NORTHAMPTON — Residents paying for permits to deliver their trash and recyclables to the city’s transfer stations are paying 66% more this fiscal year to do so. The new fiscal year 2025 began on Monday.
The price for an annual transfer station permit is now $75, up from $45 last fiscal year.
For a second sticker, the price has also risen to $75, up from $40 previously.
The stickers allow access to the Locust Street Transfer Station, which accepts regular household trash, compost food waste and “bulky waste” such as furniture and construction debris.
In the budget message for 2025, Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra said the price increase was necessary due to the loss of recycling revenue for the city.
“To address the reversal of recycling costs, whereby the city is now responsible for those costs (previously it was a revenue source), transfer station permits will be slightly increased, though they still remain below most neighboring communities,” Sciarra wrote in the budget message.
In neighboring Easthampton, transfer station permits are currently listed at $50 plus $10 for a second sticker. In Amherst, the stickers are listed at $125, the same price for a sticker in South Hadley.
The city’s budget also states that solid waste services, do not generate enough revenue to cover the cost of the transfer station program, and therefore recurring withdrawals from the city’s enterprise funds had to be used to sustain it.
“Therefore, 3.5%, or $18,795, of the revenue needed to provide the service is coming from the solid waste enterprise fund retained earnings,” the budget states. “Over the next several fiscal years, the continued viability of the solid waste enterprise fund will be evaluated.”
It is not the first time the city has had to recently raise prices for services. Last year, the city dramatically increased base water rates to make up for revenues lost by the planned departure of the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Northampton, which at one point made up 25% of the city’s water and sewer revenue.
Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.
