Clearly an enduring idea, PAYT is saving communities millions of dollars and helping solve myriad municipal solid waste management challenges.

By Janice Canterbury and Sue Eisenfeld

From 1916 to 2004, the number of communities implementing pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) programs has grown exponentially, from just one (Richmond, CA) to more than 6,000.

You know it’s not a passing trend when it’s been written about in major industry and economic journals since the 1970s. Another clue that it has legitimacy is that more and more communities are adopting it each year, in the United States and internationally. You get a pretty good sense of the depth and breadth of its effectiveness when you realize that towns and cities of all sizes in every region of the country have adopted it, tailoring it to their own unique circumstances and needs. And you know it’s not just being embraced for its feel-good, tree-hugging qualities when you see the millions of dollars communities are saving because of it. There’s no doubt about it: PAYT, also known as unit-based or variable pricing, is a tried and true approach for meeting a variety of MSW management goals.

Trade journal articles and reports from the last decade document the phenomenal success PAYT has had in saving money, reducing waste, and increasing recyclables. For example:

• Gainesville, FL (pop. 95,500), saved $200,000 in landfill tipping fees after implementing PAYT in 1994, reduced solid waste collection by 18%, and increased its recycling rate by about 25%.
• Wilmington, NC (pop. 75,800), saved $400,000 in the first year of PAYT (1992).
• Worcester, MA (pop. 172,600), decreased its waste management costs by $1.2 million and increased its recycling rate from 3% to 36% immediately following the introduction of PAYT in 1993.
• The recycling rate in San Jose, CA (pop. 895,000), rose from 28% to 43% in the first year of its program (1993), and rose again to 55% by 1998.
• In Tacoma, WA (pop. 194,000), solid waste management costs fell by more than 50% in the PAYT program’s first year, and the recycling rate tripled.
• Falmouth, ME (pop. 4,100), decreased its trash disposal volume by 35% and increased recycling by more than 50% after establishing PAYT in 1992.
• In Mount Vernon, IA (pop. 3,400), PAYT helped the community reach a 50% recycling rate.

Whether due to a landfill closing or to the need to meet state or local recycling goals or mandates, or because it’s simply the right thing to do, communities nationwide have found that PAYT leads them toward solutions.

The volume of literature offering advice and information on the PAYT best practices and community experiences designing and implementing PAYT programs is vast. The EPA, which has been promoting PAYT for more than 10 years, hosts a PAYT Web site that is chock full of how-to manuals, rate-design manuals, lessons-learned case studies, and articles, as well as a biannual bulletin, with eight years of archives, that provides up-to-date information about the state of PAYT in the nation and around the world.

Given the resources available, the unwavering support for the program among state and local staff and elected officials, the available advice for overcoming common challenges and myths, and the success in addressing the same common solid waste challenges faced by everyone involved with MSW management, communities would be hard-pressed to find a reason for not implementing PAYT. “Few ideas jump out as something that makes eminent sense. To me, the pay-as-you-throw concept is one of those…The overwhelming logic of the idea should be…a no-brainer,” wrote Allan Gerlat, editor of Waste News, in 2004.

The communities featured here were interviewed in 2004 and provide a taste of some of the hows and whys of PAYT and its future in the 21st century.

Straight From the Top in the State of Massachusetts
Some states, like Iowa, Minnesota, Washington, and Wisconsin, require PAYT through mandates to ensure that financial incentives for waste reduction are implemented, but other states, like Massachusetts, encourage PAYT as a voluntary measure. This latter approach seems to be working: 110 out of 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts have implemented PAYT as of October 2004.

In Massachusetts, PAYT has been implemented in communities with fewer than 300 residents and in large urban areas of close to 200,000. Each community has tailored its PAYT program to its circumstances: 57 communities use a bag system, 36 communities use stickers, 7 communities allow residents to use their own receptacle and pay by container, 5 communities use punch cards, 2 municipalities have a franchise system, and 2 communities use more than one system. In terms of rate systems, communities also range widely in how they decided to bill residents: 8 communities use proportional rates, 9 communities use variable rates, 58 communities use two-tiered rates, and 34 use multitiered rates. More than half of these communities show a recycling rate of 40% or greater (compared to 31% in non-PAYT communities). And residents in PAYT communities dispose of 8.8% less garbage than those in non-PAYT communities.

