Boston City Council Targets Rat Crisis as New Trash Contracts Near November Bid

BOSTON — April 11, 2023 — Boston City Council hearing ties worsening rat problem directly to trash contract failures, eyes November 2023 bid. The Committee on City Services and Innovation Technology held a three-hour hearing Tuesday with administration officials and more than a dozen public testifiers, all linking Boston's escalating rodent crisis to overnight bag trash and a low-bid contracting model that Chair Liz Breadon and Council President Edward M. Flynn said has degraded service quality. Dennis Roach, Superintendent of Waste Reduction, confirmed new trash contracts — covering the entire city, with an estimated 35,000 mattresses collected annually as just one line item — are targeted for a July 1, 2024 start with bids going out in November 2023. The council is also set to vote Wednesday on a $100,000 MassDEP recycling grant, up from a typical $80,000 annual award, boosted by the city's curbside composting pilot, which diverted 500 tons of food waste in its first six months and is set to expand from 10,000 to 20,000 households by August. Residents from Beacon Hill, Back Bay, and Bay Village called for same-day pickup windows, with one petition carrying over 250 signatures demanding an 8 a.m. curbside drop-off start, and Ford Cavalieri of the Alliance of Downtown Civic Organizations pointed to Boston's estimated 4,000 short-term rental units as an unregulated source of street trash that currently free-rides on the city's collection budget.