Solid Waste District Eyes Hazardous Waste Collection

The Northern Berkshire Solid Waste Commission is hoping to hold a hazardous waste collection in the spring.

ADAMS, Mass. — The Northern Berkshire Solid Waste District may hold a hazardous waste collection in May.

Program Coordinator Sandy Totter said the state-contracted collection service penciled the district in, but she was not sure if there would be enough money in the budget.

Totter said the district has not held collection in two years and she has received many phone calls requesting one.

"I think if we could find $6,000, then we can do it," Totter said. "I think we will get more cars because we haven't done one in a while ... I think the timing is right."

She said this service may cost less than usual because the charge for disposal will be for less than a "half household."

"We have been paying for half households and full households and now there are itty bitty households and that is the old lady with the can of Drano that we were paying a half household for," she said. "I like this and I think it could really work to our advantage."

Totter said the collection is an important service because people could have some dangerous items in their homes.

"We had something come down from Florida Mountain with a little old lady, and the chemist said if the bottle had opened, everybody that was standing there would have been dead," Totter said. "We had one farmer show up with a decaying drum of some sort of cleanser for a dairy farm … you don't want to send something like that back home with somebody."

Because the district's treasurer was not at the meeting so commissioners tabled the decision until the next meeting.

The district also started the process of bidding a new municipal solid waste vendor.

Todder said the bid package will be published Jan. 15 and the pre-bid conference will be held Feb. 12. She said she would like to award the contract by March.

"It is not like we are cutting new territory here. We are just looking at these specifications to see if there is anything we want to do differently based on past experience," Williamstown representative Timothy Kaiser said. "It should be a quick review, and the bidders know what they are doing to so it shouldn't be a big deal."

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