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| By G. Michael Dobbs Managing Editor CHICOPEE While some communities are struggling with the cost of trash disposal, Chicopee residents have been granted a reprieve from trash fees or long-distance trucking of their refuse the landfill used by the city, once thought to be closing in 2011 will now stay in use until at least 2013 and possibly until 2015. Mayor Michael Bissonnette said last week that through the city's recycling program and improved means of compacting trash, the landfill on New Lombard Road isn't filling as fast as it was once anticipated. The city's current contract with Waste Management is up in 2011 and Bissonnette will be working on renewing the present agreement in which the city pays Waste Management about $1 million a year but receives back almost the same amount from the company through tipping fees. "It's almost a wash," he said. The added life to the present landfill gives the city time to develop a trash plan, the mayor explained. He will be appointing people to a committee to develop a plan for the future that will hopefully avoid a trash fee. The extra lifespan is a "bridge to the future," he said. Bissonnette said that if additional landfill space in the city isn't developed, trucking the city's trash elsewhere could cost between $2 and $3 million. To keep trash costs lower, Bissonnette will be looking at a single stream-recycling program for residents. A single stream program would allow people to put all of their recyclables into one container as opposed to separating glass from plastic from metal from paper. A single stream system encourages greater recycling and the pick-up can be semi-automated, therefore decreasing the labor costs in collection, he added. He said that he has asked Waste Management to develop several strategies to help plan for the future. These options might include a transfer station operation if additional landfill space cannot be obtained, he added. Bissonnette also said he wants to eliminate as much of the truck traffic at the intersection of Burnett and New Lombard Roads by seeking a new access road to the landfill that would cut behind the Pride Station and the Econo Lodge. "We've got to get a handle on the traffic," he said and added Robert Bolduc, the president of Pride, has shown interest in cooperating in the new traffic plan. |