LADY LAKE - The town is talking trash as it digs for ways to rid curbs of overflowing garbage bags and encourage conscientious recycling.

“We have piles of junk placed outside of homes,” said Town Manager Bill Vance during a Town Commission workshop Wednesday, sitting before a backdrop of Waste Management bins in various sizes, functions and colors.

For aesthetic effect, Vance suggests the town consider giving residents roll-out trash bins and newspaper recycling containers, rather than continuing the practice of having garbage bags plopped on rights of way.

“It can work, and it has worked in both my experiences in the past,” said Vance, who was previously employed with municipalities in Virginia and North Carolina.

The town currently provides Waste Management pickups twice weekly, and residents are limited to disposing of 2 cubic yards, although many do not comply, Vance said. Town Finance Director Karen Rickelman said that an ordinance requires Lady Lake to conduct mandatory trash collection, even if people have not paid their trash bills.

Vance said residents pay $12.80 per month for the service, and the town pays a $40 per ton tipping fee. Vance suggested newspapers, which are heavy, could be recycled to reduce tipping fee costs.

Public Works Director Ken Keough, who formerly worked for Fruitland Park, said it took about one year for residents there to consistently begin recycling aluminum, glass and paper.

“You could see on recycling day just how many people participated,” he said.

However, Commissioner Paul Hannan seems to think the idea is rubbish. He said in a Massachusetts town where he once lived, taxpayers shelled out more money to recycle under such a system.

“They (the town) could not handle it and all the recycled products got dumped into the landfill anyhow,” he said.

Retired optometrist Dr. William Weir, a Water Oak resident for nearly two decades, proposed residents purchase a sheet of tags required to be affixed to trash bags for collection.

The concept is known as “pay as you throw.”

“Pay-as-you-throw programs are incentive-based strategies for reducing the amount of (municipal solid waste) community residents generate,” states a report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

To save money by purchasing and using fewer tags, Weir believes residents would recycle more.

He compares his idea to the concept of using postage stamps, and contends that snowbirds are penalized for producing less trash by being required to pay the town the same monthly fee that full-time residents pay.

“The system now is so archaic,” Weir told commissioners. “In today's economy, people deserve the opportunity to pay for what they use, not for somebody else's uses.”

The concept has been successfully implemented in cities like Plantation.

Vance asked Weir to bring a specific proposal before the commission, but added that a seasonal rate would likely cost the town thousands of dollars.

“In a business sense, it wouldn't be prudent,” Vance said.

Commissioner Lowell Saxton said he doesn't think the idea would work in the parts of town already plagued by code violations.

“(For) the people who are decent people and somewhat affluent, this program works wonderfully,” Saxton said, noting that others may be less likely to comply.

Water Oak resident Greg Eller said that he has lived in two cities that utilized a tag system.

“We found there's garbage dumped along the roads because people don't want to buy tags,” he said.

Lake County Villages enclave residents are already recycling using county bins, and The Villages provides its residents with trash service.

“I think we ought to err on the side of the environment,” said Mayor Max Pullen. “We have to do everything in our power to lessen the burden on our landfills.”

Elisha Pappacoda is a reporter with the Daily Sun. She can be reached at 753-1119, ext. 9268, or at elisha.pappacoda@thevillagesmedia.com.