MARBLEHEAD – According to Board of Health member Tom McMahon, Republic Services offered the Town recycling pick-up services Tuesday, which could have gone into effect Wednesday.
However, the Town declined that offer since there are still many streets where trash pick-up is being missed. McMahon said he was still “running around” with the Department of Public Works and Health Department workers in trucks to pick up all the trash that is being missed, and adding recycling to the mix doesn’t make sense when the truck that would be provided for recycling services could be used for trash instead.
“We said to them, ‘If you have an extra truck, the first thing we need you to do is get the trash under control.’ Now that you have an extra truck, you can stop missing these streets and get all these streets,” McMahon said. “Once you’re able to get the full route of trash, then we can talk about if you have the resources to get recycling, but we can’t really look at that until you’re getting all the trash.”
McMahon added that Marblehead is lucky to have been able to use the Transfer Station during this strike since other communities currently don’t have other means to discard their trash.
“You’ve got to do the trash and finish that and do a good job before we can have you guys going around and picking up recycling,” McMahon said, speaking to Republic Services. “If you can’t finish one, why would we think you’d even be able to attempt the other one?”
McMahon said that, although Republic Services’ current workers are getting used to their Marblehead routes, Marblehead still needs to provide Republic Services with lists of streets that have been missed for trash collection.
“Once they have it down to the two trucks, they have been able to complete the job, then that third truck, yeah, we’ll definitely use it for recycling, but you’ve got to finish the trash first,” McMahon said.
This conversation comes after a Massachusetts judge declined to order Republic Services to fulfill its contractual obligations to Beverly, Malden, Gloucester, Peabody, Danvers, and Canton, as those six municipalities argued the strike’s disruptions are negatively affecting their residents and public health.
