The last day Woolwich residents can return orange Pay As You Throw trash bags for a credit is Friday, Feb. 12. Selectmen now must decide what to do with thousands of bags left after voters opted to end the program.

Three pallets of the WasteZero bags arrived a week ago and are sitting in the basement of the town office. It will be up to selectmen to decide what happens next.

“We really haven’t discussed what we’re going to do with the bags,” Selectman Jason Shaw told the Wiscasset Newspaper Wednesday afternoon. One option is to sell them at cost. “People still need trash bags, and we’ve got plenty of them,” he said­ — thousands in fact.

The town’s supply of bags includes 30 cases of large bags and 40 cases of small ones. The bags were intended for non-recyclables. Large bags were sold to residents in rolls of five for $10; small bags in rolls of ten for $10.

“It was a shame the program ended just when people were getting used to it,” Shaw continued. Even through PAYT was short-lived (four months) he thinks it saved the town money. He added now that PAYT’s ended he’d be watching to see whether there’s an increase in the trash tonnage.

Selectman Allison Hepler said the bags might come up for discussion when the board meets Tuesday, Feb. 16 for their next regular meeting. She said the town is moving forward in its search for a waste hauler for the coming year. Requests for proposals were sent out to area contractors, and advertised in the newspaper. “The bids are due on March 7,” she said.   

“I'm pleased that both Ben Tipton and Don Adams have volunteered and are now serving on the Solid Waste & Recycling Committee,” continued Hepler. “They and the rest of the Committee are hard at work on finding solutions.”

Adams lead the petition effort that resulted last November in voters ending PAYT and severing the town’s contract with WasteZero of North Andover, Massachusetts. Tipton has been a vocal recycling proponent.

Selectman Dale Chadbourne believes the sooner the town office begins selling the WasteZero bags by the roll or case the better. The board might even consider putting the whole lot of them out to bid. “They’re good bags. I know a lot of people who’d bought them that have continued using them rather than return them for a credit,” he said.

Reached for comment, Selectman Lloyd Coombs said he’d heard someone had been in contact with the town office expressing an interest in buying all the bags. Coombs said he’s interested in hearing what the other board members have to say. He said people made it pretty clear in November they weren’t interested in continuing with PAYT.

Also to be determined is the cost the town will incur for ending its PAYT membership. The program that began last September ended Jan. 27, with selectmen giving residents two weeks to return unused bags for a full refund.

Selectmen’s Chairman David King Sr. said now that the return period has ended the town office will begin processing the refunds. People will be reimbursed the retail cost of what they paid per bag. “After we determine how much we’re paying in refunds, we’ll have a better idea how we made out overall,” he said.

King told the newspaper WasteZero returned about $10,500 worth of bags. The bags were bought wholesale for about 28 cents apiece. Still to be determined is how much WasteZero will credit the town for bags sold at the town office and six retail outlets over the last four months.

Selectmen reduced the 2015-2016 solid waste budget $36,000 — the anticipated savings from joining PAYT. The savings were to come from a reduction in “tipping fees” and bag sales. 

“We’ve made more than $34,000 from bag sales but that has to be weighed against the bags returned by WasteZero and residents,” King continued. He said determining what the town saved in tipping fees during PAYT’s brief tenure wouldn’t be easy. “Really, all we can do is compare the trash tonnage from this year to last.”

The town pays tipping fees for curbside pickup and disposal of non-recyclable trash for each ton of trash collected. At present no tipping fee is charged for collection of recyclables. WasteZero estimated by joining PAYT Woolwich would save 40 percent in its annual trash removal costs, by encouraging more recycling. Recycling more than doubled under the program.

“I know some people hated it but it does look as if it saved the town some money just in the four months it was operating. Plus it was good for the environment,”  King said. One thing the board could have done better, he added, was educate residents how the finances of PAYT worked.