By Tara Fischer

Staff Writer

(June 11, 2026) Berlin officials may end municipal food waste collection for downtown restaurants, arguing that increased demand has made the service burdensome for the town’s public works department.

The issue was brought up as a discussion item at Monday night’s mayor and council meeting, when Berlin Public Works Director Jimmy Charles recommended that the town stop collecting commercial food waste from businesses in the downtown district.

“Since moving away from the four- and six-yard dumpsters, public works is recommending that we stop collecting commercial food waste downtown,” Charles said. “The simple reason is that downtown has grown. There are more restaurants and customers. We have a lot more trash.”

Charles added that the volume of food waste generated by these downtown establishments has become increasingly difficult for the department to manage.

“It’s created issues in the public works department,” he said. “We’re picking up larger volumes of food waste than we can reasonably handle.”

According to Charles, the town currently uses residential-style waste containers, known as Waste Wheelers, for commercial food waste collection. He said the containers are often inadequate for restaurants and other food-service businesses.

“I don’t feel like the Waste Wheelers meet the needs of these businesses in the downtown area,” Charles said. “We also do multiple stops in the downtown area for food waste. It’s very heavy.”

Officials emphasized that the proposal is not intended as a penalty for local eateries.

“This is not a punishment to businesses,” Charles said. “It is just doing what’s best for the town.”

Berlin Mayor Zack Tyndall noted that Berlin had previously reduced commercial sanitation services when demand no longer justified the staffing, equipment, and capital costs. He maintained that they once provided services like larger dumpsters, but few people used them.

“The other side is, we peel back the commercial services that we offer,” the mayor said. “We don’t offer big dumpsters and stuff like that…we were offering that before, but the volume of customers was so low that it didn’t justify the staff time, capital, and equipment to substantiate that service. So, the mayor and council peeled that back. With this, the challenge is that we really don’t have the specialized equipment to handle food waste. And if you are going to have food waste, you need to contract with somebody who has that capability.”

Under the proposal, affected businesses would be required to contract with private waste-hauling companies.

Councilman Steve Green expressed concern about removing a service without first identifying alternatives for businesses that depend on it. He said that previous discussions considered ways in which the municipality could support these commercial spaces during a transition in how their trash is collected.

“One of the conversations was providing a space in the town lot behind Town Hall for a dumpster,” Green said. “The dumpster would be maintained by the private businesses…We didn’t want to yank a service without some sort of opportunity to address the hardship that will come with it.”

Councilwoman Shaneka Nichols questioned whether the town’s current collection schedule adequately serves restaurants.

Charles said some establishments use two to four Waste Wheelers and require collection around twice a week.

The public world director added that even though a twice-a-week pickup schedule was burdensome for his staff, that level of service was still likely insufficient, given how much waste these restaurants collect.

“There have been multiple times that the Waste Wheelers are open, bags are stacked on top, they’re lying on the ground,” he said.

Business owners voiced concerns during the public comment segment of Monday night’s meeting.

Marcos Lopez, c0-owner of 410 Social, asked if private collection would actually solve the problem. He warned that alternatives could create new challenges for downtown businesses.

“If we’re saying find a larger dumpster, and you guys say parking is an issue in Berlin, where are we putting a dumpster?” Lopez asked.

He also raised concerns about employees carrying heavy bags of food waste long distances to centralized collection sites.

“I do understand it’s a burden to the town,” Lopez said. “But we do bring some benefits to the town. We employ people. I feel like there needs to be some fair consideration on both sides of the fence.”

Lopez noted that many downtown businesses employ teenagers and young adults who would likely be responsible for transporting trash.

“Most of their staff is 16, 17, or 18-year-old teenagers,” he said. “To carry trash 100 yards and do it at night? I don’t want them to have to carry that.”

Charles said the town’s previous decision to eliminate larger four- and six-yard dumpsters was driven by aging equipment and replacement costs.

“We did because a lot of those dumpsters were falling apart,” Charles said. “We would have had to purchase new.”

Officials estimated that the town currently provides food waste collection service to approximately six or seven restaurants and food-service establishments.

No action was taken on the issue this week. Instead, Tyndall encouraged the business owners to work together and propose potential solutions.

“Why don’t we ask [the business owners] to put heads together and come to us with what [they] think a good solution could be to address some of those challenges?” he said.

Town officials plan to continue the discussion and revisit the issue during one of the council’s July meetings.