Garbage is dirty by nature. And Princeton’s recent change to a new trash system is certainly getting grimy, with some residents voicing anger over everything from the single 64-gallon trash cans for all to costs for additional barrels and more. To delve a little deeper, Princeton Perspectives asked Councilmember Eve Niedergang, who is a member of the municipal Infrastructure and Operations Committee, to respond to concerns and thoughts residents have shared with us.
Concern: We’ve heard the rationale – that there are few choices now in trash haulers and the costs have gone up drastically. It’s said the alternative choices for Princeton would’ve cost taxpayers more. But why did we switch to a whole new trash pick-up system? What’s the previous cost versus the new costs with Interstate Waste Services?
Eve’s Response: Interstate Waste Services acquired the company we used to use for trash. We’re required by law to go out and bid and when we did, we only got 1 bid, from them. It’s not 100% clear why we’re only getting one bid. There are definitely some issues of consolidation in the industry and also, they are having trouble finding staff. This system enables one person to do the job with a much lower injury rate than you’d have otherwise. In the normal pre-COVID world, it would be a concern that this eliminates jobs, but this will actually allow these companies to survive. We worked with a waste consultant, Wayne Defeo, one of the premiere people in the state on recycling/waste issues, and he knew the old way we ran trash pickup would be more expensive. So, our bid request was only with the new trucks/bins. We had some ideas based on what other municipalities were seeing with 70-100% increases. This bid came in just about 50% higher than our old contract, even with the things we introduced.
Concern: How about consolidating with neighboring towns to force these haulers to lower prices and make trash removal more affordable for municipalities?
Eve’s Response: No, we didn’t actively consider it. We share a facility in Lawrence where we take our leaves and brush, and it’s really complicated. Plus, their trash contract doesn’t expire until 2024 or 2025, so what are the chances to find a neighboring town whose contract ends at the same time? We signed a several year contract, so it’s going to be a while before we’re looking, but it is something I’d definitely consider exploring with the new county executive, to have multi-town hauling to achieve some better cost control.
Concern: Taxpayers pay for trash removal as part of their municipal taxes and Princeton has the highest taxes around. One resident said this feels like a form of socialism – as everyone has the same size bin, no matter their circumstances. How do you explain that 1–4-unit dwellings or homes with numerous children have the same size container as single person households?
Eve’s Response: Infrastructure and Operations did crunch the numbers and very few households in town generate more than what would fit in a 64-gallon can. There are some, but it’s not a lot. This was another effort again to contain costs. Our waste consultant encouraged this, thinking it provides an incentive for people to think about what they’re buying or getting rid of. We have a financial assistance program for people for whom a 2nd bin would be a hardship. I know things comes wrapped, you can’t always control it, but it’s a cost control measure. Every municipality makes a decision about what it offers to residents and what it doesn’t. Montgomery and Hopewell don’t offer any trash pickup. I understand people being upset, as residents are paying a lot of taxes, but the municipality could’ve decided to not have trash service at all. We have to be guardians for all people.
Concern: Lawrence has 95-gallon carts, and each additional is a 1-time lease of $45 or $55. That, compared to Princeton’s 64-gallon bins and charging up to $300/year for a 2nd can, if needed? Can the town work with the can supplier or order in bulk to lower that price?
Eve’s Response: Lawrence will be renegotiating their contract soon and let’s stay tuned, they’re going to have to make some of the same choices. We thought about a 95-gallon cart, but some seniors are complaining the 64 is too hard to maneuver. 95 seemed unnecessary for the vast majority of households. If you are using a 2nd can, those are costs the municipality has to bear. A full 2nd can would cost us about $600/yr. So, we halved that amount and we have to pass that on. Ordering in bulk wouldn’t offset the costs, because it’s not the can, it’s the weight of the garbage.
Concern: What if a resident has several additional bags of trash from hosting a party? Cleaning out the basement? Wrappings from new purchases? How are they supposed to get rid of them? People are talking about putting trash in other places. Are they going to use dumpsters at large complexes? Top off a neighbor’s emptier bin? What’s the alternative?
