste reduction goals. And so, you know, one of my sort of, you know, you phrase this is looking for questions, you've been getting a lot of comments, I appreciate you, you hanging with us. I think one of my questions is, what would it take for us to look at smaller cart sizes on a weekly basis as opposed to a bi-weekly system? And what would the relative cost savings there be with just the tonnage reduction versus the pickup frequency reduction? Because that to me feels like potentially a very workable alternative. that would address a lot of the community concerns around the waste. I think there's still volume concerns, but that's where pay-as-you-throw really is structured well to solve for that potentially, where the frequency, it really isn't. There's not an option for me to go out and say, hey, I want somebody to pick up my dog's poop every week. I mean, there's a couple of private services for picking up in your yard, but there's nobody who picks up the bagged stuff that we put in our trash right now. And so, yeah, I just think that's my core question. Broadly, I understand where this is coming from and appreciate the city trying to solve for it, but would really like to see us think creatively about how to keep the frequency higher and achieve those tonnage reductions in other ways. Thank you.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, Dylan. Appreciate the feedback. All right, we'll move to Charlotte Cahill. Charlotte, if you could give us your name and address, you'll have two minutes.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_06]: Great. Thank you, Charlotte Cahill, Central Ave. I am sneaking in a second comment. I didn't know if I was going to be able to get away with it, but I'll make it really short.
[Tim McGivern]: I wasn't keeping track, Charlotte, but I appreciate your honesty.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_06]: One is to just say, and I appreciate the fact check on my previous comments. comment where I had the proportion of households represented by the city's composting goal wrong, and that doesn't undermine my sort of larger concern about, like, there's going to be food waste in the trash. 100% compliance is not really feasible, I don't think. I think your comments still made sense. The other point I wanted to make was just to say, and really echoing some of what Dylan said just before me, is I would love to have more information in whatever FAQ or whatever else you put together. on what alternatives to bi-weekly pickup the city has considered and why you decided against them. So I appreciate here the waste reduction goal. I think that a lot of the comments we're hearing are not pushing back on that. They're pushing back on this particular bi-weekly approach. And so it would just be really helpful to understand kind of why you thought this was the approach. And I think about, you know, lots of other communities in Massachusetts have pay-as-you-throw. Interestingly, very few of them are right here in the Boston area. I know Malden and Brookline are in it. And I know Malden at least has chosen an option that does maintain weekly trash pickup at a lower volume. So I'm just curious about kind of what the options are and why you think this is the right one for Medford. Thank you. Thank you, Charlotte.
[Tim McGivern]: Just Charlie, just let you know, your comment did make sense. I just needed to correct that fact just so folks had the correct information. And a lot of people bringing it up, keep it every week, but reduce the volume. That is an option that was looked at closely. Many options were. And just so folks know, the cost of collection is a lot higher than the cost of disposal. That information is out there. Some was presented tonight, and then there'll be more detailed information on the FAQ, I'm sure, once we're done with tonight. A lot of people seem to be interested in that, which is great. I love the brainstorming. I love the ideas, so thank you. We're gonna move to Big Haas. Hopefully, that's your real name, Big Haas, and we're gonna go from there, and if you could let us know your name and address, then you'll have two minutes to speak. because it looks like maybe you clicked it and then clicked it again. So I'm gonna ask to unmute again, and just this time, just click it slowly. All right, well, I'm gonna put your hand down. If you would like to try again, please put your hand back up. Okay, I'm gonna move to GTurk. G-Turk, I'm going to unmute you, and please let us know your name and address, and you'll have two minutes.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_03]: Yes, hi. My name is Gilbert and a Turk, and I live on Woods Road in Metzl. And, you know, I, you know, I watched the presentation. I mean, everyone is concerned by, you know, environmental issues and, you know, you know, make sure that everything is done in a proper way. But again, you know, as many other citizens and, you know, express the same concern about rodents, I mean, last year we had raccoon in our trash bins, summertime when it's really hot, it's terrible. And, you know, I mean, you know, I understand, you know, that, you know, I mean, we're not, you know, I don't think We were consulted before this program was implemented. and uh you know just and to convince people that you know having trucks that will run once every other week will put less strain on streets and roads and was cut on pollution i mean it's it's a joke um you know again we're paying also more property taxes and getting less services that's right yeah go and i understand cities have big trouble closing their budgets, everything is going up, the cost of living, everything. But I believe there's way better ideas to implement stuff. And certainly, the every other week, you know, program is not the right one. And I believe, you know, Medford is, unless I'm wrong, is the only city which are going to this direction. I'm not sure what the result is going to be. But, I mean, will you allow to, I mean, to change course if things will not go the right way? I mean, we're open to anything new, but I don't know.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, G-Turk. We appreciate the comments. And this is, I'm going to say something, but it has nothing to do with what you just said, just in general. just been notified maybe there was some personal attacks made I was not aware of it didn't seem like it to me and they were masked if there's only a few more speakers left but no personal attacks no veiled personal attacks we're all people we're trying to do our job here okay so thank you we're going to move to Vinny or Vinay, I believe he has a new comment to make. I'm gonna ask him to unmute and if you could just say your name and address again. Thank you, Vinny.
