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Selectmen unanimously approved a request by Acme Waste Systems to change the company’s holiday trash collection days to the following dates:
- Columbus Day, Oct. 8
- Veteran’s Day, Nov. 12
- Martin Luther King Day, Jan. 21
- President’s Day, Feb. 18
- Patriot’s Day, April 15
Richard Roketenetz, principal of Acme Waste of Woburn, requested the change in a letter to selectmen, dated June 11, explaining the scheduling challenges of not collecting trash on a Monday holiday. Selectmen approved the request at their June 26 meeting with Chairman Scott Hazelton absent.
Roketenetz stated that the incinerator hours are abbreviated on a Saturday after a holiday. A Friday route pushed to a Saturday pick up, can miss the 12 p.m. deadline forcing drivers to begin their routes on the following Monday with a fully loaded truck.
“This means the trucks come back fully loaded and they have to start out on Monday in line at the incinerator, go pick up (the) Monday route and go back in line at the incinerator,” Roketenetz wrote.
The request was backed by the town’s recycling company, Tyngsborough-based Republic Services. In a letter dated June 12, Terry Grady, municipal services manager, reflected ongoing issues regarding recycling efforts.
“”With the impending decrease of disposal sites, along with the well-known issues surrounding the recycling processing industry, we face having no place to go on the Saturday following a holiday…As such, we are requesting that the town give serious consideration to changing to the holiday schedule as listed above,” he wrote.
Grady asked to limit the holiday schedule to New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
In an email dated June 15, Barbara Theriault of the Westford Recycling Commission noted that the members voted to to agree with the trash and recycling haulers’ request for having a collection on Monday, Nov. 12, but took no position on the other requested changes.