Eve’s Response: We have no official policy for an alternative. If there’s no food in them, perhaps you can store them for a week. I’d ask some neighbors if they had room. I’d be willing to let my neighbors put their trash in my bin. I think most people would be willing to help a neighbor out on occasion. If you’re truly generating more trash than 2 64-gallon containers all the time, you’ll have to find a dump willing to accept that. That’s not something we’ve looked into. If it turns out a lot of people have that problem, we’ll have to look at it.
Concern: RFID tags are tracking devices on each cart? It makes sense so they don’t get lost, but how do you explain that to residents that feel government is watching?
Eve’s Response: It’s not to track people, it’s not a GPS, it’s a radio frequency identification tag with a narrow range of a few hundred feet. The tag is really so that if somebody takes your cart and it’s not at your house, we know that and can provide a replacement. Since we’re charging for extra carts, it creates incentive to take one from someone else, so it enables us to track that the carts are at the right house. It’s a very limited system which is pretty standard in these types of carts.
Concern: With the addition of the new, town-required cans, people are throwing away their old large plastic trash cans. It is so wasteful both financially (as people bought them) and environmentally. How does an environmentally and cost-conscious town like Princeton allow for this?
Eve’s Response: That was definitely a concern. We are hoping people participate in some of the things we’ve outlined, and Sustainable Princeton has come up with uses for existing trash cans such as collecting yard waste, composting, using them as rain barrels. Once they get picked up from peoples’ houses, we’ve had landscapers express an interest in having some of them. People have also put out notices on social media such as Freecycle and Buy Nothing where people can pass them along to someone in a neighboring town to continue using them. We’re not happy about the environmental burden but there was no other way to move forward with these initiatives other than replacing the cans. We hope people that are willing to put in a little time or effort to reuse or pass along their old cans.
Concern: What’s the right way to place your can?
Eve’s Response: Ideally, if you’re on a street wide enough to not cause traffic issues, you should place it with the wheels against the curb with the metal bar facing out. If it’s going to cause problems with others drivers or parking, place the bin where you normally would, with the wheels towards house, and the metal bar facing out. Right now, workers are manually picking up all cans because the new trucks aren’t ready. But soon we will need the cans facing the right way for the tipper arm. If, however, you live on a narrow street like Bank Street, we’ll just continue to use regular crews on those streets.
Concern: You’ve mentioned this new system creates incentives for residents to reduce the amount of trash they generate by reducing, reusing, recycling, and composting. Mercer County only accepts #1 and #2 for recycling, so the rest is trash. Composting is not an option for most homeowners. What is Princeton doing to better allows for these options and educate locals?
Eve’s Response: We and Sustainable Princeton have been doing some educational outreach. It is really hard to get people’s attention. We reached out to local newspaper and, everybody got a flyer with the new trash information which suggested ways to reuse old trash cans, and there’s stuff on our website. We can always do better and we’re learning every day, but this is a new reality. There’s no more place to send stuff, we used to send stuff to China and that stopped. As a society we need to change and as a government we need to use our tax dollars wisely. So, it’s going to be a learning curve for everyone to figure out. Long term, I’d like Mercer County to start taking #5 recyclables as well. I’d like to see industries responsible for the amount of packaging they generate. We are asked to fix the problems that occur much further upstream from us. And residents bear the burden. I’m not saying these solutions are perfect, but we couldn’t go forward with a doubling of our hauling costs. We’ll continue to hear and listen if there are things we can do to address needs and concerns people have raised.
If you have a policy concern, you can reach out directly to Eve by emailing her at eniedergang@princetonnj.gov. If you have a logistical concern about your trash can or pick-up, you can email the waste team directly at wasteinfo@princetonnj.gov.
Lisa Jacknow spent years working in national and local news in and around New York City before moving to Princeton. Working as both a TV producer and news reporter, Lisa came to this area to focus on the local news of Mercer County at WZBN-TV. In recent years, she got immersed in the Princeton community by serving leadership roles at local schools in addition to volunteering for other local non-profits. In her free time, Lisa loves to spend time with her family, play tennis, sing and play the piano. A graduate of the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, Lisa was raised just north of Boston, Massachusetts but has lived in the tri-state area since college. She is excited to be Editor and head writer for Princeton Perspectives!
March 7th was the first day of 2023 that residents woke up to snow-covered trees and grass all season. There was frequent 50° weather throughout February. A tornado touched down in Lawrence. Flooding of the Stony Brook, Delaware River and other local waterways has become normal. These are signs, many say, of climate change.
