One of the reasons New York City is facing a $6 billion gap in its $43 million budget is that it’s all of a sudden costing us a lot more to cart away the trash. The Department of Sanitation’s budget has soared to $1.02 billion a year for 2002, up from $717 million in 1998, according to the mayor’s management report. That’s a 42% increase. The main reason is that Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island was closed in March 2001, so the city must pay more to have the trash carted to far-away places like Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Faced with rising garbage disposal costs, at least 100 municipalities across the country have implemented an innovative solution — pay as you throw. Different programs work different ways, but the principle is that the more trash a business, apartment building, homeowner, or tenant creates, the more it has to pay for trash removal. For residents to have their trash picked up by the city, they must buy specially marked bags, or affix city-issued stickers to their trash bags, or use city-issued containers. Such programs are already in effect in environmentally conscious places like Seattle, Washington; Austin, Texas; Portland, Oregon, and hundreds of other cities and towns. And, just as economists might have predicted, raising the price of garbage collection decreases the demand for it. People create less trash when they have to pay for it. In Maine, municipalities that implemented pay-as-you-throw programs saw an average 56% decrease in waste and 24% decrease in costs. Worcester, Mass., saw a 45% decrease in waste and a 12% reduction in costs. A 1996 Duke University study surveyed these programs and found that, on average, they reduced waste by 28%.

A New York program would have to be implemented carefully, making sure that trash doesn’t fester on the streets of those who can’t afford the trash bags and taking into account the density of the city’s housing. Still, even a 20% decrease in the city’s waste means 729,000 tons a year less trash. And since it costs the city almost $300 a ton to get rid of the garbage, such a reduction would save the city more than $200 million a year. Return the taxpayers $150 million of those savings as reductions in the income, property, and other city taxes that now help pay for garbage collection and dumping. And allocate the other $50 million to closing the budget gap.