[ir8Km2ErkFk_SPEAKER_02]: Thanks, Tim. My name is pronounced Vinay. I wanted to clear that up for you. But I also wanted to add to my previous comment that with composting, I only put my trash out once or twice a month now. And I have three big dogs and all of their dog poop goes in the trash bin. And we don't have a rat problem here in West Medford. And I think it's because my trash can is in good condition. And someone else also mentioned before that when you separate out all your food waste in a secure container, that really restricts the amount of rats or food that critters in general have access to. We had a raccoon that tried to get to the compost bin, but it was secure enough that it couldn't open it, figure out how to open it. And I wanted to share that as well.
[Tim McGivern]: Okay. Thank you, Vinny. Appreciate your comments and your feedback. Okay, Ralph Klein. I believe Ralph spoke, but he may have a new comment. So I'm going to ask him to unmute. If he could give us his name and address again, in about two minutes.
[Ralph Klein]: Hi, can you hear me? I can. Welcome, Ralph. Well, thank you. All these comments about, you know, the plastic bins. The old containers they used to pick up with metal, they got into them. My trash bins have very little food in them, but there are animals that have chewed through the plastic. So these plastic bins should not be used. They're chewing through the regular trash barrels. What makes you think they're not going to chew through these plastics after a while when they find out there's food in there? The other thing is all these heavy trash trucks going down the street, they're saying, Yeah. How heavy are they going to be every other week? You're not reducing it. You're just pushing it into another week. All the other things come from, we have no more stores really that are open. Our stores are closed and left and right. Everything comes from Amazon, wherever. That's where everything, that's where all this trash is generated from. We need to start getting back to local shopping. Stop and shop where they have the food delivered. They put it in boxes to get rid of their boxes. when they deliver it to homes. I mean, all we have is all these other trucks going down the streets. And everybody thinks the electric vehicles are great. They're destroying our streets. They're destroying them in California. They have cement roads. In the summer here, the electric vehicles, and if they're going to electric trucks, they're even heavier. They're gonna destroy our roads even more. So why not reduce it by half what you're doing? Thank you. Appreciate the comments, Ralph.
[Tim McGivern]: We've been studying weights of vehicles and impacts of roads for a while, and the weight of the vehicles matters, but the number of trips also matters, and the movements, the wheel friction on the road. So there's lots of considerations when it comes to impacts of roads, not the environment per se. Anyway, I will move on to Gary. Gary, when my... Can you hear me? Oh yeah, maybe. Who's this Gary. This is Gary. Yep. Oh, I didn't even know you someone else must have so thank you.
[Gary Marinelli]: Hi Gary on Paris street. I'm here tonight to speak against the proposal to reduce the trash pickup schedule to every other week. On the surface, although cutting back pickups may sound like a simple way to save money, in practice, it creates far more problems than it solves. Problems that affect public health, neighborhood cleanliness, and overall quality of life. First, less frequent trash pickups means more waste sitting longer in homes and on our curbs. That leads to overflowing bins, very unpleasant odors and increased pests. We already have rats, raccoons, insects, and bugs here near Salem Street and Fellsway, and these are not minor inconveniences. They're real health concerns, especially for families with children, seniors, and people living in multifamily homes. Second, reducing Hiccup does not reduce waste, it just shifts the burdens onto the residents. Families will be forced to store more trash for longer periods, which is not realistic for most households. Many properties also lack extra storage space, and the community relies on regular disposal and will struggle to stay clean. Third, this change risks making our community look neglected. Overflowing bins and illegal dumping become much more common when people don't have adequate disposal options. That hurts property values and undermines the pride we take in our community. At my home, we already recycle, and we're already signed up for composting. Even with that, our bin is always full. There's never a week when our bin is not full. We have two young children who are in diapers, and trust me, those diapers smell quite awful. Our bin already smells awful as is, and I can't imagine what it would be like with every other week pickup. Thank you. Thank you, Gary.
