Stephen Lisauskas leverages expertise in public administration to serve as a Senior Associate at the Edward J. Collins Center for Public Management at the University of Massachusetts Boston. On top of this role, Stephen Lisauskas serves as the Vice President of Government Affairs and the Regional Vice President of Municipal Partnerships at WasteZero.

1. THE ECONOMIC AND
ENVIRONMENTAL
BENEFITS OF WASTE
REDUCTION
Stephen Lisauskas

2. Introduction
 Stephen Lisauskas leverages expertise in public
administration to serve as a Senior Associate at the Edward
J. Collins Center for Public Management at the University of
Massachusetts Boston. On top of this role, Stephen
Lisauskas serves as the Vice President of Government Affairs
and the Regional Vice President of Municipal Partnerships at
WasteZero.
In a recent interview for the Salisbury (North Carolina) Post,
WasteZero’s director of public engagement explained how
WasteZero is helping the environment and creating economic
benefits for cities around the nation by reducing waste.
Joshua Kolling-Perin told the Post that the United States is
currently filling landfills and incinerators with more than 500
billion pounds of waste every year, which contributes to
greenhouse gases and leads to $500 billion in disposal costs.

3. Waste Reduction
 Since much of this waste includes recyclable materials,
WasteZero developed the pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) program
to encourage people to throw away as a little as possible and
recycle the rest. Instead of a fixed service fee, the trash bill is
based on the amount the customer discards. The PAYT
program has generated consistently positive results in
WasteZero’s partner communities, including Worcester,
Massachusetts, where the city’s recycling rate increased from
2 percent to nearly 40 percent in just one week after the
PAYT program was introduced in 1993.
More recently, Waterville, Maine, reduced its waste by 54
percent and Hanson, Massachusetts, cut its waste by 64
percent after launching PAYT in 2014. According to Kolling-
Perin, PAYT has also helped Worcester generate $94.5
million in revenue, disposal savings, and operational savings.