To the editor:

I’ve resided in Portsmouth since 1991. I loved using the transfer station and enjoyed the convenience of trashing on my schedule and in my way. Throw it in a bag, a box, or a can. Haul it on a trip through town while out doing errands. Simple and efficient.

For me it ended with the PAYT (pay-as-you-throw) bags. With the requirement of bags now I needed to maintain a stock of bags, but most frustrating was managing my trash to fit in those bags. I actually saw a woman being berated at the transfer station by staff because the handle of her worn out broom did not “fit” within the confines of her PAYT bag. That was the last straw for me, so I went curbside. I’ve found curbside to be even more convenient. 

Now the town is on the precipice of awarding a municipally funded curbside pickup program and the bag Insanity returns. 

There was a logical reason for the PAYT bags with the transfer station. How to incentivize users to minimize the trash they throw and increase recycling rates. While logical it’s a pain in the ass to buy and bag trash for no reason other than to be bullied into what uncle thinks is best. 

Now we venture into curbside and the bag lemmings can’t help themselves. But this time the logic for PAYT bags is tenuous at best. With curbside you get a bin. If it doesn’t fit within the bin, or you have too much for the bin, boo hoo to you. Make it fit or set some aside for next week. Will bagging it before binning it really increase recycling appreciably when the recycling bin is right there alongside the trash bin?

Finally here is where the PAYT bag will have to defy logic. When the vendor dumps your trash bin with his automated truck and sees on the camera that some or all of your trash now in the belly of the truck was not in a PAYT bag, what will he do? Climb in the truck and remove your loose trash? Stop and right you a ticket, exit the truck and pin it on your bin? Log it in his computer for some poor back office soul to be tasked with policing you? So the PAYT bags purpose is what with curbside pickup? 

It would be truly refreshing if government occasionally served the taxpayer and resisted the urge to pat them on the head with the heavy hand. 

Scott Boyd

20 Kensington Ave.

Portsmouth