CASE STUDY

US Towns Don’t Agree How You Should Pay for Your Trash

Trash costs are rising, and towns are splitting on who pays and how. In 2026 Westfield, Massachusetts moved its residents to paying by the bag. Gloucester, Massachusetts moved its residents off the bag and onto a yearly fee by bin size. Both changes showed up in their own minutes months before they reached the curb.

The question

Every town pays to haul its trash and to burn, bury or recycle it, and those bills are rising. Each town decides how to pass them on: inside the tax rate, as a flat yearly fee, or as a price on every bag. That choice is made in council chambers and boards of health, and it is written down.

Same state, same year, opposite answers

By the bag in Westfield. By the bin in Gloucester.

Bagspay per bag, required from Sep 1, 2026
Westfield, Massachusetts

SCHEDULED
Feb 11, 2026

The Board of Health put a “Public Hearing on Transfer Station Regulations and Pay-As-You-Throw Program” on its agenda, followed by a discussion and vote. Board of Health agenda, February 11, 2026

BOARD
Mar 11, 2026

The health director reported the pay-as-you-throw contract “is in its final state” and would go to the mayor for signature. The board members signed the Transfer Station Regulations. Board of Health minutes, March 11, 2026

VOTE
Jul 6, 2026

The City Council set up an account for selling city trash bags, 12 in favor, one councilor absent. A councilor explained: “Effective September 1, 2026, residents will be required to use specific trash bags to throw away their trash.” City Council minutes, July 6, 2026

THE PRICE
Sep 1, 2026

Bags go on sale at local stores: “a roll of five 15-gallon trash bags, orange color, for $7.50 or a roll of five 33-gallon trash bags for $15.00.” City Council minutes, July 6, 2026

Binsa yearly fee by bin size, from Oct 1, 2026
Gloucester, Massachusetts

FIRST SIGN
Mar 11, 2025

The public works director warned the City Council that Gloucester paid nothing to dispose of 5,000 to 6,000 tons of recycling a year, which “was not to be found in any modern contract,” and that the next contract “could include changes such as going to automated carts instead of bags.” City Council minutes, March 11, 2025, filed in the March 25, 2025 packet

BUDGET
Jun 3, 2026

A councilor told the Budget & Finance Committee the new bins would cost $1 million, and that “the new contract would come into effect on October 1, 2026 and the pay as you throw program would end.” Budget & Finance minutes, June 3, 2026, filed in the June 16, 2026 packet

THE PLAN
Aug 25, 2026

The director told the City Council there would be “a yearly fee based on the size of the trash bin,” and that trash would not need to be in bags. On price: “a large portion of the cost was paying for recycling service, which in the past had been negotiated as zero cost.” City Council minutes, August 25, 2026

VOTE
Sep 8, 2026

The City Council voted 9-0 “to approve the proposed trash & recycling program fee schedule beginning October 1, 2026.” City Council minutes, September 8, 2026

Where it is on record now

South Portland, Maine

Pay-per-bag is back for a third look. The council declined it in 2023, asked for it again in 2024, and city staff brought a new plan to a July 14, 2026 workshop. Their paper puts the average household cost at “approximately $160 to $209 per year” and says tipping fees in 2027 “will be 25% higher than they were in FY24.” On September 1 a councilor said the plan “is still in workshop discussions and has not been voted on or passed,” and another said the second workshop would explain “how the policy aims to manage rising waste costs.”

Source: City Council workshop paper, July 14, 2026 · City Council draft minutes, September 1, 2026

Bar Harbor, Maine

The town’s September 2026 council goals report lists, as work in progress: “Review of Transfer Facility operations and exploring Pay-As-You-Throw user-fee systems for Council consideration.”

Source: Council goals report in the September 16, 2026 agenda

+More towns on the record

Both are still proposals. Neither had come to a vote in its record as of October 12, 2026.

Why it matters

What a household pays for trash, and how, is decided one town at a time, and it is moving in both directions at once. Haulers, bag makers, recycling processors and the companies that bill residents all live with those decisions, and each one sits in a town’s minutes long before it reaches the curb. Tell us your market in the box below, and we will look for it there.

METHODOLOGY: Every example above comes from the town’s own record, linked beside it. Agendas, packets and workshop papers show what was proposed; we say adopted or voted only where minutes or the adopted ordinance show it. Where minutes are drafts, or were filed inside a later meeting’s packet, the source says so.

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