Rockport's transfer station costs $804,000 a year. Here is what a household pays, and how it compares

Rockport has no curbside trash pickup. Residents bring their own trash to the town transfer station, and they pay twice: once for a sticker and again for every bag.

With Gloucester and Manchester switching to automated carts this fall, we looked at what Rockport's system costs the town and what it costs a household.

What the town spends

Town meeting approved $803,823 for the transfer station for the year that began July 1. About $268,000 is wages and about $536,000 is operating costs, mostly hauling trash and recycling away. That is about the same as last year's $806,333 and up 9% from the $734,943 the town actually spent two years ago.

That works out to about $256 for each of the 3,136 households the town reports serving.

How much of that sticker and bag fees cover is not public. The town's budget booklet does not list transfer station revenue, so we cannot say how much comes from property taxes.

The town did add one new fee to keep costs off the sticker. The DPW now charges $10 a truckload to drop off brush, after the town spent more than $49,000 last year to have brush hauled away.

What you pay

• Sticker: $140 for the first car, $90 for residents 65 and older. Each extra car is $30. This year's sticker runs from April 1, 2026, to May 31, 2027.
• Bags: every bag of trash must be a town blue bag. A roll of ten 35-gallon bags is $30, or $3 a bag. Rolls of smaller 8 and 16-gallon bags are $10 and $15, and a roll of 55-gallon bags is $45.
• Recycling: free at the transfer station. Food scraps can also be dropped off there for compost.

A household that brings one 35-gallon bag a week pays about $296 a year. One bag every other week is about $218. Two bags a week is about $452.

How Rockport compares

For one bag a week, Rockport's $296 is about the same as Gloucester's $300 standard cart, without the curbside pickup. Essex, the other drop-off town on Cape Ann, comes to about $358. Manchester's cart is $100, and Hamilton and Ipswich charge nothing for the first bin.

But Gloucester, Manchester, Hamilton and Ipswich pay much more of their trash bill from taxes. Add each town's average budget share and Manchester comes to about $425 a year for that household, Gloucester about $476 and Hamilton about $427. Rockport's budget share cannot be added because its fee revenue is not published, so its total is shown with a plus sign.

Less trash than before

Paying by the bag tends to cut trash. Rockport's trash fell from about 1,257 pounds per household in 2023 to about 1,054 in 2025, according to the town's reports to the state. Statewide, towns that charge by the bag at a drop-off site threw away about 1,022 pounds per household in 2025, compared with 1,352 for towns with 35-gallon carts.

Hours and contacts

The transfer station is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 7 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. year round, and Sundays from 8 to 11:45 a.m. from Memorial Day to Columbus Day. Stickers are sold online, by mail or at the DPW office. Questions: [email protected].

Earlier coverage

• Manchester's new trash carts: who pays more, who pays less and how the neighbors compare (Oct. 6), with a full town by town comparison

• Also in this series: Gloucester's trash costs and Essex's trash costs