Rising disposal costs, state-mandated closure of unlined landfills, and impediments to siting new disposal facilities left Massachusetts searching for solutions. “We made a state-level decision to promote PAYT,” explains Joseph Lambert, the recycling liaison and program manager for PAYT at the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

Massachusetts began offering grants to municipalities for new PAYT programs in 1996, and three municipalities qualified for the grant in the first year. In 1997, Massachusetts instituted a challenge grant program, which provided incentive payments to qualifying municipalities for each ton of recyclables collected. Eligibility for payments was based on a menu of criteria, one of which was implementing a PAYT program. During the heyday of this grant program, 29 communities adopted PAYT.

What’s the key to the state’s success? Education. Lambert has held more than 50 municipal trainings, workshops, and videoconferences over the past 10 years, which have reached an estimated 1,000 solid waste managers, elected officials, and community volunteers, who then better understand the value of PAYT and how it works. “Our number-one problem is in communities where municipal or political officials don’t understand PAYT and therefore can’t sell it well to stakeholders or plan for it adequately.” The DEP has also distributed hundreds of EPA PAYT materials to communities throughout the state, such as workbooks, videos, and manuals, and helped communities structure sustainable PAYT programs.

To help communities implement PAYT correctly, the state encourages them to use full-cost accounting to determine the true costs of their MSW program. The state also advocates that fixed costs associated with solid waste management (e.g., trash and recycling collection, operations and maintenance) be covered by a flat annual fee to residents or through the tax base. Variable costs, such as disposal, are covered through the cost of the PAYT sticker or bag.

In terms of the future, Lambert doesn’t predict that solid waste costs will decrease, and he sees an increased demand for specific recyclables, such as cardboard. “Because trash generation is inevitable, the issue of what to do with it is never going to go away,” he says. “More progressive communities will move towards PAYT faster, but eventually most communities and their residents will come to realize that trash is not free, and PAYT is a viable and effective solution.”

To Each His Own in Maine
Like Massachusetts, more than 100 communities throughout the state of Maine have adopted PAYT. But unlike its Northeast neighbor, Maine does not provide any incentives to do so and does not provide a comprehensive “how to” educational program. While the state does provide some PAYT tools and information on its Web site, these communities have turned to PAYT on their own as a solution to financial problems. “PAYT is not a feel-green kind of thing here; it’s a financial thing,” explains Tom Miragliuolo, a planner with the Maine State Planning Office.

The first PAYT community started in the late 1980s; through 2002, nine new communities per yearæamounting to 137 communities representing 296,000 Mainers, or 23% of the state’s populationæhave started using PAYT. The average size of a PAYT town is 2,162 people, with Portland as the largest community with 65,000 people. Most started using PAYT as a solution to high tipping fees and see PAYT as a method to reduce trash generation and associated disposal fees, while also increasing recycling.

With a few exceptions, all of the programs use some form of bag or tag system, charging between $0.30 and $2 per bag of trash. Thirty towns offer different-size bags; Falmouth, for example, offers a 15-gallon bag for $0.64 and a 33-gallon bag for $0.91. Twenty-seven communities use a weight-based system. Maine also has four privately run PAYT programs, where it is up to the residents to contact a private hauler and arrange for trash removal. One program, in Durham, provides residents with 26 free bags per year; additional bags cost $3 each.

While small pockets of the state “think paying for trash is a foreign idea,” according to Miragliuolo, many are considering it after seeing success in neighboring communities. “We recently had a ballot initiative here to limit property taxes to 1% of the assessed value annually, which would have cut some communities’ budgets by one-third to two-thirds,” he explains. “Though it didn’t pass, it was a wake-up call for many municipalities; the only way they would have been able to pay for trash would have been with PAYT.” Now, many more localities “are looking at PAYT hard,” in case this sort of initiative comes up again.

A College Town Learning Curve in Athens, OH
With high populations of young and seemingly motivated and environmentally conscious individuals, college towns are, in some ways, the perfect place for PAYT. In Austin, TX (University of Texas), Tompkins County, NY (Cornell University and Ithaca College), Boulder and Fort Collins, CO (University of Colorado and Colorado State University), Athens-Clarke County, GA (University of Georgia), and other college towns across the nation, PAYT programs thrive. But behind the scenes, these communities face many unique challenges, such as varied living arrangements and an extremely transient population.

