Hi all...
Don't miss our crucial forums this Weds. (tomorrow Apr. 6th) at 5 pm at Vassar College New England Building Room 104 and 8 pm as well at Rhinebeck Village Hall (76 E. Market St.)-- with nationally known zero-waste expert Neil Seldman, President of the D.C.-based Institute for Local Self-Reliance ( http://www.ILSR.org ) and Shabazz Jackson, Cofounder of Greenway Environmental Services ( http://www.Greenway.com )-- "85% by 2020-- Recycling to Save Money, Create Jobs"-- and special guest speakers there as well too-- Terry Laibach (DEC Region 3 Recycling Coordinator) and Nadine Souto (Vassar RePower cofounder)-- you do NOT want to miss these, folks!...(pass it on-- spread wd)...
[opportunity like this to hear zero-waste experts like this all in one place will NOT come again soon, k!!!]
Thx also tons to Marie Caruso, Joanne Steele, et. al. of the Sierra Club, Melissa Everett, Michael O'Hara, David Dell, et. al. of Sustainable Hudson Valley for generously agreeing to co-sponsor and underwrite the costs of bringing Neil Seldman back to Poughkeepsie, along with Vassar RePower too...
[key-- thx TONS to Lucy Johnson and Jeff Walker of Vassar's Sustainability Committee for helpin' too!]
Fact: Clearwater, Sierra Club, NYPIRG, EANY, and Citizens Environmental Coalition (all members of the New Yorkers for Zero Waste coalition) support 85% recycling rate by 2020-- in strong contrast to our county's Resource Recovery Agency's SWMP proposal for only 18% recycling rate by 2020(!).
[see: http://www.cectoxic.org/ZeroWastePlatform2010.html (sadly, DCRRA for incineration ad infinitum
From Neil S.: "these are the zero waste/resource management plans ILSR has assisted with in the US.:
http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/sws/zerowaste_masterplan.htm -- zero waste plan Austin, TX
http://compostingconsultant.com/images2/hawaii-zero-waste-plan.pdf -- zero waste plan for Hawaii Co.
http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/LGCentral/Library/infoCycling/2001/Winter/DelNorte.htm -- zero DelNorte
http://www.ilsr.org/recycling/delaware-resource-management.pdf : Resource Management in Delaware.
[also see: http://www.ilsr.org/recycling/links.html ; http://www.ilsr.org/pubs/2010yearendreport.pdf ;
Neil S."Wasted Energy: Debunking Waste-to-Energy Scheme" http://www.emagazine.com/view/?4315 ]
Note, too-- check out resolution #2011102 on this Thursday's 5:15 pm Environmental Committee mtg. agenda from yours truly, co-sponsored by Co. Leg. Jim Doxsey-- declaring that our County Legislature has the power to approve, reject, and/or amend our county's Solid Waste Management Plan!...
[see below; also http://www.co.dutchess.ny.us/CountyGov/Departments/Legislature/CLagenda.htm ; we need you all to come out of woodwork to speak up-- on 6th floor of COB at 22 Market St. Poughkeepsie;
email 25 of us countylegislators@co.dutchess.ny.us to get this passed Thurs. out of Envir. Committee![
Fact: Shabazz for years now has taken all of the food waste from Vassar, Marist, and SUNY New Paltz and mixed it with yard waste-- and just over the past year has gotten the GOP-led Poughkeepsie Town Board (and Dem Town Supervisor there Pat Myers) to vote unanimously to allow Shabazz to expand food-waste composting operation he's run for years at Vassar Farms to 70 acres on DeGarmo Rd.(!).
[this is clear example for Rhinebeck and all of our municipalities; organics make up half wastestream]
[see "Case for Composting" 3/22/10 Boston Globe http://www.greenchange.org/article.php?id=5692 !]
Fact: The woody waste and other yard waste (leaves/grass) sitting in piles at the Rhinebeck Town Dump (on Stone Church Rd.) is the PERFECT material that Shabazz has proven can be mixed with food waste to make valuable compost and biofiltration soils to spec!...(Shabazz and I have seen this).
[here in Dutchess, Royal Carting tried 177-home food-waste collection pilot program in Beacon]
[see below-- Massachusetts Municipal Association ( http://www.MMA.org ) Associate Editor Mitch Evich last May 5th ran an article about the successful curbside collection of food waste in the towns of Hamilton and Wenham-- referring to how "organic waste accounts for roughly 40 percent of the solid waste that the typical household generates (about 10-12 pounds out of 27 pounds per week)": savings!]
