The future of Princeton’s curbside organic program is in doubt, as a municipal official this week said a problem largely stems from residents incorrectly putting their waste in plastic bags.
Mayor Liz Lempert addressed the issue this week and in a letter sent on Sept. 8 to participants in the optional program. She told reporters on Sept. 11 that the problem also is happening with the municipal recycling program, as plastic bags are neither recyclable nor compostable.
“I think, maybe, there’s a misperception that those bags are just used to containerize things and then they get opened,” she said.
In her letter to residents, Lempert wrote the town became aware two weeks ago of the contamination problem with its composting waste. She wrote that “Princeton’s composting bins contain too much prohibited material — mostly traditional plastic garbage bags and ‘compostable’ utensils — to be accepted at the farm utilized by our hauler.”
“Since being notified of this several months ago,” her letter continued, “the hauler has been taking Princeton’s material to the waste-to-energy incinerator in Tullytown, Pa., in Lower Bucks County. In working with the hauler to find a suitable location for our food waste, we identified a farm in Pottstown, Pa., and sent a trial delivery last week. However, this arrangement is at risk because of the number of plastic bags in last week’s trial delivery. Clearly, we need to do a better job working with our composters to improve the content of our food waste in order to keep this important program viable.”
Later in her letter, Lempert warned that “If we are unable to find a suitable solution, we would look to get a refund from our hauler and possibly close the program until we have the right system up and running.”
In her comments to reporters, she touched on the need for an information campaign.
“I think we need to be looking at that, as probably one of our next steps is to work with the hauler and inform residents they should not expect their recycling to be picked or their food waste to be picked up if it’s been put in plastic bags.”
Princeton has an optional program in which residents can pay $65 a year to have their food and other organic waste picked up and turned into compost. According to the municipal website, the types of things beside food include “pizza boxes, waxed cardboard, soiled paper products and most yard waste including weeds.”
Roughly 800 households have signed up, not including about 100 others that are part of a separate test program.
“There’s a lot of interest in it,” Lempert said.
But that number is down from a total on the municipal website, which showed more than 1,200 households had joined.