In Athens, OH, 20,000 of the 25,000 residents are Ohio University students, many of whom live off-campus in the community. Seventy percent of Athens’s households are rental units—the vast majority of which are seasonal or temporary, based on the university calendar. Also, because most occupants are not homeowners, they are not necessarily invested in maintaining their neighborhoods. Constant household changes create significant communication problems, as residents aren’t aware of community policies regarding recycling and solid waste reduction measures.

Also adding to the challenge, local business and university leaders have been reluctant to take on solid waste and recycling issues. As Tom O’Grady, the program manager of the Athens-Hocking Recycling Center states, “There is no glamour in garbage. … More responsibility has to fall on the shoulders of the university and city administration, [because Athens] is a type of company town, and the university is the largest employer and the largest generator of waste.” O’Grady also points out that much of the students’ waste (e.g., cans and bottles, pizza boxes, paper) is highly recyclable, but that the major challenge is collecting it as recyclables rather than trash.

To overcome these hurdles, officials in Athens have worked overtime to inform and educate the students and other residents. By creating and distributing information packets, developing a sample lease agreement for landlords to assist in laying out the laws and regulations, and increasing enforcement of solid waste regulations, the community has been able to make PAYT work.

The seeds to Athens’s success were planted early by developing all the necessary supporting programs to encourage recycling. In April 1984, the community became the first in the state to implement a comprehensive curbside recycling program. In 1987, the city broke ground for the Athens County Recycling Center. In the autumn of 1988, the first used-tire roundup was held at the Athens County Fairgrounds, and in the spring of 1989 the first “Ultimate Recycling Day” was held to promote the collection of used tires, metal appliances, other scrap metal, car batteries, textiles, used motor oil and antifreeze, and magazines. In 1994, the then–Hocking County Recycling Center was established. In no time, the program expanded to serve nearly 90,000 residents in Hocking and Athens counties, as well as the cities of Nelsonville and Logan and the villages of Amesville, Albany, and The Plains. In 1990, Athens began PAYT and the Athens-Hocking Recycling Center expanded to include two recycling processing facilities, cardboard collection routes, and biannual tire and appliance roundups.

To support the program, each household pays $2.50 per month for curbside recycling collection and $5 per month for weekly trash collection of one 30-gallon container of trash or $9.50 per month for two containers. Stickers for extra bags are $1.50 each, and residents are charged $3 each for untagged bags set out for collection.

The result: Between 1997 and 2001, avoided disposal saved the community about $500,000, and the sale of recyclable materials yielded nearly $1 million in revenue, which was used to purchase trashcans for the community. In addition, though students may not have any experience with paying for trash before living on their own in college, the control PAYT gives them over their own trash costs can ultimately save them money.

Rough Transition Ends Happily in Athens-Clarke, GA
The PAYT program of Athens-Clarke County, GA (pop. 100,000), is very much like many other successful PAYT programs around the country. But making it a common feature of local life was not easy. Today, after all the tensions that the PAYT initiative created in this local community, the county takes pride in the everyday nature of this program, which has been thriving for more than nine years.

In 1992, on the heels of Georgia’s Solid Waste Management Act of 1990, Athens-Clarke adopted the state’s goal of reducing waste in local landfills by 25% by July 1, 1996. Upon adoption of this goal, the county began to develop a comprehensive waste reduction plan for the community. The procurement of a MRF through a public-private partnership, the development of a solid waste ordinance, and the expansion and development of residential and commercial curbside recycling, commercial Dumpster recycling, and residential leaf and limb collection laid the groundwork for the implementation of a PAYT system three years later.

In September 1995, Athens-Clarke became the only local government in the state to implement PAYT for both residential and commercial customers: the “Subscribed Can-Decal and Overflow Sticker” program for residents and the bag program for businesses. Residents can sign up for collection services ranging from one 20-gallon can to five 32-gallon cans as their basic garbage service level, and can also pay $2 for each overflow sticker to place on extra bags of trash (or they can take extra trash to the landfill and pay a disposal fee there). Commercial customers are charged a fixed base fee based on the collection frequency they need, and then they must place their trash in special $1 bags.