With those financial incentives in place, is Mercer County prepared to achieve them? Experts says much of it depends on how the infrastructure is changed to enable it. That means reducing dependency on cars for transportation (by encouraging walking, biking, carpooling and public transportation use), residents making use of the available grants to upgrade or change the power supply to their homes or businesses (to solar rather than gas, for example), developing and utilizing more alternate energy sources (nuclear reactors, hydrogen hubs, increased wind and solar opportunities) and working with utility companies to ensure their grids and lines can handle this energy.
Gov. Murphy has a goal to create 11,000 megawatts of power (enough to power approximately 3 million homes) from wind turbines by 2040. There is currently just one wind farm off Atlantic County, but more are being planned and New Jersey Board of Public Utilities just announced it is accepting more applications. Each turbine is said to provide enough energy to power 2,500 homes. But they have also been a cause for concern. So far in 2023, nine whales have turned up dead along the coast, and many are blaming the turbines for their deaths. A necropsy on the most recent whale indicated trauma consistent with propeller wounds. So, can this be the infrastructure of the future?
In addition to those in private homes, New Jersey currently has 868 public charging stations statewide. Mercer County and municipalities like Princeton are also working to provide local charging stations, making it easier to own such vehicles and helping to make to make it possible to reach Murphy’s goal of selling only electric cars and light trucks in NJ by 2035. Level 2 Chargers are installed at 11 sites throughout Mercer County with Direct Current Fast Chargers planned for 2 more locations. Specifically in Princeton, there are currently six public EV charging stations around town. Eight new EV charging stations are also now located in the municipal building parking lot. Three Level 2 Charging stations can be found on the Princeton University campus business, like 
“This really comes from energy companies transitioning to clean energy. My current apartment uses a gas stove and is in an old building. I don’t foresee my landlord spending money to increase the electrical panel to allow for more capacity anytime soon,” Princeton resident Nick DiDomizio explained on our survey.
It’s hard to live in the Princeton area and not be aware there is a lot of history around, but have your ever realized to what extent it influenced the things we have today? Similarly, we all know of New Jersey as the Garden State, but were you aware that there is so much that we can gleam naturally from the land around us?
When one thinks of natural maple syrup, Vermont is likely the first place that comes to mind. The state did produce 2.5 million gallons of it last year, half of the overall production in the United States. And, while NJ doesn’t contribute largely to that maple syrup industry, you might be surprised to learn it is home to many varieties of maple trees including the 
Howell Living History Farm aims to demonstrate life on the farm in the early 1900s, at a time when things were done manually using the natural resources around. For the past 30 years they have been tapping their Sugar Maples to demonstrate the process to locals (and ultimately bottling up the natural maple syrup.) So far this year their 800 gallons of sap have created 20 gallons of syrup which has been separated into 320 8-ounce bottles.
There are three ways to collect sap from a tree, two of which are demonstrated at Howell Living History Farm: manual bucket collection and gravity feed method with a pipeline system. As you see in this photo, a section on Baldpate Mountain, adjacent to the historic farm, has been set up with blue pipe tubing, using the gravity down the mountain to pull the sap from the tap into a storage container that is collected daily. More commercial ventures today often use vacuum feed, which pulls that sap through the tubing even faster.
You will drill a hole using a 7/16” drill bit and then insert a metal tap, being careful to space it at least 2 inches from any previous scarring. You can choose to hang a metal bucket below it, like they did in the early 20th century, or you can simply attach a cleansed milk container to trap the sap. You’ll see, it comes out looking mostly like water, because sap is 98% water. It’s when you change its composition that the sugary traits heighten and take form.
Once you’ve collected your sap, it must be boiled to change consistency and sweeten. At Howell Living History Farm, this used to be done manually with a cauldron. The farm has maintained the use of wood-burning energy but has upgraded its process and is now using a 30-gallon commercial evaporator. The goal is to ultimately heat the sap to 7.25° past the boiling point, or to 219.25°. That is when it becomes syrup. Should you choose, you can boil it up to 230° to create maple candy and at 260° maple sugar will form.
