On June 21 the Township Committee was talking trash. On July 7, it will be the Green Team's turn to gab about garbage.

That's because Township Committee members overwhelmingly supported exploring a plan to select a unified garbage hauler for town residents as well as a "pay-as-you-throw" system that would foster more recycling and greater savings for rate payers.

The plan was first presented to the Township Committee by members of the Maplewood Environmental Advisory Committee and the Maplewood Green Team on June 7. Dirk Olin of the Environmental Advisory Committee, Steve Weber of the Green Team, and Bob McCoy — a member of both — presented a new scenario for garbage hauling that is summarized in a 4-page description that can be found on the Township website. In brief, the proposal has two key elements:

• Single contract between the town and a hauler (currently residents contract directly with one of two designated haulers). The town bills each individual user (homeowner, apartment dweller, etc) with an annual fee, similar in structure to the sewer fee paid now. The fee — estimated to be between $175 and $235 — covers collection, administrative costs and a "recycling improvements fund."
• A "pay as you throw" system, whereby customers throw their garbage out in special bags that are purchased in stores or from the hauler. The cost of the bag covers the tipping fee — the actual cost of throwing out trash. The presenters contrasted this with the current system where customers pay for two 32-gallon garbage pails per pickup twice a week no matter how much trash they have. Using this plan, "light users" — or those using about two 13-gallon bags per week — could pay as little as $250 to $310 per year. (The proposal estimates that "heavy users" — those using three 30-gallon bags per week — would pay between $375 and $435 per year.)

The proposal projects the annual overall savings to Maplewood residents to be between $300,000 and $700,000 — a rate of savings reiterated by Deputy Mayor Fred Profeta at the June 21 meeting.

Trash pickup would continue to be twice weekly and the hauler would provide rear yard service.

Although the Township Committee focused more on the potential cost savings of such at plan at the June 7 meeting, McCoy said that the environmental motivation of the proposal should be a bigger part of the discussion.

"We calculated that if Maplewood could get even a 10% reduction it would be the environmental equivalent of avoiding 4 million minivan miles," added McCoy. "So we are talking about a big deal!"

At the June 21 Township Committee meeting, members got into nitty-gritty issues such as how the charge for the unified hauling fee would be billed to residents (a separate bill from the tax bill would be more visible), if condos would be affected (multi-family developments with more than 4 units already hire their own haulers) and how much it would cost to take the administration of garbage hauling in house ($140,000 for staffing, printing, mailing and taking out liens where necessary).

The Township Committee also tasked the Green Team with approaching other towns such as Chatham and Glen Ridge for bid specifications. The town would then solicit bids from contractors. "We always reserve the right to reject all the bids," said Township Counsel Roger Desiderio, explaining that the township would not be obligated to select a bidder in such a process.

Mayoyr Vic DeLuca wanted the Green Team to work the plan "through with the administrator and his team." The mayor also said that "public information will be important," since there will be great public interest in "such a fundamental change" to trash hauling.

"The Green Team can come back with a plan to engage the community on how to make this work," said DeLuca.

Deputy Mayor Fred Profeta suggested mailing out postcards to promote such a meeting or meetings. DeLuca agreed and felt that public meetings around the topic would need a bigger venue than town hall.

Director of Public Works Eric Burbank raised concerns that lower income households have lower rates of recycling participation and worried about what would happen when a family of seven runs out of specially purchased trash bags. "Garbage could be diverted to other places," said Burbank.

Township Administrator Joseph Manning responded, "We have to make this very convenient."

DeLuca felt Burbank's concerns were not a reason not to move forward. "We run into language issues and participation in civic affairs, with everything," said DeLuca.