Recall the front-page article about Shabazz in the Poughkeepsie Journal April 3, 2008 on great food-waste composting operation in Poughkeepsie using materials from Vassar and Marist to produce extremely valuable compost in high demand at non-odor facility (Vassar Farm); see:
http://groups.google.com/group/planputnam/msg/bb0dd1fd8ca9441a ; http://greenwayny.com/beta/about/?id=bio ; http://www.recycle.net/trade/aa945288.html ;
http://www.grn.com/trade/aa945288.html ; http://nysawg.org/news.php?id=40 .
Remember, too-- even back in '09 I succeeded in convincing Northern Dutchess Hospital, Baptist Home at Brookmeade, and folks from Fairgrounds and the Rhinebeck Central School District to all endorse the notion of moving Rhinebeck towards zero waste-- saving $$$ with food waste collection (remember Northern Dutchess News article on all this from summer of '09; other local media ignored this-- why?)...
[see: http://www.elementalimpact.org/ZWZDowntownAtlanta -- Atlanta is great example for Dutchess; many restaurants, entertainment and convention centers there saving money separating food waste!]
The City of Toronto has proven for years now that it actually saves tax dollars to have businesses and homeowners separate their food waste for weekly curbside collection-- because now, as a result of this, they only have to have their garbage collected once every other week(!)...why can't we do this here?...
[see: http://www.toronto.ca/greenbin/card.htm ]
Fact: Incinerator folks don't even want food waste; it's highly inefficient to burn (over 70% water; see http://www.Cool2012.com ).
Fact: Ithaca, Portland, Seattle, Boulder, Cambridge, and communities across Vermont, North Carolina, Minnesota, Michigan, California have smartly moved towards zero waste with food-waste composting
[ http://www.cool2012.com/community/collection/ http://www.jgpress.com/archives/_free/000525.html ;
http://www.recycletompkins.org/editorstree/view/177 ; http://ccetompkins.org/compost/index.html ]
Note-- thanks to Rhinebeck residents Marcia Slatkin, Dan Maciejac, Paul Antonell, Margaret De Wys, Vivian Mandala, Nicholas O'Connor, Michael West, and Chris Winham for bein' part of the 86 folks signed on to my http://www.petitiononline.com/zeroyes effort-- to make sure that recycling receptacless are placed next to all garbage bins in county-- help launch http://www.petitiononline.com/rbckrecy too;
how long will it be before brown metal garbage baskets in village have recycling containers near 'em?...
[note: Village of Millbrook has recycling containers next to all its garbage receptacles on the sidewalks-- why can't we do this in Rhinebeck, all over?...see: http://www.virtualhudsonvalley.com/events/?p=141 ]
Eleven more reasons to come out Weds. (tomorrow) to hear Neil, Shabazz, Terry, and Nadine(!):
Fact: Nantucket is now at 92% recycling rate; San Francisco at 72% recycling rate; Los Angeles at 64% rate; King County (WA) at 62% rate; Novarro (IT) got to 70% rate in 18 months(!); see Paul Connett:
[see: http://www.no-burn.org/why-incineration-is-a-very-bad-idea-in-the-twenty-first-century ]
Fact: Clearwater, Sierra Club, NYPIRG, EANY, and Citizens Environmental Coalition (all members of the New Yorkers for Zero Waste coalition) also state unequivocably that "recycling saves 4-5 times the energy an incinerator recovers." (this runs completely counter to the dreck/spin spun by RRA for years)
[see: http://www.cectoxic.org/ZeroWastePlatform2010.html ]
Fact: Dutchess County now incinerates or sends to landfills $15 million worth of materials and resources that could be recycled, including plant debris, food waste, paper, wood, ceramics, soils, metals, glass, polymers, textiles, chemicals, and various items for reuse (Richard Anthony Associates).
[see: http://ccgovernment.carr.org/ccg/pubworks/sw-future/docs/resource-assessment.pdf MD like NYS!]
Fact: Ten times more jobs could be created by moving towards a zero-waste approach to resource recovery compared to incineration/landfilling, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance; locally this means 500 new jobs could be created right here in Dutchess County if those materials were recycled instead of burned or buried, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance/Rick Anthony.
[see: http://www.ilsr.org/recycling/recyclingmeansbusiness.html ]
Fact: "The Dutchess County trash-burning plant needs millions from taxpayers to break even each year, costs 46 percent more to operate than 13 other plants in New York and Connecticut and has debts
stretching beyond all of them." [Poughkeepsie Journal 5/10/09]
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20090510/NEWS01/905100344/Dutchess-County-Resource-Recovery-Agency-Inefficient-expensive-in-debt
Recall this, too, buried on p. 2 in the B (Mid-Hudson) section of Oct. 11th Poughkeepsie Journal from last year: "The DCRRA's deficit, the amount that must be shouldered by county taxpayers, rose from $850,000 a decade ago to more than $6 million last year."
