Hooksett officials are considering bringing back a waste management program that was trashed four years ago after some fierce opposition from residents.

“Pay as you throw” is a system in which residents are charged trash disposal fees based on how much trash they toss out.

“You put the program in place so that people are responsible for their own trash,” said Town Council Chairman George Longfellow. “Follow around the trucks for a day and you’ll see the difference in the amount of trash people put out.”

The Recycling and Transfer Committee, formerly the Solid Waste Management Advisory Committee, has been seriously considering the pay-as-youthrow system as the budgeting season begins, said Longfellow.

In the 2006-07 budget year, $489,000 was spent to have the town’s trash removed, said Recycling and Transfer Station Superintendent Diane Boyce.

That expenditure was reflected accordingly in the property tax bills to all the town’s taxable properties, including commercial and industrial. Only the town’s residential properties are eligible for the municipal trash service.

With pay-as-you-throw, said Longfellow, the cost of disposal could be “washed out” by revenue generated by the program, as residential customers would be charged for special trash bags. He used a hypothetical figure of $1.25 for a 33-gallon bag, while Boyce used a hypothetical figure of $2 per bag.

“The price of the bag would be the same as the charge of disposing of that bag,” said Longfellow, who’s also the council’s representative to the Recycling and Transfer Committee.

Thirty-six New Hampshire municipalities use a pay-as-youthrow system, said Boyce.

Solid waste officials pushed for pay-as-you-throw four years ago, but the plan was criticized by voters, many of whom said they wanted a townwide vote on the change. There was also confusion that year over whether denying the town’s operating budget -– and handing it a default budget -– would kill the pay-as-you-throw proposal.

“We can do it without going to the voters,” said Longfellow, “but I think it would be foolish not to get input from the public.”

Longfellow said a big reason the committee is pushing for pay-as-you-throw is to promote recycling, which reduces the town’s total disposal costs and also creates a revenue stream.

Longfellow said other New Hampshire towns with pay-asyou- throw have seen their total waste stream drop by about 30 percent. It currently costs the town $72.62 to dispose of every ton of trash generated by Hooksett residents, Boyce said.

“Everything you get out of the waste stream, you’re saving $72 a ton,” she said. “A goal is always to increase recycling and see the disposal fees go down.”

Longfellow said the pay-asyou- throw plan is one of many cost-saving plans the town council could explore this budgeting season, as one of the council’s goals is a “zero-increase” budget.

“This seems to be a practical way of reducing the taxes,” he said.