Recyclables and Our Tax Dollars!

TO: All Ashford Residents Who Use the Transfer Station

FROM: Mike Zambo

SUBJECT: Quality issues with recyclables

A notice recently received from Willimantic Waste Paper Company, the Town of Ashford’s registered trash haulers, advised that we will no longer receive a $5/per ton credit for our recyclables but will incur a charge of $40 per ton effective January 1, 2019.

In addition to that notice, we received a notice informing us that we will incur a residue processing fee of $95 per ton for recyclable material that does not fall within Willimantic Waste’s specifications. This processing fee encompasses additional sorting, residue and transportation expenditures associated with contamination. Through the end of May 2018 the Town of Ashford sent 309 tons of single stream recyclables to Willimantic Waste for disposal.

It is in our best interest that all material considered appropriate for single stream disposal – newspapers and magazines, cardboard and paperboard boxes, paper bags, junk mail, phone books and catalogues, envelopes, file folders, white, green and brown glass, tin cans, aluminum (cans, foil, pots/pans), juice and milk cartons, plastic milk jugs and soda bottles, detergent bottles, all #3 to #7 plastics, small metals empty aerosol cans, plastic buckets and crates – be emptied into the compactor designated for single stream material. Not acceptable in the single stream collection are plastic bags, needles, syringes, household trash or bagged material, clothing, containers with food waste and hazardous and biohazard waste.

By following the contractor’s disposal guidelines we will all help to keep the cost increases associated with operation of the Transfer Station to a minimum.