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20101011/REPOSITORY/10110335/Conners-quits-RRA-waste-plan-hearing-is-today
Fact: The Poughkeepsie Journal reported March 7th that emissions from our county incinerator of particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, and nitrogen oxide have all increased over the last
decade-- along with the fact that, on an annual basis, our county incinerator also creates 50,000 tons of toxic ash-- and spews 29 pounds of heavy metals (mercury/arsenic/lead/cadmium), 37 tons of sulfur dioxide, 22 tons of hydrogen chloride/hydrogen fluoride, and 3700 tons of carbon dioxide.
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20100307/NEWS01/3070350/Burn-plants-seem-cleaner-but-facts-debated
Fact: Dutchess County incinerator in Poughkeepsie spews 3700 tons of carbon emissions yearly.
[ http://www.CARMA.org ; http://www.StopTrashingtheClimate.org ; recall http://www.350.org !]
Fact: The cost of disposing of the Dutchess County Incinerator's 50,000 tons of toxic ash annually has doubled in recent years to three million dollars a year, according to Dutchess County Resource
Recovery Agency Board Chair William Conners in a statement he made in Co. Leg. chambers in 2010.
[see: http://www.no-burn.org/why-incineration-is-a-very-bad-idea-in-the-twenty-first-century P. Connett]
Fact: The city of Springfield, Mass. has saved $75,000 in just the first half of this year alone by expanding recycling to one-third of the city; it expects to save $450,000 a year through greatly
expanded recycling. ["Springfield Municipal Recycling Initiative To Expand" (WAMC's Paul Tuthill 7/10)
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wamc/news.newsmain/article/0/0/1679516/news/Municipal.Recycling.Initative.To.Expand ]
Fact: The Poughkeepsie Journal reported last March 7th that "the Dutchess County Resource Recovery Agency recycles only 4 percent of Dutchess' 250,000 tons of garbage; little is done to encourage
recycling in the county; when waste recycled by private haulers is included, the county recycling rate is only 11 percent, about half the state rate, agency figures show; an estimated 30,000 tons of
paper alone go to the trash heap yearly."
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20100307/NEWS01/3070352/Critics-rip-agency-as-recycling-falters
[hope to see y'all out with us tomorrow (Weds.)-- be there or be square!]
Joel
444-0599/876-2488
http://www.DutchessDemocracy.blogspot.com
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[email 25 of us countylegislators@co.dutchess.ny.us to get this passed Thurs. out of Envir. Committee![
Environment
Resolution No. 2011102
RE: DUTCHESS COUNTY LEGISLATURE DECLARES THAT IT HAS THE POWER TO APPROVE, REJECT, AND/OR AMEND THE SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT PLAN FOR DUTCHESS COUNTY
Legislator TYNER, DOXSEY, GOLDBERG, KUFFNER, and WHITE offer the following and move its adoption:
WHEREAS, the Dutchess County Resource Recovery Agency has the highest per-ton processing cost of 14 trash-burning plants in the area at about 50% higher than average-- with high debt, increasing costs and no-bid contracts ; Dutchess County taxpayers' subsidy has more than doubled over the last decade, and
WHEREAS, Dutchess County's Solid Waste Management Plan was due at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation at the end of last December, and
WHEREAS, unfortunately the Dutchess County Resource Recovery Agency's hired consultants Germano & Cahill have proposed a Solid Waste Management Plan that promotes extending and expanding incineration in Dutchess County indefinitely, and
WHEREAS, it is within the legal right of the Dutchess County Legislature to have the power to vote to approve, reject, and/or amend the Solid Waste Management Plan for Dutchess County; given all the problems at the Dutchess County Resource Recovery Agency, anything less than our County Legislature assuming this power is an abdication of the responsibility to properly manage solid waste in Dutchess County, and therefore be it
RESOLVED, that the Dutchess County Legislature has the power to approve, reject, and/or amend the Solid Waste Management Plan for Dutchess County, and be it further
RESOLVED, that a copy of this resolution be sent to Dutchess County Executive William Steinhaus, Dutchess County Resource Recovery Agency Executive Director William Calogero, and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Region 3 Director Willie Janeway.
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Recall this (originally posted to this list Feb. 20) from [former County Legislature Attorney]: David Sears
To: Joel Tyner joeltyner@earthlink.net
Joel, The County is the planning unit and even DEC Regs require the Legs approval and either a EIS for adoption or a negative declaration. This is clearly "cover" to continue to distance themselves from the mis-managed RRA.
