Politics & Government
Canton's Sen. Kevin Witkos Questions New Mattress Fee
The legislature is considering adding a fee of between $8-$12 for new mattresses to help pay for recycling when they become bulky waste.
Written by Associate Regional Editor Eileen McNamara.
A proposal to add a fee of as much as $12 to the cost of buying a new mattress in Connecticut has passed the state's House and Senate, although some local lawmakers questioned if the fee could be the beginning of a slippery slope, including Canton's Sen. Kevin Witkos.
“Are we starting down the path that every time we have a bulky item, we’re going to add a fee?” asked Witkos.
Groups that lobby on behalf of towns, including the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, support the measure to ease the costs on towns of disposing of illegally discarded mattresses.
Some 350,000 new mattresses are sold annually in Connecticut and CCM estimates that towns collectively spend $1.3 million each year cleaning up old mattresses from roadsides, Capitol Watch reports.
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