BY KEVIN SHALVEY

The Hopkinton selectmen heard a plan on Monday, July 16, for the town to switch to a pay-as-you-throw garbage program.

The program, brought to the board by the town’s recycling committee, is aimed at reducing the amount of trash and increasing resident recycling habits, said Town Administrator Edward Wojnowski.

The program, which might be brought to taxpayers as soon as the 2008 Town Meeting, would be for residents to pay a fee -- likely about $1.50 -- for each bag of garbage they bring to the transfer station, Wojnowski said.

It makes sense for the town from two standpoints, he said.

First, that not everyone throws away the same amount of garbage, but everyone is taxed as though they did.

“If we’re all property owners, we’re all paying the same amount,” said Wojnowski.

But, he said, the elderly and single-person apartment owners might not have the same volume of trash bags as a family home.

Wojnowski’s second point is that the town should increase recycling as part of a “green” initiative.

“What we’re trying to do is get people to put less in those bags, too,” he said.

Hopkinton resident Stephen Imgrund said his family has reduced its trash in half since  starting to take care of their own recycling.

The Imgrunds pay to have their trash brought to the transfer station, but they bring over their own recyclables.

“Although they take recyclables, the separating is done as well as it could be,” said Imgrund.

Because they have had so much success cutting down their own trash output, Imgrund said his family is in favor of the program.

“We’d be thrilled if it was a pay-as-you-go program. That would encourage a lot more people to recycle,” he said.

Peter Saviteer, of Contoocook, who didn’t know much about the program, said that his first impression of it was positive because it promoted recycling.

Wojnowski said there probably will be those who disagree with the pay-as-you-throw program. They might say they are being charged twice for their trash -- both through taxes and the program.

Julia Santis, too, didn’t know much about the program, but said her first impression is that she’d be against paying per trash bag.

“That does not sound appealing to me, being a high-volume trash family,” said Santis.

She said a trash hauler takes her garbage to the transfer station.

“At this stage in my life, I just like to be able to stick my trash in the bucket and rely on my guy to take it to the transfer station,” she said.

The program, though, would offset the town’s tax burden, said Wojnowski. It might bring revenue to about 60 percent of the total town trash bill -- about $500,000 -- which would reduce taxpayers’ burden.

At the meeting, a representative from the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services said communities that have instituted the policy are pleased and have reduced their garbage output by as much as 70 percent, said Wojnowski.

Hopkinton shares a transfer station with the town of Webster, so officials from that town, too, will be briefed on the program. To get taxpayers from both towns to implement the program will require a long educational process, said Wojnowski.

“A good recycling committee, and I believe Hopkinton has a good one, is always telling people new ways to recycle,” he said.