From the NYSDEC's own website [see http://www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/71265.html ]
"LSWMP Formal Approval Process
This page describes some of the procedures involved in DEC approval of a Local Solid Waste Management Plan (LSWMP). More details on these procedures can be found in 6 NYCRR Section 360-15.10.
All LSWMPs must be submitted to DEC in draft for approval.
DEC reviews the draft LSWMP to determine whether it effectively addresses all matters required by 6 NYCRR 360-15.9
If it does not, DEC will specify the matters in which the draft LSWMP is deficient (review letter). The Draft LSWMP must be revised based on DEC comments. It is possible that more than one round of comments and revisions may occur to the LSWMP document.
Once DEC determines that the draft LSWMP is a substantive consideration of the elements in 360-15.9, DEC provides notice to the Local Planning Unit of its intent to approve the LSWMP. This notice is colloquially known as the "approvable letter".
DEC recommends that the Local Planning Unit conduct the Public Comment period after receipt of the "Approvable Letter" from DEC. This sequence serves to avoid the potential for needing two Public Comment Periods, once for the Draft and once for the Final LSWMP, if significant changes are made after DEC review. The same recommendation applies to the resolution from the Governing Board, described below.
The Approvable Letter indicates that the Local Planning Unit must submit to DEC:
A Final stand-alone LSWMP
A Resolution of adoption of the LSWMP from the Local Planning Unit's Legislative Board.
An EIS for the adoption of the LSWMP, SEQR findings statement --OR- negative declaration
Once DEC determines that the Final LSWMP, adopting resolution, and SEQR findings statement or Negative Declaration are complete and acceptable, DEC approves the LSWMP. This notice is colloquially known as the "Final Approval Letter."
The approved LSWMP becomes the LSWMP in effect for the Local Planning Unit."
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[recall below originally sent out to this list Feb. 20th on all this]
re: RRA GOP Co. Leg. capitulates to Steinhaus; "new" SWMP to be same as old SWMP!...
Recently I attended the latest meeting of the so-called "Resource Recovery Reform" Committee in our County Legislature, with John Culverton and Rich Schlauder of Mid-Atlantic Solid Waste Consultants (MSWC) there updating us all on their work...
Crucial-- Culverton and Schlauder told us recently that MSWC "is not doing a parallel plan; not recreating; just expanding with details Resource Recovery Agency's Solid Waste Management Plan(!)...
[read that one over again, folks!!!]
Yep-- 'tis true-- Culverton and Schlauder assured us their (RRA's) plans would be for a so-called "user fee" or "service charge"-- "a logical formula that assumes roughly what they [each property in the county] generate"...
Wake up, folks-- this is the property tax Akeley/Steinhaus proposed two years ago to fund RRA waste!...
[...and-- just as important-- is NOT PAYT-- "user fee" would bear NO relation to how much you recycle!]
Why are Co. Leg. GOP capitulating to Steinhaus/RRA on all this?...methinx it just might be, among other things, fact that Steinhaus made MSWC wait weeks to receive signed contract-- tho funds donated from Dyson Foundation last year-- note, too-- $30,000 is still left from $90,000 donated from Dyson-- we need help from you all in grass roots to push for at least SOME of that $30,000 to be spent on a zero-waste expert like Neil Seldman of http://www.ILSR.org !...
[...of course legalized kickbacks for years from Royal Carting, HDR Engineering not pertinent-- not!...]
[see/sign http://www.petitiononline.com/cleangov for much much more re: legalized kickbacks in county]
Wake up, folks-- email all 25 of us NOW-- at countylegislators@co.dutchess.ny.us on all this...
86 Dutchess folks signed on so far to our http://www.petitiononline.com/zeroyes -- we need you active!...
Note as well-- Culverton/Schlauder also, incredibly, stated at this last meeting that "you [Dutchess County] have to have something-- whether it's an incinerator or a landfill" (a false choice)-- and falsely
asserted to us as well that "there are costs to expanding recycling"(!)...
[letters to editor needed too-- to letterstoeditor@poughkeepsiejournal.com, letters@freemanonline.com, newsplace@aol.com, editorial@thehudsonvalleynews.com!]
Recall this article from Poughkeepsie Journal Oct. 18th 2009 re: GOP for new property tax for $ for RRA:
"The Journal's findings come at a critical juncture for the management of trash in Dutchess. A task force appointed by the Democrat-controlled county Legislature concluded recently that the Dutchess County Resource Recovery Agency was mismanaged and said its multi-million-dollar annual subsidy-- and possibly the trash agency itself-- should be eliminated.
