After months of trying home reduction methods and researching within and around my town I found some answers to my initial question.

Paine's & wmtc

After talking to town officials I decided I should talk to the companies they work with. Paine's is one of the options for Simsbury and WMTC works with Farmington. When I spoke to Julie Paine she mentioned how less garbage wouldn't necessarily mean a lower income because recycling would most likely increase. Also if towns move toward including more eco friendly systems such as town wide composting, this would increase their company's income because residents and towns would be paying for additional services.

When we talked about Pay As You Throw, Paine's mentioned that it doesn't work right now because towns are currently not set up for it. Plans can be easily be made for a new infrastructure, but no one wants to spend the money to do so. Towns are already stretched too thin to focus on switching their waste removal systems in her opinion.

One thing both companies had to say was that people have become "wishful recyclers". What this means is that if people are unsure if an item is recyclable or not that they throw it in anyways and hope it ends up in the right place. If the item was in fact not recyclable and isn't taken out then it can ruin the end recycled product. With this in mind I believe that single stream recycling is not as effective as we'd like it to be.

Conclusion

Now after looking locally, I think there are many ways Farmington and individuals can reduce waste. To start if people were to try half of the in home methods that I tried with my family they could easily reduce their waste. I think the hardest part of this problem is getting people to think about what they're doing and consuming. If residents were to have to make a choice about their waste hauler like Simsbury, they might take a second to think about how little they could pay if they make a few small changes. Now I'm not trying to destroy the hauling companies by having residents choose the cheapest garbage price because they could promote other services like composting. This would 1. help reduce residential waste and 2. make up part or all of the difference in a cheaper garbage pick up price.

I also love the idea of having a town swap shack because it encourages community involvement and keeps tools that people can use, out of the land fill. As mentioned earlier wishful recycling is dangerous. If we switch back to a sorted recycling system, this could save the recycling facilities money and they could produce a better and more consistent product. There is no point in recycling if it's all going to end up in the garbage again. Textile recycling would also be a good addition because in a community where people are fortunate enough to have clothes to give away it's important that they get sent somewhere that we know will be used again. An old sweater might sit on a consignment shop rack for years, but if that sweater is sent to a textile recycling facility it can be taken apart and put together as something people will buy and use quickly.

Farmington doesn't have a waste problem now, but who's to say we won't have one 50 years from now? It's easier to prevent a problem now than to try and solve it later and it only takes a little bit of effort. By taking a look at our neighbors we can make small almost unnoticeable changes that will have a big impact in the long run.