Mansfield Selectmen Vote to Increase Pickup Fees for Bulky and White Items

The Mansfield Board of Selectmen voted 3-1, with Annino  absent and Dentino against, to increase pickup charges for bulky trash items and white items (dishwashers, clothes washers, dryers, etc.) from $10 for bulky items to $15 and from $15 for white items to $20.

Mansfield’s director of the Department of Public Works Lee Azinheira said that this increase in the pick rates in not a way to create revenue, but to cut costs.

“We’re not looking to make money,” he said. “We’re potentially bearing costs on this, which is not right.

Azinheira said that it currently costs the town $33 to take away white goods and $26.40 for bulky items, from prices set by Waste Management.

 “So what we’re doing is proposing a $13 loss,” selectman Jess Aptowitz said.  “It’s about half the cost.”

The problem arose originally, Azinheira said, because Mansfield didn’t charge for these items, and people would take advantage of it. He said that people were taking these items dropping them from other towns onto Mansfield streets to be picked up, in effect negating what they would’ve had to pay to remove said items.

Azinheira said that this was to help cut a deficit of about $100,000 that the DPW had in 2012 in the budget due to reductions in recycling credits. Due to many other steps the DPW is taking, they have cut their budget deficit to $19,605.55. Azinheira said that the costs and benefits of recycling depend mainly on the recycling market. If the market does badly, then costs go up.

“It depends a lot on what goes out to China,” he said.