The agency countered with its own report advocating a new property tax to support operations, an expanded burn plant, and most significantly, the adoption of a "flow control" law that would put the agency in charge of all 250,000 tons of waste produced in the county, in addition to the 150,000 tons processed at the burn plant."
[from "No License? No Problem for Trash Haulers; County Enforcement Lax" by Mary Beth Pfeiffer]
...but that's not all folks...(scroll down just a bit for much, much more on this!)....
This past Monday (Feb. 14th) learned after meeting with former Dutchess County Legislature Attorney David Sears that, contrary to Co. Leg. Chair Rolison's statements to the contrary at the end of last Thursday, the fact is that even the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation's own website clearly states that it is necessary for the Dutchess County Legislature to approve the Solid Waste Management Plan for Dutchess County(!)...(kudos to Minority Leader Goldberg for leading line of questioning on this last week)...
See below-- specifically, the DEC website itself states that "A Resolution of adoption of the LSWMP [Local Solid Waste Management Plan] from the Local Planning Unit's Legislative Board [County Legislature]"(!)...
But again-- more re: above-- recall this one as well-- from Poughkeepsie Journal Nov. 14, 2009:
[more from PoJo on GOP drive for years now for new property tax ("green fee") to subsidize RRA waste]
"Steinhaus Proposes Solid Waste User Fee"
Under a plan by Dutchess County Executive William Steinhaus, businesses and homeowners would be charged a new solid waste user fee to help pay for the operating costs of the county Resource Recovery Agency he defunded in his 2010 budget proposal.
Steinhaus left it to the Legislature to set the fee. The solid waste user fee would replace the annual net service fee the county pays to the agency out of its budget, acting Solid Waste Management Commissioner Roger Akeley said in a memo to legislators.
Residential units would pay a standard fee per household unit, while property owners who generate more waste would pay a higher fee per square foot based on the volume of waste generated, Akeley said. Vacant properties that don't have waste would not be charged.
Legislator Joel Tyner, D-Clinton, who headed the Green Ribbon Task Force on Solid Waste Management, had concerns about the user fee.
"I'm afraid homeowners and taxpayers are going to be forced to subsidize the waste at the Resource Recovery Agency without the real problem being solved," Tyner said.
Tyner cited Poughkeepsie Journal investigations that documented the agency has the highest per-ton processing cost of 14 trash-burning plants in the region, at 46 percent higher than the average. An ongoing Journal investigation has found heavy debt, higher costs and no-bid contracts at the agency.
Steinhaus' proposal did not specify the amount of the fee. But in his 2010 budget plan he did not fund the agency, which had sought $6.3 million for next year. The subsidy has grown 250 percent since 2001.
Again-- check out this startling info I posted 2/14 to http://www.DutchessDemocracy.blogspot.com :
This past Monday (Feb. 14th) learned after meeting with former Dutchess County Legislature Attorney David Sears that, contrary to Co. Leg. Chair Rolison's statements to the contrary at the end of last Thursday, the fact is that even the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation's own website clearly states that it is necessary for the Dutchess County Legislature to approve the Solid Waste Management Plan for Dutchess County(!)...(kudos to Minority Leader Goldberg for leading line of questioning on this last week)...
See below-- specifically, the DEC website itself states that "A Resolution of adoption of the LSWMP [Local Solid Waste Management Plan] from the Local Planning Unit's Legislative Board [County Legislature]"(!)...
Fact: This is completely contrary to Co. Leg. Chair Rolison's statements at end of last Thursday's County Legislature Environmental Committee meeting (Feb. 10th).
[go to http://www.totalwebcasting.com/view/?id=dutchess to view webcast of this for yourself!]
Note: Interestingly enough, just a few years ago when there was a Democratic majority in our County Legislature, Rolison himself was invited to meet with DEC officials, along with Dems like Roger Higgins, Fred Knapp, et. al.; strangely enough, a number of meetings with the DEC seem to have taken place with no representation whatsoever from the Democratic Caucus of our County Legislature...
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From http://www.greenchange.org/article.php?id=5692 ...
The case for composting
Aubin Tyler | Boston Globe | 03.22.2010
Living in the country, I have the luxury of a backyard compost pile. Right now it's overflowing with acrid slop, but eventually it will yield dark, rich soil nutrients for the garden. If my potato peels, leftover rice, and parsley stems had been buried in a landfill, deprived of sun or air, those same scraps would have given rise to methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.
