Citing increased summer rental activity, the Aquinnah board of health decided this week to open the landfill an additional day during the summer season. The selectmen requested the landfill be open on Saturdays to accommodate the weekly turnover day for renters.

“It would eliminate an awful amount of problems,” selectman and board chairman Camille Rose said on Tuesday afternoon at a joint meeting of the board of health and the selectmen. The meeting was to discuss the board of health budget for the coming fiscal year.

“People seem to be leaving their trash on Saturday mornings; hopefully that’s something you could work out,” Ms. Rose said.

The landfill is currently only open on Thursdays and Sundays.

“We’re both in agreement there would be a good use for having an extra day, but I would like to do an analysis of what times would make it most effective,” board of health member Richard Skidmore said.

Talk then turned to the trash problem at the cliffs. Ms. Rose called the overflowing barrels a “horrible situation,” and suggested the lease agreements this year include rubbish removal. Lease agreement negotiations begin next Tuesday. Rent increases are capped at eight per cent; there have been no increases in four years.

“It’s time for us to include in the leases a requirement, something that is more enforceable, about trash,” Ms. Rose said. “We don’t say anything about where it goes . . . It’s basically going into the public receptacles because Jay [Sanfillipo] has to come up two or three times a day and empty them. If we require them to have a commercial disposal it wouldn’t be our problem anymore,” she said, adding to the board of health:

“That’s your deal, you’re the ones that would have to come up with an agreement with that.”

Board of health member Amanda Hutchinson suggested buying three recycling bins to help mitigate trash and ease complaints from the refuse district about mixing municipal waste with recyclables.

“Anything that’s recyclable gets thrown into the roll-offs . . . we’re supposed to separate it,” Ms. Hutchinson said. “It’d be a one-time investment of some equipment so we can cut down on the amount [of trash].”

The board of health will revise its budget to include the new recycling bins and extra day at the landfill, and present it to the selectmen in the next few weeks.