Buzzword: Pay As You Throw

What it means. In most municipalities nationwide, households pay a flat annual fee to have their garbage hauled away once or more a week. The cost is often rolled into property-tax payments and doesn't fluctuate regardless of how much waste a household generates. With pay as you throw, or PAYT, household waste is treated more like a utility, with each household getting charged for how much garbage its sends to the curb.

In most PAYT programs, households sign up for a specific containers—say one 32-gallon and one 64-gallon receptacle—and are charged extra when they go over that limit in a certain period. Other PAYT programs use logoed bags that consumers buy from municipal centers or participating retailers; these are the only bags they can use to throw out their trash.

Why the buzz? As recycling grows—curbside programs are up 500 percent in the last 5 years, says the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency—so does PAYT. It's now in 7,100 communities nationwide, according to the Skumatz Economic Research Associates, up from 5,100 in 2001 and 1,000 in 1993. Communities on the West Coast, in the Northeast, and in the north-central region of the country participate the most in PAYT programs, according to the EPA.

PAYT is designed to offer several benefits. By encouraging recycling, composting, and yard-waste reduction (mulching lawn clippings and leaves instead of bagging them, for example), PAYT reduces the amount of residential material in landfills by an average of 17 percent, claims SERA. That reduction helps communities cope with the rising costs of waste management and also curbs the attendant greenhouse-gas emissions.

Consumers stand to benefit as well. In Louisville, Colorado, for instance, residents who had been paying $200 annually for trash removal, not including recycling, can now pay as little as $100, including recycling, provided they produce less than 32 gallons of trash per month. That's an easier proposition for a one-person household than for a family of six. And, in fact, Louisville residents who need a 96-gallon container now pay $250 a year under the PAYT program.

PAYT critics argue that such a scenario favors smaller households. But through precycling and other aggressive forms of waste management, experts believe that most households can at least break even with PAYT.—Daniel DiClerico | e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook

Comments

[Joanne]

I have been saying for years that the best way to "encourage" responsible recycling to is charge per pound for nonrecycled trash.... its about time that someone actually is trying to implement this.... I live in a community of over 300 homes and am the only one that puts out recycles for pickup -- why should my trash bill be equal when I am making the earth friendly effort?