Nationwide, there's a lot of potential in all that slop. In 2008, Americans generated nearly 32 million tons of food waste, and less than 3 percent of that was composted, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Scattered households with compost heaps won't make a dent in this problem. But local governments can, and should. Last summer, San Francisco passed the first large-scale municipal composting law in the nation. (Seattle actually began mandating composting earlier, but it exempts businesses and apartment buildings.) Today, San Francisco collects 500 tons of food waste a day, picking up from 225,000 homes and apartments and 7,000 businesses. Scofflaws can be punished with fines from $100 to $1,000.
On pickup days, kitchen scraps get dumped into tightly covered green curbside bins, alongside black ones for trash and blue ones for recyclables. Squeamish customers can line their compost bins with compostable bags. The food waste goes to a processing facility, where it's turned into high-grade compost. That, plus recycling, is expected to keep about 75 percent of San Francisco's trash out of landfills this year. For 2020, the goal is 100 percent, or zero waste, which to many people would have been unthinkable not that many years ago.
Besides reducing landfill waste and methane emissions, composting enriches soil and reduces the need for water, fertilizers, and pesticides.
Could a composting law work in Massachusetts? It turns out, it can, and it does. Nantucket has mandated composting for more than a decade, ever since the island's landfill started running out of space. Food, yard waste, and other organic matter -- about 50 tons a day -- go into a 185-foot-long "digester" that accelerates decomposition to accomplish in three days what normally takes Mother Nature six weeks. Over the past decade, the composting has kept more than 60,000 tons of methane out of the atmosphere, says Nantucket public works director Jeff Willett.
For island residents, it's now second nature to divide trash into two streams: recycling and organic waste. They can haul it away themselves for free or pay for a pickup service. "For every 100 tons of trash that comes into our facility, only 8 tons go into the landfill," Willett says. That's a 92 percent diversion rate. What's left? Mostly film plastic, like plastic bags.
Voluntary programs, while helpful, have limited impact. In Cambridge, residents unloaded 44 tons of food scraps last year at two drop-off centers, and 60 Cambridge businesses and institutions compost their food waste through a curbside collection program funded by a grant from the state's Department of Environmental Protection. Through another MassDEP program, some 200 supermarkets and groceries across the Commonwealth compost about 27,000 tons of food waste per year, saving each store $20,000 to $40,000 annually in disposal costs. But that's nothing compared with the estimated 1.1 million tons of food waste produced each year by Massachusetts businesses and institutions. (In its forthcoming 2010 solid waste master plan, the state environment department is considering a ban on landfill and incinerator disposal of all commercial food waste.)
Last year, the city of Boston issued a call to the private sector to gauge interest in developing a type of digester operation, pioneered in Toronto, which captures methane gas and then uses it to generate electricity. But Boston environment department director Bryan Glascock says the economic downturn has "sucked a little wind out of the room."
So why wait for the private sector? The city already pays $80 a ton for private haulers to pick up its 200,000 tons of residential trash annually. That's about $16 million a year in garbage fees.
So far, San Francisco and Seattle are the only major US cities that require residential organics collection, according to the December issue of BioCycle, although more than 90 cities and towns offer some type of food-waste collection.
Maybe zero waste isn't a fantasy, after all. Now if we could just do something about those plastic bags.
Aubin Tyler is a freelance writer in Amherst.
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From the Massachusetts Municipal Association ( http://www.MMA.org )...
Hamilton, Wenham offer curbside organic-waste pickup
May 05, 2010
Mass Innovations, from The Beacon, May 2010
The towns of Hamilton and Wenham have launched what local officials and volunteers hope will become a sustainable program for recycling household food waste.
Participating residents pay a $75 annual fee to help cover the cost of shipping the organic waste to a local composting site. Participants receive a 13-gallon bin with wheels and a flip-top lid as well as a smaller countertop collector. Participants also are entitled to as much compost as they need from Brick End Farms, the Hamilton company that receives the organic waste.
Gretel Clark, chair of the Hamilton-Wenham Recycling Committee, said the initiative is in a second pilot phase. (A much smaller pilot program, involving 74 Hamilton families, was completed over the winter.)
According to the Recycling Committee's research, organic waste accounts for roughly 40 percent of the solid waste that the typical household generates (about 10 to 12 pounds out of 27 pounds per week). Clark said the food waste program has the potential to significantly reduce the amount of trash that the town must pay to have hauled away.
Curbside pickup of waste that can be converted into compost has become common in California, Oregon and Washington, but the municipal program in Hamilton and Wenham is believed to be the first of its kind on the East Coast.
