{"id":28223,"date":"2022-01-09T02:51:16","date_gmt":"2022-01-09T02:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=28223"},"modified":"2022-01-12T23:41:16","modified_gmt":"2022-01-12T23:41:16","slug":"what-is-pay-as-you-throw-a-waste-expert-explains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/what-is-pay-as-you-throw-a-waste-expert-explains\/","title":{"rendered":"What is pay-as-you-throw? A waste expert explains"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lily Baum Pollans<\/a>, Hunter College<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Pay-as-you-throw is a policy that charges people for the amount of trash they toss out. It\u2019s also sometimes called variable-rate pricing or pay-as-you-waste. <\/p>\n

Many cities and towns around the world, including over 7,000 in the U.S., have pay-as-you-throw waste policies<\/a>. Examples include Seattle, Berkeley, Austin and Portland, Maine.<\/p>\n

Large cities often require residents to purchase special trash bags or stickers so that they pay separately for every bag of trash. Or people may have to sign up for a certain level of waste collection service, which limits how much garbage they can set out on the curb. <\/p>\n

\n\"Purple<\/a>
\nA pay-as-you-throw trash bag for the city of Waterville, Maine. Local grocery and convenience stores sell the bags in two sizes: large (30 gallons, $2.60 per bag) and small (15 gallons, $1.63 per bag). All trash put out for collection must be in the purple bags.<\/span>
\nCity of Waterville<\/a><\/span>
\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pay-as-you-throw is one of local governments\u2019 most effective tools for reducing waste, controlling waste disposal costs and giving residents an incentive to participate in recycling and composting programs<\/a>. Once households begin paying directly for waste services, they tend to rapidly reduce how much they throw away. In Massachusetts, for example, towns with pay-as-you-throw systems generated an average of 1,239 pounds of trash per household in 2020<\/a>, compared with 1,756 pounds per household in towns that didn\u2019t use this approach \u2013 a 30% reduction.<\/p>\n

Such a shift can mean that people recycle and compost more, so the total volume of the waste stream remains relatively stable. But over time, pay-as-you-throw communities tend to see a decline in the total amount discarded, including recycling and compost<\/a>. <\/p>\n

This strategy can be controversial at the start. Even though everyone already pays for trash collection and disposal, either through their rent or local property taxes, pay-as-you-throw can feel like a new tax when it is broken out and charged separately. People also worry about pay-as-you-throw programs encouraging illegal dumping, although this hasn\u2019t been observed in practice<\/a>. <\/p>\n