[Tim McGivern]: Appreciate your comments. We're going to move to, to all one word, Judith Weinstock. Judith, I'm going to ask you to unmute. If you could give us your name and address for the record, and you'll have two minutes to speak.
[Judith Weinstock]: Hi, my name is Judith Weinstock. I live at 144 Burgett. I'm actually a little surprised, not at the comments about going to every other week. I actually think the city seriously needs to revisit that if it's not too late. In other words, if a contract's already been signed, then this is all somewhat moot. But I do think that I would like to comment on the composting program, which I think is pretty phenomenal. And I just want to focus on it for a second because I think that there's some kudos deserved by the city and by the company that you've contracted with. I only started doing it about three months ago and it was remarkable how easy I found it. But I think that the city could actually work much harder on encouraging many, many, many more households to do it, because it is a relatively simple program. But I also think that the city, just as you did with rain barrel options for people years ago, people do have to go out, they have to buy a bin for their internal collection, they have to buy those bags, they have to buy the bags for their the bin that you provide for free and I think it would be great if the city could provide some additional resources potentially bulk buying and discounting for in-home bins that people have to use for that program. I would love to see the city at this point with all this feedback decouple these programs and begin to focus 100% on increasing the number of households who are doing composting now and for the future, and work longer and harder on solving some of the really important issues that people have brought up tonight. I think they're legitimate. They don't affect me. I'm a single-person household. I don't fill my bin. Please don't come by and drop your stuff here. but I really think you're hearing some really serious concerns that need serious fixes before you implement the program. Thank you very much for the time.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you, Judith. I will say comments and feedback are not moot. We're trying to identify gaps, respond to feedback. There's flexibility within the signed contracts. There are contractual dates and milestones that we have to meet certain things and make certain decisions. And because of the pay-as-you-throw relationship, it's actually been coupled as opposed to decoupled because they feed off of each other and it's part of one whole program. So hopefully that helps clarify things for folks. Definitely not moot at all. This information is incredibly valuable to us to help us fill those gaps and take those flexibilities and continue to design the program over the next year and a half, really. So that's what we're looking at. All right. That's everybody who has their hands up. And I'll just give, it's 8, 10, if there are other folks who would like to speak. Now's your chance. If not, I'm gonna, I suppose, I don't know if we have, I don't recall if we had any closing planned, but I don't know if Steve, you wanted to say anything or anybody else wanted to say anything or if we should just log off.
[Alicia Hunt]: We have one other comment from the person, Big Hoss, who had trouble unmuting.
[Tim McGivern]: Oh, okay.
[Alicia Hunt]: Do you want me to just read that one?
[Tim McGivern]: Sure, yeah.
[Alicia Hunt]: My name is Amy and I live on Princeton Street. I do not appreciate him telling a resident he should have muted her so that he could speak over her. There seems to be a huge disregard for the residents you are serving. I am a mother and can't tell you how many diapers end up in my trash weekly. It's insane to announce this during a cost of living crisis for the population of your residents, which is families, elders, and students.
[Tim McGivern]: Thank you. Just to clarify, I was not being disrespectful in any sense of the word. The mechanics of this particular meeting and the way it was formatted doesn't give me particularly a lot of flexibility. That's how we agreed to have a Q&A open dialogue. It's really to receive feedback, and my role is to correct things that maybe are facts that are wrong. So hopefully that explains it. I certainly didn't mean anybody any disrespect whatsoever. So I hope you can appreciate that. With that said, if there's nobody else to speak tonight, we can wrap it up. And we have other scheduled events. January 28th is at City Hall. That's at 6 p.m. January 28th at 6 p.m., Medford City Hall, City Council Chambers. There were a lot of comments, a few comments at the beginning about how this was only on Zoom. It's not. There's educational workshops that are going to be taking place as well. There's lots planned. So we appreciate everybody's feedback tonight. Thank you. Steve, do you want to call it, say goodnight?
[Steve]: Yeah, I didn't see no other questions. As Tim said, we're going to have an in-person meeting on the 28th of January at 6 p.m. at City Hall. A recording of this meeting will also be available on our website, on the city's YouTube, and on MCM. And please head over if you have any other questions after this meeting ends. If you want to answer it, please email us at waste at medford-ma.gov. And for more information, head over to our website medfordma.org slash waste dash dash system. Thank you. Have a good night, everybody. Thanks a lot.
[Tim McGivern]: Ready. Bye bye.
[Steve]: Thank you.
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