By Monique Tirion
The village is considering changing its trash hauling contract after consultation with Casella. Currently village residents pay a base rate of $12.12/month plus $1.95 per 10 gallon trash-bags or $3.90 per 15 gallon trash-bags. For those who use two 10 gallon trash bags per month, this translates to an annual rate of $192.24. This number is not exact, because the contract with Casella automatically adjusts charges to reflect changes in the price of diesel fuel, “tipping” fees to offload trash at landfill or recycling centers, and inflation. This cost would also change if the wholesale price of orange trash bags change.
Why change the contract now even though our current contract expires in 2026? Because Casella waited 5 months to receive its latest supply of orange colored trash bags and local retailers depleted their stock for customers. The trash bags that do arrive are not always of the best quality, adding further losses to customers’ and Casella’s operating budget. Casella suggests that if we switch to a flat-fee model, people could use whatever trash-bags, if any, they prefer and Casella would no longer invest time policing trash barrel contents for non-orange bags. To compute the alternative rate, Casella uses the fact that the average household uses 8 ten gallon bags per month, to offer a flat-rate fee of $26.14 per residence per month, or $313.68 per year.
Casella is the only trash hauling service in St Lawrence County able to provide this service for Potsdam: all other haulers can increase their customer base by 10 or 20, but not by the 1400+ customers within the village. Private haulers also could not supply the wheeled trash barrels, and do not offer a separate waste stream for recyclables. Casella is able to offer a discount to Potsdam customers for two reasons. One, their St Lawrence County HQ is in Potsdam so that fuel costs are lower for Potsdam residents. And two, since our municipality is a government entity, no taxes need be paid by the village (for the base service).
Will Casella continue to offer both trash and recyclable waste streams? Yes, for two reasons: State mandates and financial incentives. The Environmental Conservation Law, the General Municipal Law, the Solid Waste Management Act and Executive Order 142 are but some of the laws mandating source separation in NYS. The DEC commissioner and the State Attorney General continue to enforce source separation with hefty fines against municipalities and waste haulers who ignored or rejected recycling mandates. Does Casella profit from our recycling efforts? Yes, but barely. Casella Division Manager Matt Rose says that the only item in the recycled waste stream that can be sold for a profit is card board. They bale collected cardboard into 2000 pound bales to be sold. Other recovered recyclables (only about 30% of items placed in recycling bins can be brought to recycling centers) are brought to the new recycling facility (to open within days) in Ogdensburg. The tipping fees for trash (at Jefferson County’s DANC-run Rodman Landfill) is slightly higher than the tipping fee for recyclables at the Ogdensburg recycling facility.
The village board will be asked to consider keeping the current contract or switching to the new model with a contract effective until 2030. Our only other alternative, to not provide this service for village residents and expect all residents to contract with private haulers, would result in torn trash bags alongside the roads every day of the week, and so is not a consideration.
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