By the time the Hamilton-Wenham program got under way this spring, 545 people had signed up, representing 17 percent of homes in the two towns. The towns need 770 participants, however, in order to ensure the program's survival beyond fiscal 2011, according to Hamilton Town Administrator Candace Wheeler.
This spring's roll-out was placed in jeopardy by the reluctance of the two towns to allocate funds to match $7,000 in grant money from the Department of Environmental Protection.
"At a time when we were literally looking to save a few dollars here, a few dollars there, selectmen felt that they would have to ask for Town Meeting approval and that would delay the program," Wheeler said.
To make up for the shortfall, the Recycling Committee succeeded in raising the $7,000 from residents and other private sources.
"The generosity of the donors saved us," Wheeler said.
Local officials are hoping to sustain the program into the beginning of fiscal 2012, when they assume the program will be financed through a new or existing revolving fund related to waste disposal, Wheeler said.
She added that Hamilton could seek to enact a bylaw making organic-waste recycling mandatory, "but that's something you don't want to do, because it's hard to enforce."
According to the trade publication BioCycle, the vast majority of municipal organic recycling programs are voluntary. But San Francisco approved a mandatory program last June, and Seattle has a similar program.
For more information, contact Hamilton Public Works Director John Tomasz at (978) 468-5591.
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From http://www.toronto.ca/greenbin/card.htm ...(example here for Rhinebeck and all of Dutchess!)...
Green Bin Program
The City of Toronto's Green Bin Program allows you to put your organic waste out for curbside collection. The organic material will be made into high-quality compost for farmlands and parklands. The Green Bin Program will increase our waste diversion and greatly reduce the amount of garbage we send to landfill. Get with the program!
What goes in the Green Bin?
* Fruits, vegetable scraps
* Meat, shellfish, fish products
* Pasta, bread, cereal
* Dairy products, egg shells
* Coffee grounds, filters, tea bags
* Soiled paper towels, tissues
* Soiled paper food packaging: fast food paper packaging, ice cream boxes, muffin paper, flour and sugar bags
* Paper plates
* Candies, cookies, cake
* Baking ingredients, herbs, spices
* Household plants, including soil
* Diapers, sanitary products
* Animal waste, bedding (e.g. from bird/hamster cages), kitty litter
* Pet food
Line your indoor container or outdoor green bin with a plastic bag. Please line just one or the other - not both. No special bag is required for either collection container. If you wish, you can reuse plastic grocery bags to line your indoor container. Any plastic bag (e.g. green garbage bag) can be used to line your outdoor green bin.
If you have overflow green bin material, please put it in a see-through plastic bag beside your bin, or buy a second bin. We recommend that you put non-food waste (e.g. diapers, animal waste) in this bag and place it out with your green bin by 7:00am the morning of collection.
More information
Five of the City's official recycling containers can be purchased at any 33 Home Hardware stores in the City of Toronto, 11 City of Toronto Recycling Container Pick-up Locations or at a Community Environment Day.
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From http://www.elementalimpact.org/ZWZDowntownAtlanta ...
ZERO WASTE ZONE - DOWNTOWN ATLANTA
Zone Champion: Randy Childers, Director of Engineering, Hyatt Regency Atlanta
Zone Partners: Atlanta Recycles, Georgia Recycling Coalition, Sustainability Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region IV
Zone Launch: February, 2009 at a press conference that generated more than 60 million media impressions. Go the Media Page where the national, regional and local media is detailed. Click here for the blog post on ZWZ press conference.
Charter Participants
Convention Facility:
* Georgia World Congress Center
Entertainment Venues:
* Centennial Olympic Park
* Georgia Dome
* Philips Arena
* World of Coca-Cola
* Georgia World Congress Center Authority
Government:
* City of Atlanta
Hotels:
* Hyatt Regency Atlanta
* Marriott Atlanta Marquis
* Sheraton Atlanta Hotel
* Westin Peachtree Plaza
Restaurants:
* Ted's Montana Grill
* Levy
The ZWZ~Downtown Atlanta Charter Participants responded to the CALL TO ACTION when Atlanta lost a convention to Orlando in the summer of 2008 as the client perceived Orlando a greener city. In response, the Zero Waste Zone program was created in the downtown Atlanta convention district. Visit the Zero Waste Zone Blog for tales from the journey of the first zone launch, to creating a template for local expansion, to national recognition to launches in other cities and states.
