ROCKY HILL - Towns handling waste disposal through the Materials Innovation Cycling Authority (MIRA) have until March 2022 to decide whether to continue doing so.

       That’s the word from MIRA CEO Tom Kirk, who expects the Authority’s imminent Hartford plant closure �" combined with regional competition for landfill space �" to hike tipping fees in coming years as member town waste is hauled out of state.

       “In the absence of that plant, Connecticut is in a difficult situation,” Kirk said during a November Wethersfield Town Council meeting. “We have about 2.4 million tons of garbage per year.”

       About 712,000 tons of that is processed at the quasi-public MIRA plant, with various private facilities taking on 1.2 million tons and the remaining 400,000 shipped to out of state landfills.

       The MIRA plant closes this coming summer. While non-MIRA communities will have to find a new partner, the 49 towns already working with the Authority have been given the option to stick around �" but tipping fees could climb to $146 per ton by 2028, Kirk said.

       The tipping fee discussion is one Rocky Hill officials are familiar with �" last year they fielded, and balked at, a proposed 30-year MIRA agreement that would have hiked their then-$85 per ton tipping fee to $145.

       That was in anticipation of a renovation, which didn’t materialize due to a failure to attain public financing.

       Rocky Hill officials were also concerned about the length of the terms, and the absence of an opt-out clause.

       Town Manager John Mehr told the Council on November 15 that he’s still waiting on a new proposal from MIRA �" that was about all he could say on the matter, because Kirk was in Wethersfield that same night giving neighboring local officials his lengthy update.

       Kirk said that haulers first proposed eliminating the opt-out to try and guarantee a load volume and recoup operating expenses �" for at least five years.

       The good news for MIRA towns, he says, is that the Authority has negotiated an opt-out clause into its proposed agreement �" but it only becomes available if MIRA-contracted haulers hike tipping fees over a certain threshold.

       The problem? Municipalities don’t have a lot of leverage no matter where you look, Kirk said.

       “If they hike it to exceed the threshold, the towns can opt out �" if you have a place to go,” Kirk said. “If the hauler knows you have no place to go, we could be stuck between a rock and a hard place. There’s limited places to haul it, and how many towns are going to put up their hands and say I’ll build a transfer station.”

       Kirk told Wethersfield officials that they’re unlikely to find a better deal elsewhere, as the market competition for landfill space isn’t unique to just MIRA and its customers.

       He described hauling out of state as a short-term solution �" at best.

       Deploying fleets of trucks to ship it to landfills as far as Ohio �" or to South Carolina by train �" means diesel fuel and dollars, Kirk says.

       “Putting it in a hole in the ground is infinitely worse,” Kirk responded.

       But waste to energy conversion isn’t what it used to be as a revenue generator �" with per kilowatt sales at just 3 cents from 11 cents just a few years ago.

       “The top solution is not to make the garbage in the first place,” Kirk said.

       That was the topic of an 80-town consortium that spent last fall meeting with Connecticut DEEP Commissioner Katie Dykes.

       They kicked around a slew of waste diversion options that included recycling and food scrap programs, but among the most controversial will be consumer-driven initiatives such as pay-as-you-throw.

       Rocky Hill, which sent Mayor Lisa Marotta and Councilor Mimi Theroux to those meetings, joined a state program that offers matching grants to municipalities that self-fund sustainability initiatives.

       The town hopes to test drive a curbside waste program that would have residents separate organic materials from their trash �" they just applied for $340,000 in state funding to cover the costs of a pilot initiative.

       “It’s food waste. Yard debris. Recyclable or soiled paper, [and] it makes up 40 percent of the waste stream,” says Kristin Brown of CT DEEP. “An important way to reduce the overall tipping cost is to figure out the best way to divert this organic material out of the waste stream.”