PITTSFIELD, Mass. – Mayor Peter Marchetti recently proposed a new trash collection agreement with Casella Waste Management.

It would require Pittsfield residents to use one 48-gallon container for trash and another for recycling.

“We’re aiming to shift the trash from trash to recycling. There’s a lot of materials that can go from that category towards recycling and reducing the amount of cost on the processing side of things,” said Commisioner of Public Services and Utilities Ricardo Morales.

The two containers will be given to residents for free. If people are needing more trash totes, there will be a quarterly fee of $40, while more recycling containers will be free.

The city is trying to get away from the unlimited trash collection it has now and reduce the amount of waste found along the roads.

“The way we’re doing things is not working. We are generating too much trash as a community. We are wasting a lot of money in this. And there are ways to reduce how much money we spend on trash and there are ways to make our environment a better place because of this shift,” Morales said.

The proposal would save $80,000 in disposal collections, and possibly more. 

Because it costs more to dispose of trash than it does to recycle, the more people recycle, the more opportunity the city has to sell the materials and offset the cost. 

The city says the proposal could also help with efficiency and road safety.

By only allowing bins and not bags, trucks can automatically collect the garbage and recycling. 

And by limiting trash to what can fit into the container, the city says it will keep animals from going through bags and trash from blowing onto the streets. 

“It would clean up the streets in the neighborhoods a lot. I think it would. I really think it would be a huge impact for the just, like, the trash all over the place. It’s not every neighborhood. It’s just certain streets. You notice there’s more like when we first moved in here, like I said, there was quite a bit,” said Pittsfield resident Perrin Consolati.

Consolati noticed his neighborhood would be littered with trash because it would be overflowing from containers. He said having access to a bigger container and recycling bins will help.

“People don’t recycle cause they don’t have a container for it. That’s the excuse, anyway. Now, that’s one less excuse. So I think that’s also beneficial as well. You won’t have as many plastic bottles and water bottles floating on the sidewalks and on the streets. So I think it would look a lot nicer for the neighborhood and for the city of Pittsfield if they do that.”

There will be three public meetings to address resident’s questions. They’ll be May 6 at 10 a.m. at Ralph J. Froio Senior Center; May 9 at 7 p.m. at Conte Community School; and May 21 at 7 p.m. at Herberg Middle School.