The Middletown Common Council unanimously voted to end the city’s controversial Save-As-You-Throw (SAYT) program for its sanitation district following revelations that the initial success of the program was based on faulty numbers from the city’s beleaguered Public Works Department, with one outspoken opponent of the program telling city councilors, “I told you so.”
Although the council voted to end the SAYT program at the beginning of the new year, they tabled part of the measure that would increase carting fees and dumpster rates, which had been lowered as part of the program, until the council could get better numbers and justifications for the increase.
“I’m in full support of this resolution,” councilman Darnell Ford said, adding that the city will continue to look for affordable ways to reduce waste and increase waste diversionary measures. Ford, and several other council members, discussed keeping the green bags for food scraps.
Councilwoman Jeanette Blackwell expressed concern that the council was acting without understanding the numbers behind the purported increases in carting and dumpster fees, whether a voluntary food scrap program could be continued, and how sanitation district residents would be billed for the increases.
“I’m not clear and I’d like to make informed decisions, and I don’t feel like I can make an informed decision and I’m concerned about that,” Blackwell said.
Middletown’s SAYT program required those living in the city’s sanitation district to purchase special orange and green trash bags to separate their food scraps, ostensibly to reduce waste tonnage and save money. The program was supported by grants provided through the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) and administered by state contractor WasteZero, which also sold the orange and green bags sanitation district residents had to purchase.
Initial reports of the program being a success and reducing waste by 30 percent, however, were recently refuted, with the actual waste tonnage reduced only by 8 percent. According to meeting minutes of the Sanitary Disposal District Commission, “there was nothing to support” the previous figures provided by the city’s Public Works Department, which has struggled to keep a director and is currently headed by Bobbye Knoll Peterson.
Peterson addressed the Common Council during a special meeting earlier in the night, saying that if the SAYT program continued, it would leave a $200,000 hole in the Public Works budget. Even with suspending the program, the council will need to increase carting fees for residents to maintain operating costs, because the rates were lowered as part of the SAYT program.
“The funding that we received from DEEP to support the program has been exhausted and the cost that it would be to run the program would be more than the district is bringing in,” Peterson said.
Ed McKeon of the Sanitation Commission addressed the Common Council, saying that his “head is spinning” because of the various, differing figures surfacing regarding the SAYT program, and that the figures the commission received last week were not the same figures presented to the Council that night.
“My head is spinning a little bit because I sit on the sanitation commission…we have diligently looked at this program and listened to figures, but I have to say, within the past month I have heard four or five sets of figures. Tonight was brand new,” McKeon said, adding that perhaps council members should table the issue until they get solid figures. “A week ago, they were completely different numbers.”
McKeon, a supporter of the SAYT program, said it was a “completely misunderstood program,” and was “admittedly rolled out poorly, but then defended just as poorly, and executed just as poorly.”
“The Public Works Department was in terrible shape, it’s still in terrible shape,” McKeon said. “Find out just how much in arrears we are. We don’t do a good job collecting the money. Twenty percent of the people who get waste services do not pay for those services.”
Middletown’s Public Works Dept. has gone through three directors, lost its recycling coordinator who previously managed the SAYT program, and former Mayor Florsheim, who supported the trash program, resigned from his office in June. Peterson stepped in as acting director of public works following the previous director’s resignation in March of 2025.
But the Public Works Department has faced increasing scrutiny following the revelation not only of the faulty SAYT numbers, but also allegations of possible “financial fraud” in the department regarding contractor invoices, according to emails received by Inside Investigator.
While Mayor Eugene Nocera claimed there was an internal investigation that concluded there was no wrongdoing, the contractor in question indicated her company was owed “well over $100,000” by the city, which Common Council Minority Leader Anthony Genarro called “extremely troubling.”
Middletown’s SAYT program spurred debate among the public, where the program was enforced through fines, cameras mounted on trash trucks, and WasteZero employees trailing garbage trucks to ensure compliance. Middletown had received nearly $1 million from DEEP to implement a “cutting-edge sustainable materials program,” since 2022.
Other towns in Connecticut have successfully implemented pay-as-you-throw programs, although they are largely on a voluntary basis or involve dropping off trash at transfer stations. Municipal programs requiring enforcement have proven widely unpopular and rarely get off the ground following a pilot program.
Even suggesting such programs has caused local politicians enough grief to back off the idea entirely in towns like Greenwich and West Hartford. Following DEEP’s closure of the MIRA trash plant in Hartford, however, more and more of Connecticut’s trash has had to be shipped to other states, which has increased municipal costs.
“I told you so,” said Yuri Branzburg to city councilors during public comment. “I came and told you all on many occasions that the SAYT program would be ineffective, that it was a scam, that it was many, many things, and I was not heeded, no one listened to me.”
“The entire thing has been a farce from the onset,” Branzburg said.
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