John’s Refuse Seeing “99% Participation”

Almost every household in North Branford now has its new trash toters as John’s Refuse delivered more than 10,000 barrels to 4,600 homes over the past few weeks.

“We’re pretty happy about the way everything is going,” said Andrew Bozzutto of John’s Refuse at the Feb. 5 Town Council meeting. “We’ve found about 99 percent participation ­– even those who were adamant not to use them are participating. It’s a learning curve.”

Bozzutto said the company received about 350 calls throughout the delivery process, many regarding when toters would be delivered or receiving the smaller barrel. Currently 100 of the smaller barrel for special needs customers have been distributed with 200 more expected to be delivered by mid-March.

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The company started toter delivery on the Northford end of town with the Guilford side of Route 80 and Sea Hill Road area the last sections to be delivered so while some Northford residents are in their third week with the service, those on the last leg of delivery have only had one service so far.

“We anticipate a few more glitches, but by week three on the northern end of town, there were only three calls,” said Bozzutto. “If anyone is missing a barrel or has questions, just call us.”

The barrels are bar-coded for each residence and the Town of North Branford will receive a copy of the bar-coding list for its records.

While Bozzutto said it’s too early to tell what impact the single-stream recycling will have on recycling rates, he said that statistics from other towns have indicated recycling has increased 20 to 30 percent. John’s Refuse is tracking the information.

Bozzutto noted North Branford schools as a key factor in the program’s success as much of the town’s waste is generated there.

“The school recycling started a little slow, but we got the attention of a few helpful friends, which has made an impact,” he said. “Next I’d like to put a separate Dumpster for cafeteria waste as it’s the only wet waste in the system so the rest would be mostly paper, recoverable waste.”

That isn’t the only plans John’s Refuse presented for the future as Bozzutto discussed the possibility of a state-run composting program that is looking for five pilot towns to participate.

“As neighbors and taxpayers, we’d like to frontier that down the road with the Town Council’s blessing,” said Bozzutto.

More on North Branford's Automated Trash Collection

• John's Refuse to Collect Old Trash Containers, Jan. 28, 2013
• Therrien Briefs Town Council on Trash Collection, Jan. 23, 2013
• Don’t Forget to Take Out the Trash – In Your New Toters, Jan. 21, 2013
• North Branford Town Council Talks Trash (Literally), June 8, 2012