Swampscott sets second-cart trash fee at $160 as board splits over who should pay

← All news · July 21, 2026

Days before automated collection starts, the Select Board set a $160 annual fee for a second trash cart, a $50 fee for a second recycling cart and kept overflow bags at $3.

Swampscott’s Select Board set the last major fees for the town’s new automated trash system Tuesday, July 21, approving a $160 annual fee for a second 35-gallon trash cart, a $50 annual fee for a second 96-gallon recycling cart and keeping the pay-as-you-throw blue overflow bag at $3.

The votes settled what residents will pay beyond the tax bill just before automated collection starts. Republic Services’ new automated trucks begin pickups on Monday, August 3. The town’s new blue recycling carts go out the week of July 27, with delivery starting Tuesday. Initial cart inventory is limited, so the town is filling requests from seniors and residents with mobility challenges first.

Households that want a second cart can request one now. The form is live at swampscottma.gov/trash and on paper at Town Hall and the Senior Center. As of this writing, the town page still says the fees “will be set by the Select Board on July 21st.” The fees are now set.

The $160 trash cart passed 4-1

The board’s main divide was over whether heavier users should cover more of the system’s cost or whether second-cart fees would punish households that need more capacity. Wayne Spritz and Mary Ellen Fletcher argued for cost recovery. Chair Katie Phelan and Vice Chair Danielle Leonard objected to assuming that a second-cart household fills the cart. Ted Dooley, the outgoing Planning Board chair, said little for either side and became the deciding vote on the two closest votes.

The second trash cart fee passed 4-1. Dooley first moved $165. Leonard moved to cut it to $160, and that number passed with Spritz, Fletcher, Dooley and Leonard voting yes. Phelan voted no because she wanted the fee lower. She had argued the town could “barely” justify charging even $150.

The board voted 3-2 to keep the blue bag at $3, with Dooley, Leonard and Phelan in favor. Spritz and Fletcher wanted $3.50, arguing that the bag should track the true cost of an extra week’s worth of trash. Fifty-two bags at $3.50 would cost $182, about what a resident would pay to buy one bag a week.

The second recycling cart passed 3-2. Fletcher moved the $50 fee and voted for it with Leonard and Dooley. Spritz voted no because he thought $50 was too low under his full-capacity cost calculation. Phelan voted no because she thought the fee would discourage recycling.

The two sides were clearest in the members’ own words. Spritz said, “If you’re putting out more trash, you should be assuming more of the responsibility for hauling.” Leonard rejected the assumption that a second barrel means a full barrel, saying, “Wayne, I use blue bags and I don’t pack it in,” and, on the trash cart, “let’s not gouge people and punitively punish them because they are asking for a second barrel.” Phelan, joining remotely, said, “we want to basically punish our neighbors who are requesting a second barrel. That’s what we’re talking about here.”

Spritz’s cost model shaped the debate

Much of the discussion ran through numbers Spritz built himself. The former Solid Waste Advisory Committee chair drafted the trash-contract RFP in that role before his April election to the board. He now serves as the board’s liaison to the committee, which Emily Westhoven chairs.

Spritz brought a cost calculator comparing FY21 to FY27. The town’s hauling and service cost has climbed from about $451,000 to $609,000. The per-resident share of trash service has risen from roughly $88 to $122. Tipping fees run $126.45 a ton and rise about 5 percent a year. A full 35-gallon cart, by his weight figures, holds 40 to 50 pounds. From a town survey of more than 950 residents, just under a fifth of households, he pegged the share who use at least one blue bag a week at 8 percent.

The recycling calculation drew more pushback. Spritz’s model valued a full 96-gallon recycling cart at about 69 pounds, based on a material-density assumption, and figured a heavy user puts out more than six times what an average household does. Phelan and Leonard opposed charging residents as if the cart were filled to the top. The board worked instead toward the average, closer to 11 pounds a week, which helped put the recycling fee at $50 rather than higher.

Town Administrator Nick Connors had recommended the low end of the trash-cart fee range, around $150 to $155, roughly the tipping cost plus a share of the barrel’s price. The board landed above that at $160 and below the $180 figure Spritz had floated at the July 7 meeting. Spritz got the analysis on the record, the board thanked him for it, and two of the three final prices came in under the structure he had proposed. He voted for the $160 trash cart.

Fletcher raised a future user fee

After the votes, Fletcher raised the larger fiscal question beneath the cart fees: whether trash should stay funded through the property-tax levy or move to a standalone user fee as the town’s unused levy capacity shrinks toward a possible future override.

The board did not take up that question because it was not on the agenda. Tuesday’s votes set the immediate fees for second carts and overflow bags, but Fletcher’s question showed where the trash debate may go next.

Sources