Hopkinton retains pay-by-bag trash program despite compliance issues

 

Hopkinton’s pay-by-bag program that requires residents to dispose of their trash using green bags has had issues with compliance over the years. Despite the program’s intention to create an incentive to reduce waste through green bag usage, the transfer station sees a rainbow of colored bags dumped daily.

At Monday’s select board meeting, discussions centered on the green bag program and whether to better enforce it or get rid of it. Ultimately the board opted to maintain the status quo.

The select board decided that it was too late to put forward a warrant article at the town meeting to ask residents to decide the fate of the program.

“This has been this sort of intractable problem for the town for more than a decade,” said Sabrina Dunlap, select board chair. “I’d be in favor of just not changing anything and we sort of muddle along in this bizarro nether-world where nothing actually makes sense – some people use green bags and some don’t.”

The decision to retain the program was accompanied by the select board’s commitment to invest more time to come up with a comprehensive strategy to address the issue.