Worcester residents have continuously complained about litter scattered around streets and sidewalks.
In recent years, the city has responded by upgrading recycling bins to prevent bottles and boxes from blowing away. But as the trash problems persist, Worcester officials are now trying another tactic.
Selling trash bags via a vending machine.
The machine — which works like any other that dispenses chips or cookies — is at Worcester’s new 311 Customer Service Center in the Main South neighborhood. The center is meant to make municipal services more accessible for residents, who can walk in and request everything from birth and death certificates to dog licenses and passport registrations. Officials said the trash bag vending machine is another way of meeting people’s needs.
Worcester does not provide residents with garbage bins. Instead, the city requires people put their trash in yellow bags as part of its pay-as-you-throw program. If people don’t use the bags, garbage collection workers won’t pick up their trash.
But in recent years, many residents have complained that the yellow bags break easily, letting garbage spill out as they sit on the curb ahead of pickup. Critics add the bags are hard to find and too expensive, and, as a result, people illegally dump their trash in alleys or vacant lots.
The city “is trying to work out different things in order to reduce some of those problems,” said Charles Goodwin, Worcester’s director of emergency communication and management who’s overseeing the 311 center. “If we could find a way to have the trash bags [at the center] for residents that are coming in for other things, that saves them another stop on the way home.”
Traditionally, cities fund trash collection via municipal taxes and landlords cover that expense or include it in the total cost of rent. Therefore, tenants often don’t think about paying for garbage disposal.
But instead of funding trash collection solely through municipal taxes, Worcester’s garbage service also relies on revenue from selling the yellow bags.
Worcester officials and some environmentalists say the system encourages people to recycle more in order to avoid buying extra trash bags. Still, critics of the trash program say the cost of the bags adds up even if you recycle. A roll of 10 small yellow bags is $10, while a pack of five larger bags costs $8.75. For comparison, packs of 50 and 100 standard trash bags at Walmart — which Worcester’s collection service won’t pick up — sell for less than $10.
John Miller, who lives around Main South, said the new vending machine at the 311 center won’t help solve the illegal dumping problem because it sells the bags at the usual price.
“That’s almost $2 a bag. That’s totally unfair,” Miller said. “Some people might get $500 a month, $800 a month and they have to pay rent. But they gotta buy the bags off that money.”
Other residents said they appreciate that the city is trying to make the yellow bags more accessible, considering that some stores and bodegas don’t sell them. But Christina Roberts, who picks up litter around the city every week and is known as the “Trash Queen of Worcester,” said the single vending machine in one neighborhood won’t make much of a difference.
“I would love to see outdoor vending machines accessible at all hours of the day stationed maybe all around the city. That would be fabulous,” Roberts said. “One vending machine inside a service center — not so fabulous.”
Roberts also suggested that the vending machine sell individual bags instead of rolls of them. That way, people who can’t afford an entire roll can still purchase one bag when they need one.
Worcester officials said the trash bag vending machine at the 311 center isn’t meant to be a panacea for litter around streets and sidewalks. But Goodwin and Chief Sustainability Officer John Odell said it doesn’t hurt to have one extra access point for trash bags. And if people take advantage of the machine, the officials said the city could look into installing more in other areas.
Odell added Worcester is trying to reduce loose trash on streets in other ways, including cracking down on illegal dumping and expanding litter removal efforts in different neighborhoods. The city is also developing a Zero Waste Master Plan, which aims to expand composting and reduce use of disposable products, among other goals.
“We have a very good system in place. How do we make it better?” Odell said. “We want to do this in a very much more comprehensive way, which ultimately may take a little bit longer, but ultimately will give us a better solution, which is what everyone at the end of the day wants.”