Despite a countywide education and outreach campaign about PAYT benefits, however, the program immediately encountered the problem of residential non-compliance, which, at the beginning of the program, also led to collection crew non-compliance. Before PAYT, garbage collection crews picked up everything left at the curb. Once PAYT started, workers were instructed not to collect waste that did not fit the PAYT guidelines. Nevertheless, some of the crew still believed that they would not be doing their job right if they left anything behind. Workers admitted that they were afraid of being reprimanded by managers if they did not collect everything.

Luckily, Athens-Clarke discovered the problem early enough to remedy it with better training. Admitting this as one of the most important lessons the county learned on its difficult path to instituting PAYT, Sharyn Dickerson, assistant solid waste director, advises, “Spend more time training employees about the program and ensuring them of their management’s support.”

Even once the collection crew issue was solved, residents continued to use cans or bags that did not conform to the standards of their subscriptions. When the crews refused to collect their “non-compliant” garbage, upset residents would phone the Solid Waste Department to complain, though many had, in fact, received the proper cans and were simply not using them. Because of the time and effort it took to reestablish good relations with the dissatisfied customers, Dickerson has identified Athens-Clarke’s second most important lesson as recognizing the need to hire a full-time compliance officer and a full-time customer service representative in advance.

Dickerson also recommends implementing one PAYT program at a time. At the start of its PAYT program, Athens-Clarke rushed into offering residential and commercial programs at the same time, while also establishing and improving several recycling programs. Even though doing everything at once eventually brought good results, “The first six months of these programs were hectic and highly stressful!” Dickerson says.

Today Athens-Clarke offers PAYT subscriptions to 8,600 county residents and 350 businesses and views its experience as positive and rewarding. The average amount of monthly residential waste has decreased by nearly 42% since 1992, and the county has been able to reduce its garbage truck fleet by two vehicles and therefore decrease its collection costs as well. The county’s distinguished recycling program also amplifies PAYT’s success. In August 2001, the Athens-Clarke Recycling Division received the Best Paper Recycling Award in the Schools and Institutions category from the American Forest and Paper Association. In the same year, the US Conference of Mayors officially recognized the county’s commercial recycling program. In 2000, the National Recycling Coalition gave it the Outstanding Government Program award. “Pay-as-you-throw is the only way to go,” notes Dickerson.

First and Fantastic in the City of San Francisco, CA
Not only is San Francisco (pop. 776,733) one of the first communities to implement PAYT, but it runs one of the most comprehensive recycling and reuse programs in the nation, has set a goal to eliminate waste entirely, and has taken the proactive step of aiming to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions within the next decade. With so many programs in place to encourage waste reduction and recycling, San Francisco already shows a waste diversion rate of more than 62%.

PAYT has been around so long (since 1932) in San Francisco that no one even calls it PAYT. Nevertheless, it forms the backbone for all of the other progressive waste reduction efforts the city has been implementingæin particular, the city’s “Fantastic Three” program for residential and commercial recycling, composting, and trash. Serving single-family homes, apartments, and small businesses, the Fantastic Three program distributes three different-colored bins for separating materials: blue for traditional commingled recyclables (paper, cardboard, bottles, and cans); green for compostable food scraps, yard trimmings, wooden crates, animal bedding, and soiled paper; and black for any remaining refuse.

This program is the first in the nation to collect food scraps at curbside for composting. The San Francisco Department of the Environment’s Residential and Special Projects Recycling Coordinator Kevin Drew notes, “Compost collection is resonating with people in a way we hadn’t anticipated.” Although some people cannot get over what he calls the “ick” factor, the response to the program is overwhelmingly positive. According to Drew, people grasp the concept of collecting food scraps to compost into soil for growing food that’s brought back into the city. However, collecting organics has been a challenge on several fronts. Larger organics bins encourage improper collection of wet organics. In multifamily apartment buildings, finding someone to monitor the bins for appropriate waste materials and thereby reduce odor and other problems has proved difficult.

