HINGHAM — September 29, 2026 — Hingham’s transfer station would charge $75 to dispose of a mattress, up from $20, and $500 a ton for construction debris, up from $120, under a new fee schedule the Select Board put to a roll-call vote Tuesday. The DPW superintendent projects the changes, planned to take effect Nov. 1, would raise the station’s annual revenue from about $251,000 to about $542,000.
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The schedule would keep a resident’s first transfer station sticker free but add charges aimed at nonresidents and commercial users: a $500 annual nonresident sticker, a $50 nonresident day pass, a $200 in-town commercial sticker, up from $50, and a $500 sticker for out-of-town contractors. Commercial landscapers would also pay $30 per load of brush. The minimum construction-debris charge would rise from $15 to $25, and electronics such as televisions would go from $15 to $20.
DPW Superintendent Ashley Sanford told the board the station loses money on bulky items. Well over 2,000 mattresses come through each year, and disposing of them costs the town about $27,000 a year beyond what residents pay. She said the fees had not been updated in more than six years, that the new rates track neighboring South Shore towns and that all transfer station revenue goes to the general fund.
Chair Liz Klein said reviewing town fees was a recommendation of the sustainable budget task force, and that the school department, the building department and other Town Hall offices have already aligned their fees with what services cost.
We should just be paying what it costs to dispose of them. So that totally makes sense.
— Select Board member Julie Strehle 1:41:20
Strehle asked whether the nonresident sticker should be capped. Sanford said the plan is to track its use and revisit it if it ends up costing more than it generates.
Resident Tricia Byrnes objected, arguing that renters and seniors on fixed incomes would bear the increases and saying the current rates date to May 2021, not more than six years ago. Sanford said holding the mattress fee to the current $47 disposal rate would mean returning to the board each time that rate rises.
The board took a roll-call vote on a motion to approve the schedule as presented.
The board also took a roll-call vote on an exception to the town’s five-year paving moratorium for 166 Otis Street. Brian Roberts, identifying himself as the property’s owner and developer, told the board National Grid repeatedly gave assurances that a gas stub was on the lot before the street was repaved, then found in May that it was not, leaving a house built around gas appliances without service.