If this process feels a bit overwhelming, don’t worry. You can go to Howell Living History Farm for a free demonstration. Click 
In Princeton and throughout Mercer County, the land and climate make it possible to stay local and well cared for. There are many natural resources and naturally grown items that can help make for a healthier you. As far back as the 1600s, the Lenape Indians inhabited the land area we call Princeton today. The creeks and forested areas provided an abundance of resources for them to nourish, through fishing and hunting. The naturally fertile soils of this area later beckoned the area’s early European settlers, who were able to sustain themselves by farming the land, due to our moderate climate. They also fished along the streams and nearby Delaware River. Urbanization and industrialization have drastically decreased the amount and varieties of fish today and many are now deemed unsafe to eat by the 
Today it is possible to reap the benefits of this land without having to do all the manual labor. Throughout the state’s farms, more than 100 fruits and vegetables are grown with blueberries, corn, soybeans, peppers, peaches, hay, cranberries, squash, spinach, asparagus and wheat being the top crops grown in NJ, based on the 
If you do make your way to the 
Also farm fresh are our local pumpkins. Every fall, my family has enjoyed going to 
“It has anti-inflammatory properties, making it an ideal ingredient for sensitive or acne prone skin. It also contains linoleic acid which is a fatty acid found in our skin’s moisture barrier. Therefore, it helps to strengthen our moisture barrier, keeping our skin hydrated and healthy. And last but not least, calendula is high in antioxidants. Antioxidants help to prevent skin cell damage from free radicals. Free radicals form from exposure to environmental aggressors, such as UV radiation and pollution, and can cause premature aging,” offers Wall.
Something else that is found in abundance, here and everywhere, is water. You naturally know the benefits of water to cleanse yourself or to hydrate, but did you also know that if you utilize water in a certain way, it can have other healing benefits?
If you pay attention to what’s going on in the world, it can be overwhelming. The ongoing war in Ukraine, COVID changes in China, political strife over the leadership in countries like Peru and Brazil. In the United States alone, there is plenty to contemplate, from financial matters to political decisions on a range of topics. But, in your everyday life, it’s what is happening here that likely affects you most. And that is why we’re starting off 2023 telling you just how it is.
The sobering truth is that nationally, overdose deaths of teens caused by opioids have doubled in recent years, while the use of opioids by teens has dropped drastically. Why? Illicit fentanyl. This synthetically manufactured form differs from and is more potent than pharmaceutically manufactured prescription fentanyl. Sadly, when adolescents think they’re buying prescription pills off the street, they’re often buying something counterfeit – and they do not know what is in it. Think cannabis is a better option? Such fentanyl is also now often used to lace unregulated marijuana as well as cocaine. As the 
Synthetic fentanyl is the drug to be aware of today. The available data for those up to age 21 in New Jersey shows that drug-related deaths overall have stayed relatively low, but national data indicates this drug is to blame for an increasing number of those deaths. From 2015 to 2022 drug-related deaths have hovered between 1-3% for New Jerseyans ages 18-21. For those under 18, the number is lower, hovering between 0.1%-.4% in that time frame. There does not appear to be data that directly shows the amount of local adolescent overdose deaths caused by illicit fentanyl, but it is probable that since the data for NJ, and more specifically Mercer County, show a leap of fentanyl-related deaths overall, and national data clearly indicates a jump in fentanyl overdoses in the adolescent group, local teens are suffering from the same tragedy.
Another threat to older teens and young adults is that of sexual assault on the college campus, believed to affect far more students than reports indicate. In September, the U.S. Justice Department awarded more than $10 million to target this issue, offering 36 grants through the Grants to Reduce Sexual Assault. In October, the 
There are many issues the Federal government has on its plate as it finished 2022 and begins 2023. Sometimes what we see taking place in the national agenda is similar to what we experience here in New Jersey and Mercer County. Other times, there are vast differences occurring. From inflation to gun control, cannabis to abortion, what are things like right here at home?
Food prices rose 8.6% in the NJ region, and that impact was definitely felt here in Princeton. 
Availability of cannabis is increasing nationwide, while the Federal government still considers it an illegal substance. 20 retail cannabis stores have opened in New Jersey this past year, bringing in an estimated $116,572,533 in sales between July-September 2022. With Missouri and Maryland voters deciding to go legal, 21 states and Washington DC now offer cannabis for sale to anyone over 21. As more states legalize, so do the numbers of youth using it. A December 2022 study published in 
Like abortion, gun control legislation remains vastly partisan. In June 2022,