Providing financial incentives to create less trash and allowing flexibility for higher and lower waste generators, the Fantastic Three program embodies the hallmark benefits of PAYT. Households pay roughly $18 per week for standard trash pickup for one 32-gallon can, receiving recycling and organics pickups for no additional charge. But residents can opt to use a 20-gallon “mini can” for their trash and pay approximately 20% less, or if one regular-sized trash container doesn’t suffice, they can purchase an additional 32-gallon can. In addition, residents are charged on an as-needed basis for occasional overflow. The city is currently evaluating a new system that would charge a base environmental service fee to help cover some other related programs, such as household hazardous-waste collections.

PHOTO: Resourceful Bag and Tag

With its Fantastic Three program as a backdrop, San Francisco approved the nation’s most ambitious municipal waste reduction goal in 2003—zero waste. The city hopes to divert 75% of its waste by 2010, and 100% by 2020. To achieve this goal, the city is planning to expand existing programs and create new programs, including mandatory recycling ordinances, programs for diverting construction-and-demolition debris and electronics, and increasing diversion from commercial buildings and multifamily apartment buildings. Additionally, the city is working with manufacturers to design more environmentally friendly products, which could increase reuse of consumer products.

In conjunction with the zero-waste goal and its expanding Fantastic Three program, San Francisco has also unveiled a plan to reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions to 20% of 1990 levels by 2012. San Francisco has joined with over 500 cities around the world to participate in the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) campaign, sponsored by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI). According to Susan Ode, director of outreach for CCP, “San Francisco is one of the leaders in this country in the area of waste reduction, and PAYT is an important element to help the city meet the visionary Climate Action Plan by 2012 and the zero-waste goal by 2020.”

Kansas City, MO: No Free Lunch
Large cities adopting PAYT programs can face a number of challenges—from multifamily housing to resident resistanceæbut Kansas City, MO, faced a more institutionalized challenge when it first considered implementing PAYT. A 1% city income tax passed in 1970 had promised to provide the city’s 442,000 residents with unlimited garbage collection in perpetuity—creating the widespread illusion over the years that garbage collection was “free.” Though the tax promise presented a substantial hurdle—one that might stop some planners cold—the city was highly motivated to control its MSW costs.

“We’re in a budget crisis like everyone else,” says John Stufflebean, Kansas City’s director of environmental management, “and trash costs were just killing us.”

Kansas City had historically been blessed with low landfill costs—under $20 per ton—but by 2003, that era was coming to an end. The city’s landfill contract was up for renegotiation, and with available landfill space shrinking, prices were bound to go up. City officials knew that recycling could help reduce landfill costs, but feared that residents would not respond without an incentive. Enter PAYT.

The free collection promise prevented the city from moving to an entirely fee-based structure for garbage collection, lest it face a citizen revolt. To reduce its costs while still honoring its tax-based commitment to residents, the city took advantage of one of PAYT’s key selling points—flexibility, which allows cities to adapt the program to their specific needs.

Under Kansas City’s PAYT program, residents can throw away up to two bags of trash, which are paid for under the tax-funded collection promise. If they need to dispose of an additional bag, they can purchase a $1 trash tag at local retailers. To help residents meet the two-bag limit, Kansas City launched the “Recycle First” program, providing residents with free, unlimited recyclables collection.

Kansas City also thought creatively to minimize the costs of implementing the recycling program. Rather than distributing recycling bins, the city mailed vouchers to residents, who then exchanged them for recycling bins at local partner retailers. By shifting the shipping, storage, and distribution costs to the partner retailers, the city reduced its implementation costs by an estimated $1 million.

Kansas City, like many other communities, found that education was essential to making the system work in a major metropolitan area. Prior to implementation, the city reached out to the media, conducted meetings in neighborhoods, led discussions in city council meetings, and distributed brochures. As a result, residents haven’t been caught off-guard by their turn to switch to PAYT, and complaints have been few. About 50% of PAYT residents are recycling, and trash generation has decreased by 30%.

