HOULTON — Residents who choose to use the Andino Inc. transfer station rather than have curb-side collection are back to paying a per-bag fee.

Company owner Andy Marino said Monday that the per-pound plan was scrapped last week because “the system didn’t work. It didn’t generate enough income.”

Not long after the transfer station opened three years ago, a fee of $1.24 per 25-pound bag was charged. Last September, in an effort to encourage more people to use the transfer station, the company implemented a per-pound system, with customers paying 0.0496 per pound.

Essentially, the per-bag fee is computed at the same per-pound rate. If a person has a bag that weighs 25 pounds, the $1.24 works out to 0.0496 per pound.

Those customers with less than 25 pounds wind up paying more than they would under the straight per-pound method.

The problem faced by Andino is that when the company bid in 1995 to provide the town’s residential trash service, that bid was based on all eligible people either using curb-side collection or going to the transfer station themselves.

Close to 2,000 people should be using the company’s service, but it has been estimated that perhaps fewer than half are.

In an effort to encourage people to use the transfer station, the per-pound system was introduced. It didn’t work, however, and in 1997, the company posted an earnings loss of almost $160,000.

Under its exclusive contract with the town, Andino Inc. has the right to bill all residents at a weekly rate, which, as a result of a 6 percent rate increase approved by the town last month, is $4.23 for curb-side collection. The same fee also could be charged for use of the transfer station.

The billing has not been done since the contract took effect three years ago in hopes that other methods of payment or enforcement of the municipal trash ordinance by the town would resolve the issue and people would use the company service as required.

Because so few people are complying with the ordinance to use the Andino service, the company last month asked the town to take over the billing responsibility.

Only the town has the authority to enforce the ordinance, and it was felt that if the town did the billing, people would be more likely to comply with the ordinance.

The Town Council rejected the request. Marino said Monday that the company has not decided if it will send out the bills to everyone and that the company was still “evaluating the situation.”