*
For further information contact:
Abbey Patterson
Atlanta Recycles
abbey.patterson@hydek.com
678-640-2500
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[text here of zero-waste resolution spearheaded by yours truly thru our Co. Leg. in late '09]
[sadly, powers that be in our county government never followed through on this; media never reported]
WHEREAS, recently the Dutchess County Green Ribbon Task Force on Solid Waste Management issued its recommendations after many months of meetings and much public input, and
WHEREAS, Dutchess County's unemployment rate is still about twice what it was two years ago, with about ten thousand local residents out of work; recycling and composting (a zero-waste approach to resource recovery) creates ten times more jobs than incineration and landfilling, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and in Austin (TX), Seattle (WA), Portland (OR) and many other communities across the country a zero-waste approach has also saved tax dollars compared to a burn-or-bury approach, and
WHEREAS, on a national level, over two-thirds of the materials we use are still burned or buried, despite the fact we have the technical capacity to cost-effectively recycle, reuse, or compost 90% of what we waste; the Dutchess County Resource Recovery Facility puts 3700 tons of carbon emissions into the air every year, and
WHEREAS, Rockland County recycled 41,000 tons of cans, bottles, plastics, and paper last year at their Materials Recovery Facility, with a population almost identical to that of Dutchess County (about 290,000), while Dutchess County recycled only 8,000 tons of cans, bottles, plastics, and paper last year at our Materials Resource Facility, and therefore be it
RESOLVED, that the Dutchess County Legislature believes that the current governance arrangements for waste management in Dutchess County (basically all duties delegated to the Dutchess County Resource Recovery Agency) have failed on many levels, especially by virtue of the fact that costs incurred by the Resource Recovery Agency at the expense of the taxpayers are far in excess of industry standards; the new PLAN must evaluate and identify new and better options, such as a new Dutchess County Waste and Recycling Management Authority, or more active participation of the County's Public Works Committee or Solid Waste Commissioner, and be it further
RESOLVED, that the Dutchess County Legislature calls for an end to the mismanagement currently dominating waste management in Dutchess County; better mechanisms of oversight and transparency are critical to the success of the PLAN and must be clearly outlined by the County's SWM consultant, and the County Legislature calls for the power of budgetary review over any new governance mechanism, and be it further
RESOLVED, that the Dutchess County Legislature, in light of the extraordinarily high costs, inefficiency and mismanagement recently documented at the Dutchess County Resource Recovery Agency, recommend that the new PLAN give careful and thorough consideration to the phasing out of the waste to energy facility over a 2-4 year time horizon and the phasing out or complete transformation for the Resource Recovery Agency over the same period of time; if the DCRRA is phased out, all efforts should be made to secure new County jobs for the administrative staff of the Agency, and be it further
RESOLVED, that the Dutchess County Legislature requests that the PLAN and the Consultant chosen to advise the legislature thoroughly examine the possibility of setting countywide mandated recycling goal of 70% of all municipal solid waste generated in Dutchess County by the year 2020 by substantially increasing our food waste composting infrastructure, and therefore be it
RESOLVED, that the Dutchess County Legislature also issues a Request for Proposals for a report from several nationally known zero-waste experts who have indicated an interest in helping Dutchess County on this, for detailed cost analysis and implementation outlines for a Dutchess County Zero-Waste Pilot Program to be implemented as soon as possible, and be it further
RESOLVED, that the Dutchess County Legislature authorizes the development of several pilot programs around the county, dedicated to the advancement of research and assess the feasibility of a cutting edge zero-waste program for Dutchess County, and the creation of an eco-industrial resource recovery park to create jobs recycling current resources that are disposed of: food waste, fats, oils, greases, glass, electronic scrap, mattresses, and construction and demolition debris, and
RESOLVED, that the Dutchess County Legislature requests that the Dutchess County Resource Recovery Agency work with the Dutchess County Sheriff, Dutchess County Environmental Management Council, Dutchess County Supervisors and Mayors Association, Dutchess County Small Business Committee, and others to make sure recycling bins for cans and bottles and office paper are placed next to all trash receptacles in the county, and make sure that, as county law and the Dutchess County Resource Recovery Agency website states, that "the following materials are required to be kept separate from trash: office paper (copy paper, stationery, computer paper, ledger), newspaper, corrugated cardboard, glass bottles and jars (clear, brown and green colored); metal cans (tin/bi-metal/aluminum); aluminum pie plates and foil; PETE and HDPE plastic containers (except automotive product containers), and major appliances, tires, yard debris," and be if further
RESOLVED, that a copy of this resolution be sent to the Dutchess County Executive, Dutchess County Solid Waste Commissioner, Dutchess County Resource Recovery Agency, Dutchess County Environmental Management Council, Dutchess County Sheriff, and Dutchess County Association of Supervisors and Mayors.
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