While response to the program has been positive, city officials have learned that, when it comes to getting residents to participate, different parts of the city may require different strategies. The city’s urban core—composed of older, less affluent neighborhoods with high rental populations—has been slow to move toward recycling and the two-bag limit. But city officials aren’t giving up. Instead, Kansas City has identified specific outreach alternatives that are more likely to reach this population, including airing radio messages and reaching out to churches and community groups. The city also found that urban residents were less likely to pick up their recycling bins since the city’s partner retailers had few stores in that area. Officials are now seeking to rectify this problem by using other means of distribution

Reduced waste saves the city money on disposal, but PAYT is proving a thrifty strategy in other ways as well. Trash collectors no longer need to round up a bevy of bags, cans, and loose items—they only need to toss two neat bags into the truck. The increased efficiency translates into fewer routes, lower labor costs, and less wear and tear on machinery. All told, Stufflebean estimates that the city will save some $2 million per year. With savings at this level, Stufflebean isn’t surprised when he fields calls from neighboring cities interested in PAYT. “[PAYT] has to be the way we go,” he says. “Most of the fears about PAYT weren’t valid. There’s been no major rebellion. It’s the wave of the futur—that’s for sure.”

Planning Pays Off in Fort Worth, TX
After 30 years of operating a traditional solid waste management program, the City of Fort Worth, TX, might have been surprised by the quick successesæboth environmental and financialæthat it yielded by switching to PAYT in July 2003. Under PAYT, Fort Worth’s recycling rate has jumped from 6% to 20%, and 70% of households now recycle, up from just 38%. The economic effects are just as encouraging. Ninety-two percent of residents pay less for garbage disposal than they did under the old system, which charged residents a flat fee of $13.75 per month. The city is saving, too. The cost for MSW disposal has dropped from almost $32 million under the old system to approximately $24 million to $25 million under PAYT, and the city earned $540,000 from the sale of recycled materials over the course of a year. Fort Worth’s program now serves 163,000 households in this city of 502,400 residents, and a new route is being added every six weeks.

But while Fort Worth made quick gains after its program launch, the city’s PAYT process was anything but hurried. In fact, from concept to implementation, Fort Worth’s PAYT program was some eight years in the making. But according to Brian Boerner, the city’s director of environmental management, that period of careful planning, combined with extensive education and outreach, are the keys to Fort Worth’s success.

Faced with rising landfill costs, Fort Worth officials created a new solid waste management plan in 1995, with PAYT as the centerpiece of the city’s first MSW overhaul in three decades. Under that plan, Fort Worth launched an extensive, seven-year PAYT pilot program that allowed it to iron out every aspect of its PAYT program ahead of full implementation. The pilot presented 8,000 residents with various combinations of recycling, cart, and rate options; at the same time, officials consulted a number of outside resources, including the EPA’s PAYT materials, a solid waste consulting firm, and a supplier of waste disposal carts. This careful research helped the city define its budget, select containers, set rates, and design an outreach program that would make the transition easier on residents.

Fort Worth selected a system with 32-, 64-, and 96-gallon cart options, with monthly fees of $8, $13, and $18, respectively. Residents can purchase a second cart of any size for the standard rate, but citizens who have already purchased two 96-gallon carts may leave additional bags of waste at the curb for no extra fee. All residents receive free recycling services and free yardwaste disposal and can call the city for bulky-item pickup.

Along with the extended research and pilot process, Boerner cites the city’s extensive outreach and education program as a critical contributor to success of Fort Worth’s PAYT program. Prior to implementation, the city cast a wide net with its outreach efforts, using direct mail and local media to teach residents the ins and outs of the new system. City officials also identified community groups and attended their meetings to keep the public informed.

Fort Worth redoubled its efforts as rollout approached. “As we started distributing the carts, we had cart flyers that showed what could go in, what couldn’t go in, and how to set it out. We also developed a comprehensive book in English and Spanish that explains what the whole system is,” says Boerner.

Based on his city’s experience, Boerner believes that implementing PAYT is an achievable goal for other large citiesæprovided they follow a few ground rules. “First of all, don’t box yourself in by timing. This is not something you’re going to do in six months. If you’re contracting currently on three-year schedules, start now. Give yourself three years. Also, don’t short-change your education dollars. Education needs to be one of the first things you should look at.”

Janice Canterbury is the PAYT program manager at the EPA in Washington, DC. Sue Eisenfeld is a senior environmental communications manager with Eastern Research Group (ERG) in Arlington, VA. Ryan Newill, Courtney Babcock, Andrea Auerbach, and Olga Doty of ERG also contributed to this article.

Everything You Need to Know About Pay-As-You-Throw EPA Pay-As-You-Throw Web site: www.epa.gov/payt

 

MSW - Elements 2006