Milton Town Hall · Select Board Meeting Minutes
Milton Weighs Automated Trash Pickup That Would End Sticker Bags
Townwide · Select Board · Oct 28, 2026
Milton's trash contracts end June 30, 2027, and the town is weighing whether to switch to automated pickup.
- Where it stands: Town Administrator Nick Milano told the Select Board on Oct 6 that Milton's trash, recycling and yard waste contracts all end June 30, 2027. The town is waiting for an offer to extend from its hauler, Casella, which took over the previous hauler in April. A draft request for proposals, a new bid, is nearly done. The board took no vote.
- Automated pickup: Casella and MassDEP, the state's environmental agency, told the town the market is moving to fully automated trucks that pick up only one standard cart. Stickered bags set out beside the barrel would go away. Milano said he was not saying the town would recommend it, that any change could be a couple of years away, and that the draft bid asks for prices on alternatives.
- Pushback: one board member said pickup is already mostly automated and asked whether residents would need all new barrels again, five or six years after the blue ones. Another asked whether a composting program could soften a switch.
- Yard waste: Milton collects it only 17 times a year and has no drop-off site, which Milano said makes the town an outlier. He called yard waste a chronic, expensive problem that draws many complaints. Staff are discussing a residential drop-off site with the DPW.
- Cost: about $3.5 million a year for all three, Milano said: about $1.7 million for trash, $1.3 million for recycling and $560,000 for yard waste, according to the meeting's auto-generated transcript. He called it one of the biggest items on the town side of the budget.
- Next: staff will bring Casella's extension offer and the draft bid back to the board before any bid goes out. No date is set, and no Select Board agenda since Oct 6 has listed the contracts.
Sources: Select Board minutes, Oct 6 · Select Board meeting video, Oct 6 (Milton Access TV)