New swap shed opens its doors

A bigger and brighter swap shed at the transfer station has opened its doors.

The new shed, with lighting and doors to keep out rain, debuted on January 4. The old shed with an entrance from the parking lot will stay, but it will serve as more of a general recycling information area as well as home to containers for people to leave recyclables such as lightbulbs and deposit bottles (the town returns them and donated the money to charity), according to Department of Public Works Superintendent Chris Bibbo.

The yellow shed will likewise continue to house donated books and other media. Bibbo noted that the feature is quite popular, and the Friends of the Lincoln Library also take some volumes for their monthly book sale. It’s unclear whether some of them can also be donated to More Than Words in Waltham, as former volunteer Ellen Raja did (she also took suitable swap shed items to Household Goods in Acton).

The new swap shed can be accessed only from the south side of the transfer station, which has several new parking spaces. It will close at 3 p.m. on Wednesdays and Saturdays, half an hour before the rest of the transfer station closes. This is because “if you come and drop something off at closing time, no one has a chance to see it,” Bibbo said.

The new shed cab holds a lot more stuff than the old one, so items can stick around longer than they did in the past before being thrown in the trash. However, if and when it will be staffed by volunteers to keep it tidy is still an open question. Previous volunteers were fired in October, and Town Administrator Tim Higgins cited “tensions” between volunteers and residents as part of the reason.

The situation arose after some residents were — “I don’t know how to say this nicely — being horrible about the volunteers,” said former Recycling Committee chair Laura Berland. “It was ugly.”

“I thought the volunteers were doing a great job,” Berland said. However. there were complaints that “people who were volunteering there were taking things for themselves and getting first dibs on things,” she added. “There was an idea that [the swap shed] should all be equal somehow, that people should just take one thing and leave things for others, which is just absurd,” as long as the people are entitled to be there as Lincoln residents, she said. “The idea is that we get rid of stuff that can be reused” rather than add to the town’s trash bill.”

The Recycling Committee is now inactive since Berland and former member Bernadette Quirk resigned several months ago. Town Administrator Tim Higgins said this week that the town would “make efforts to rejuvenate the committee, likely after Town Meeting. I’m sure the Board [of Selectmen] would be happy to reappoint any remaining members that would like to continue, while also putting the call out for new volunteers. In the meantime, Mothers Out Front continues to be a partner in the compost program and a sounding board for other possible initiatives.”

Mothers Out Front – Lincoln and the DPW created the new compost recycling program for residents at the transfer station earlier last fall. The group’s primary goal nationally is to eventually eliminate the use of fossil fuels, but the local chapter also hopes to move the town toward “zero waste” and promote other clean energy initiatives.

“We see ourselves as supporting different town committees and collaborating with Green Energy or whoever else is interested,” said Emily Haslett, a member of the MOF–Lincoln’s community organizing team.

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