Something stinks in Medford.
Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn is racking up do-gooder awards for her environmental crusading, but some elected officials and residents of the Boston suburb are less impressed with her latest effort that will soon see trash pickup reduced to once every two weeks.
The new plan, which will see residents’ 64-gallon trash bins collected half as frequently, was announced in tandem with the news that Medford had received a $200,000 “Pay As You Throw” grant from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection.
“We made a commitment to Zero Waste in that plan and are making it easier for Medford residents and businesses to reduce, reuse, and recycle materials to restore or renew value, eliminate waste, and decrease pollution,” Mayor Lungo-Koehn, a Democrat, said in a press release trumpeting the news.
“It’s the right move for our residents and businesses, it’s the right move for the environment, and it’s the right move for our City’s future.”
Lungo-Koehn was honored last July for Medford’s weekly curbside composting program by the National Recycling Coalition — naming her an “Outstanding Elected Leader” for her support of the initiative, which garnered another award just last month from the Northeast Recycling Council.
But residents on social media were enraged at the plan, which they claim will only contribute to the city’s apparent rodent problem.
“So more rats will be coming. It’s awful there are so so many rats in our neighborhood,” one resident bemoaned on a Medford community Facebook page.
“The exterminators’ business will increase with rubbish removal every other week. The rats are taking over our neighborhoods,” said another.
Others worried about the olfactory assault brought on by old refuse hanging around twice as long as before.
“Nobody wants to smell two weeks of garbage, particularly in the summer,” a concerned resident commented.
Medford City Council President Zac Bears also criticized the plan at a council meeting last week, including that news of the pickup schedule change was buried at the bottom of the press release.
“We’re not seeing any of the benchmarks that would lead us to believe that this is a good change,” he said, according to the Boston Herald, noting that “the fact this was not the lead of the press release” has “rubbed a lot of people the wrong way,” he continued.
“I think it’s set up this program for failure because I think there’s no trust in it.”
Sure enough, the big reveal comes after dozens of paragraphs heralding the change as beneficial to the community.
“As of July 1, 2027, residential 64-gallon trash carts will be collected every other week along with recycling at no charge. The new baseline for trash service will equate to 32-gallons per household per week, which meets MassDEP’s service volume threshold for a PAYT program and makes Medford eligible for the PAYT grant.”
Lungo-Koehn did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
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