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Marblehead residents could face an annual curbside trash collection fee of roughly $282 per household after the Select Board removed the service from the town’s base budget, the Board of Health learned Tuesday night during an extensive review of fiscal year 2027 spending.
Andrew Petty, the town’s health and waste department director, told board members the total estimated cost of curbside collection — including trash pickup, weekly recycling, leaf and grass removal and processing — is $2.1 million. Curbside collection will go to Town Meeting as an override vote, and if the override fails, the Board of Health would need to establish a fee-based system to continue the service, Petty said.
The board unanimously approved the waste department budget of $3.2 million and a separate $114,600 for landfill maintenance and monitoring. However, the board did not vote on or set a curbside fee. A public hearing on the fee is scheduled for the last week of April, before Town Meeting.
Petty warned that eliminating curbside collection entirely would pose a serious risk. The town experienced a waste hauler strike last summer, and Petty said the transfer station could not handle the volume if all 8,000 households had to use the facility.
“If we do not have curbside collection, we have a potential for a political public health threat,” Petty said.
Under the fee scenario Petty presented, the $2.1 million total would be divided among participating households. If 3 percent of the town’s 8,000 eligible homes opt out — leaving 7,760 households — the cost would be approximately $281.77 per household. At a 5 percent opt-out rate, the figure would be $287.70, according to numbers confirmed during the meeting. Residents who opt out would forfeit curbside service for the full fiscal year and could not rejoin until the following year.
Petty said approximately 160 homes that pay reduced taxes, as approved by the assessor, would receive a reduced rate. He suggested $260 for those households, characterizing the weekly cost as comparable to a cup of coffee.
“$5 a week is about a cup of coffee,” Petty said of the reduced rate. “So that would include your trash removal, your recycling removal, your eight weeks of leaf and grass removal.”
The contract with Republic Services includes a 5 percent annual increase, Petty confirmed when board member Amanda Ritvo raised concerns about rising costs.
Board member Tom McMahon suggested Petty prepare projections with higher opt-out percentages for the public hearing. McMahon predicted first-year opt-outs would be higher than estimates and cautioned residents against underestimating the burden of self-hauling.
“I think people have short memories on how chaotic the strike was,” McMahon said, adding that for less than $300, the service “is well worth it for peace of mind to just have your barrels out.”
Resident Albert Jordan struck a more cautious tone.He said he had visited three North Shore communities to research how they handle waste and was not prepared to support the fee structure before town meeting. He advocated leaving curbside collection on the tax rate for at least another year and expressed concern about the cost burden on residents with limited incomes.
He added that he would support a reasonable override but wanted more time to evaluate the approach, noting that in the communities he visited, public works or engineering departments managed trash collection rather than the Board of Health.
The trash collection budget reflects a new contract with Republic Services that includes detailed cost breakdowns. Curbside trash collection and recycling collection together total $1.2 million, split nearly evenly between the two services. Curbside trash disposal is estimated at 4,000 tons, with 2,000 tons going to Republic’s yard at $110 per ton and the remaining 2,000 tons processed at the transfer station at $123 per ton, for a combined disposal cost of $466,000.
Petty said recycling processing costs have risen sharply. For the past 10 years, the town paid little or nothing for curbside recycling processing, but the new charge is $125 per ton. Any revenue from recycled materials would depend on market conditions, he said.
The town also plans to distribute new barcoded trash and recycling bins to all 8,000 households in June, financed over five years at just over $210,000 annually through the waste revolving account. Each home will receive a 65-gallon trash bin and a 95-gallon recycling bin. Residents in the historic district may face challenges with the larger bins due to limited storage space, McMahon noted, and he asked that delivery be prioritized there to allow time for exchanges.
After the six-week trial period, residents may request a size exchange, but each household is limited to one trash bin and one recycling bin for the duration of the program, Petty said. Republic will only collect waste placed in the town-issued, barcoded barrels. Material left outside the bins will not be picked up, and fines will be issued.
The board also unanimously approved the health department budget of $339,320, a 4.07 percent increase over the prior year driven largely by a senior clerk position filled at a higher pay step.
In other business, Board member Dr. Thomas Massaro announced that fellow board member Dr. Amanda Ritvo had been named community clinician of the year by the Massachusetts Medical Society.
Ritvo, in her health update, reported that a federal judge in Massachusetts had reversed recent changes to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, temporarily blocking the committee from meeting. She also noted roughly 1,500 measles cases nationally so far in 2026, with the country on pace to surpass last year’s total of 2,285 cases.
Massaro said the board is pursuing a $100,000 grant over two years to study the feasibility of a youth center in town. The proposal would involve no town funds, he said.
The public hearing on the curbside collection fee is expected in the last week of April.
