LEWISTON — Councilors were not ready to adopt a paid-bag trash collection program Tuesday, but they said the idea was worth investigating.

“I know people in other areas that have this program in place, and I’ve been wondering why it wasn’t here in Lewiston and how long it would take to get started,” Councilor Leslie Dubois said.

City Councilors heard a pitch from John Campbell, chairman and co-founder of WasteZero, at a workshop meeting Tuesday.

WasteZero helps municipalities convert their trash collection systems into a pay-as-you-throw program, and Campbell promised councilors they would never regret the change.

“Our model, which has worked quite well for a number of years, is to do this without asking our partner cities to write us a check up front,” Campbell said. “We are certain this is going to work, so we fund the program. It’s not as if we are asking for a huge outlay.”

Campbell outlined the broad strokes of the pay-as-you-throw program. The city contracts with a company like WasteZero, which provides the bags to retailers and information and marketing for the city.

The city’s trash collectors pick up only trash in those bags, which can be purchased at local retailers.

The goal is to encourage people to reduce what they throw out and to put more into recycling bins. Reduced trash collection costs and tipping fees save the city money.

“It’s a fundamental change, but once it’s done, the systems just work,” Campbell said. “Everything works more efficiently.”

He said it would be controversial before the program starts, but he promised councilors it would be popular once it had been running for a few months.

“You are going to find that everyone you talk to, even the ones who groused and grumbled over the fact they didn’t want to buy the bags will say they’ve really changed their ways,” he said. “They will say they’re down to one bag a week while their recycling bin is overflowing and that the change you were looking for worked.”

Councilors said it was worth investigating. Councilor Nathan Libby asked staff to find out how much the city has spent on trash collection during the past decade.

Auburn is considering a similar program to boost recycling. The city collects recycling curbside twice each month and is considering adopting an automated trash collection system that relies on using special trash and recycling bins. Combining that automatic system with purchased bags could save Auburn up to $7 million over 10 years if people are willing to buy special trash bags.

Finance Committee Chairman Robert Reed said the city last considered a pay-as-you-throw system in 2007 when he sat on a Solid Waste Committee. The idea was dropped because the committee did not know how it would work for Lewiston’s downtown tenements and apartments and because they didn’t want to increase costs for taxpayers unless they were sure property taxes would be reduced.

“That was really a tough sell,” Reed said.

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