Town officials are enacting a new policy on trash and recycling collection in the event a snowstorm, such as the one blanketing Danvers Tuesday and Wednesday, causes a delay in normal curbside pickup.

The change, which happened Tuesday afternoon, was an early discussion with JRM Hauling & Recycling to determine if pickup would be delayed due to the weather and then prompt notification issued to residents that same day. Notification was made via the town Connect CTY automated alert system and a message posted on the town Web site.

Public Works Director of Operations Robert Lee announced shortly before 1 p.m. that there will be no pickups on Wednesday and the transfer station will be closed. Curbside collection for the rest of the week will be pushed back by one day (Friday’s collection is scheduled for pickup on Saturday) and the transfer station will be open on Saturday.

“We’ve instituted this policy as a way to help our residents by bringing more certainty with respect to rubbish/recycling pickup during inclement weather,” said Town Manager Wayne Marquis.

Due to the numerous pickup delays throughout January due to storm after storm, public works officials explored their options on the best way to notify residents, they said.

“The best we can do, which we will start doing with the pending snow storm, is to give residents as much notice as possible on how curbside collections will be made without completely tying the hands of…JRM,” Lee said in a report to Marquis on Monday.

Lee had said JRM would make the call after 12 p.m. on Tuesday on whether to proceed with Wednesday collections as scheduled or postpone and double-up the next day.

“Some storms will make it more difficult to give residents advance notice, but we will work with JRM to do the best we can,” Lee said.

The DPW has also recently made the jump to social networking. Residents can find these and other updates on the Danvers DPW Facebook page along with photos from various events.