To the editor:

According to official DPW figures, transfer station (TS) usage is not declining, and revenue is increasing. For the last four years, roughly 3,150 stickers were sold each year. That satisfied about 2,500 households with the lowest cost disposal of trash and the convenience of choosing any of five days each week for its disposal.

Those 2,500 households are a much larger percentage of the available residents than has been claimed. One cannot just subtract TS users from the number of residences in town and assume the rest all use curbside. A substantial number of residential units are in the two towers, the three mobile home parks, the numerous condo complexes, the abundant apartment buildings, gated communities, farms, and Airbnbs. All of those will continue to make their own arrangements for trash removal. By this calculation the TS satisfies about half the households “available” to it in town.

According to the town budget, the TS expenses are completely paid for by users purchasing the sticker and the bags — it pays for itself. It is the lowest cost option available, and the price includes accepting yard waste, oil, and most bulky items. This further decreases the trash disposal cost for users.

Because the TS requires pay-for-throw bags, Portsmouth is at the top of Rhode Island municipalities for its recycling rate — 35 percent. The proposed change to only curbside, eliminates the bags and will destroy that achievement. Reducing our recycling rate will compound the biggest trash problem we face — that Johnston is running out of landfill space.

It appears that the Town Council wants to force all the TS households to use curbside in order to reduce the curbside cost. That reasoning is flawed. First, if providing a low cost is the objective, the TS is the lowest cost. Second, forcing everyone to a single curbside provider might give a cost reduction to present curbside users, at the expense of their being able to choose their vendor. However, it will increase costs for the prior TS users, many of whom are in need of the lowest possible disposal cost.

Furthermore, any reduction in the curbside costs achieved by this plan will be short-lived. Once the transfer station is gone and the low cost competitive alternative is lost for good, curbside prices will quickly escalate. Logic says this is the reason local haulers refused to bid on operating the TS in previous requests for proposals!

The new council plan eliminates residentsʼ choice of how they dispose of their trash. It eliminates the curbside users’ choice of vendor. It eliminates the lowest cost disposal option, hurting the neediest in town. It eliminates the spectacular progress the town has made in its recycling rate. And worse, this plan is not needed because the number of TS users is not declining.

The present dual system works well for our residents. One has to question the councilʼs motive for fixing a problem that does not exist.

Tom Grieb

110 Thayer Drive 

Portsmouth