Hundreds of Barrington residents have started receiving their new trash and recycling carts.

According to Waste Connections-Mega Disposal District Manager David Werkema, the company has been distributing the smaller trash and recycling carts and additional large carts since early September. 

Werkema said 228 Barrington households requested additional trash and/or recycling carts, and Mega has scheduled delivery for 206 of them. He said three residents canceled their requests, and Mega has left voice messages with the 19 other residents and is still waiting to hear back. 

Mega received 607 requests from Barrington households for smaller trash and recycling carts — 65-gallon carts versus the larger 95-gallon carts. Werkema said he had his Mega team into the office over the previous weekend and they phoned everyone on the list — Mega has scheduled deliveries of smaller carts to 401 households. Werkema said 33 residents who initially requested the smaller carts have since changed their minds and are fine with the larger carts. He said the Mega team left voice messages with 170 residents and is waiting to hear back, and three residents have changed their phone numbers since placing the requests.

“The additional carts and the swaps for smaller carts have been ongoing since the start of September, every Monday and Friday,” Werkema wrote in a message to the Barrington Times.

“Currently we have residents booked into the first half of November. It should be pretty much done at that point as we have contacted everyone on the list at this point; the only thing we have really booked this week is people that have called in after receiving a voicemail from my team.”

Barrington’s new automated trash and recycling pickup included the distribution of more than 10,000 95-gallon trash and recycling carts to local residents. Shortly after receiving the new carts, some residents began to complain about their size. Many began calling Mega to request smaller carts. Initially, Mega officials and Barrington leaders did not plan to fill all requests for smaller carts, but in late August the town manager, Phil Hervey, announced that a deal was reached ensuring that residents who wanted smaller trash and recycling carts would get them, and at no additional cost. As part of the agreement, the town will pay Mega an additional $1,900 per month. 

(Mega submitted a two-part bid for the service: the automated collection option was for $1,497,190, while the man-powered option was for $1,689,212. The council approved the bid for the automated collection, citing in part the savings of $192,022.)

Initial response

Werkema said the roll-out of the new automated collection program in Barrington has yielded plenty of response from residents. 

“Barrington has some very high standards,” Werkema said, referring to the trash and recycling collection. 

Werkema said the previous program offered Barrington residents unlimited trash and recycling, and bulk items. The new program, he said, is intended to encourage more recycling. 

“It has been an adjustment,” he said. 

Werkema acknowledged that Mega has not experienced the same level of feedback from residents of other towns that made the change from manual collection to automated. 

“Yes, maybe more so than other communities,” he said. “To a certain extent it was to be expected.”

The new bulk items collection requires that residents call Mega Disposal to schedule a pick-up. The company is limiting the bulk item collection to 50 households twice a month — each household is allowed to put out two bulk items. Initially, Mega had allowed for 75 households with one item each. 

“It’s working better. I wouldn’t call it good,” Werkema said. “We’re still learning.”

Werkema said residents in other communities traditionally call a disposal company for basement clean-outs or house-moving clean-outs. That may not have been the case in Barrington. 

Recent complaint

A Barrington resident recently reached out to the Barrington Times regarding a situation with trash and recycling collection on his street, which is one of the narrower roadways in town. 

“For the last several weeks I’ve observed MEGA picking up both trash and recycling and combining these in one truck,” the resident wrote. “As it does not appear these trucks have separate receptacles for each trash stream, I was concerned about why this was happening. Does MEGA lack enough trucks to pick up each separately, is it a lack of staff, or is MEGA cutting corners to improve their profitability? Also, what are the implications for the Town? One could assume recycling tipping fees are less than those charged by the landfill.”

Werkema’s response to the resident’s report: “That is the exact opposite of the instruction we give to our employees.”

Werkema said the may be occasions where drivers notice items inside recycling carts that are not supposed to be recycled and decide to dump them into the trash trucks instead of potentially compromising a recycling load. 

Werkema said that once he learned about the resident’s complaint, he decided to stop in early and remind drivers of the automated collection trucks about not mixing loads. He also said he is able to monitor the GPW trail for each of the trash and recycling trucks to ensure that both vehicles are covering their entire routes. 

Werkema also wanted to remind Barrington residents that the yard waste collection trucks will be in town until mid-December. He said those pickups usually occur earlier in the day than trash and recycling collection.