Webinar Highlights
Like many jurisdictions, The City of Greenbelt was facing higher collection costs, rising landfill tipping fees, and a sanitation fee that had not kept pace with expenses. Instead of simply raising a flat fee for everyone, the City chose a model designed around fairness: households that generate less trash should have a way to pay less.
Residents pay for trash based on how much they throw away. Instead of buying regular name-brand trash bags, they purchase official municipal bags, so each household pays for what it uses rather than sharing costs equally across the community. Revenue from bag sales helps cover landfill tipping fees and other waste services. Residents can opt-out and pay the maximum (MaxTrash) fee.
Early Results
• Residential trash disposal dropped by approximately 17% in the first several months.
• Recycling increased by about 8%.
• Recycling contamination did not increase and remained around 10%, below the regional average of roughly 15%.
Collection crews noticed changes almost immediately. Residents were setting out less trash, recycling more, filling trash bags before disposal, and showing greater interest in composting and donation options.
One early finding stood out: households using SAYT bags generated much less trash than households that chose the fixed-rate “Max Trash” option.
Households using the opt-out “Max Trash” option represented 28% of participating households but generated 55% of the trash, while SAYT bag users made up 72% of households and generated only 45% of the trash. On average, “Max Trash” households set out about 31 pounds of trash per week, compared with about 10 pounds per week for SAYT households.
Building Support Before Launch
Greenbelt’s outreach resonated because the City started with a problem residents already understood: trash costs were rising. By presenting SAYT not only as a waste-reduction strategy, but also as a fairer way to cover those costs, the City made the case for change clearer and more compelling. Households that throw away less should not subsidize households that throw away more. Council support was achieved by focusing on three goals: addressing a sanitation budget gap, encouraging waste reduction, and making the fee structure more equitable.
Finally, Greenbelt worked through trusted community partners. For example, Greenbelt Homes Incorporated, which represents approximately 75% of city-serviced households, helped align timing, communications, and resident education.
Outreach was extensive and repeated across many channels, including town halls, virtual webinars, bill inserts, social media videos, newspaper coverage, HOA meetings, farmers market outreach, door hangers, and volunteer ambassadors.
What Residents and Staff Said
Resident feedback was largely positive. Many residents appreciated having more control over costs, especially households that already produce less trash as well as seniors and people living on fixed incomes. The most common concerns were practical rather than philosophical: learning new collection procedures, understanding how bags or RFID tags worked, and adapting to changes in older trash enclosures.
Staff feedback was also encouraging. Collection crews handled less trash overall, saw more recycling participation, and did not report an increase in contamination. WasteZero helped manage the program by supporting logistics and RFID technology making participation easier to track.
Six Takeaways for Other Communities
For jurisdictions considering a SAYT-style program, Greenbelt’s experience offers several practical lessons:
Frame the program around fairness and budget realities. Residents are more likely to understand the need for change when the financial problem is clear.
- Give households options. Greenbelt’s hybrid model allowed residents to use SAYT bags or choose a higher fixed-rate option.
- Identify local implementation challenges early. Housing types, HOAs, collection equipment, and billing systems can all shape program design.
- Make diversion convenient. Recycling, composting, food scrap drop-off, and donation options help residents reduce trash successfully.
- Treat outreach as essential infrastructure. Repeated messages, multiple formats, and neighborhood ambassadors helped residents prepare.
- Measure and share results. Early data helped Greenbelt validate the program and build confidence.
Greenbelt’s early results show that a well-designed SAYT program can reduce trash, increase recycling, and maintain public support when residents understand why the program matters and how it benefits them. For communities facing rising waste costs, Greenbelt’s experience offers a practical roadmap: lead with fairness, communicate early and often, make waste diversion easy, and keep sharing progress as the program evolves.
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