Massachusetts' great garbage debate

We don't have a choice about stronger waste reduction programs. We can't keep on producing junk "disposables" and burning or burying them. Our sources of materials for manufacturing are running out, as is the fossil fuel to run the plants and transport the products. And all of this is creating climate instability.

The fact that incinerator emissions are cleaner just means that the toxins are in the ash or the waste water. Besides, recycling and composting will mean new businesses for the Commonwealth.

Let us make it political. If you want the people who speak for you in government to stand up for the environment over industrial concerns let them know how you will vote. Industry and jobs will adjust to enviromental regulation as long as they are fair to all industries. Water,Milk, Wine, fruit juice, energy drinks etc. should be theated the same as all other consumable liquids. There will always be frugal and needy people to help clean-up around the edges. We made the problem by making it too easy to throw stuff away...NOW we must do the hard thing and Think our way out of this mess.

1. no more incinerators
2. expand bottle bill to include all beverage containers
3. expand toxics use reduction to products - if we keep the toxics out of the products, then they will never be in the waste stream
4. implement incentives and requirements to reduce packaging
5. educate people about the impact that their purchasing and waste have on their health and the environment!

"They say with a little effort – such as adding a deposit onto water bottles"

Seriously? How out of touch are these people that they think the majority of people that purchase these things come back to claim the deposit. Try driving around on trash day at 7am and you'll see who really cashes these in: the homeless, with their overloaded shopping carts. They take the cans and bottles *from recycling bins* and turn them in for money.

We should revoke the deposit law, eliminate the hassles it creates, and ensure more availability of recycling bins in public places.

Another deposit? Looks like a veiled effort to raise tax revenue in Mass. Thanks Deval, are those eyebrows starting to get bushy too?

-- I have to disagree with Andrew. The bottle bill has proven incredibly effective at getting bottles out of landfills -- something like 80% of redeemable bottles get recycled.

I want the bottle bill expanded, and I want the state to set new packaging laws -- less plastic please!

Incineration hardly "lost its allure" -- if burning trash ever had any. Complying with stiff regulations became so expensive that it was rarely feasible, then new permits were frozen. It isn't clear that complying with the even stiffer emissions limits we would surely have today would ever be financially reasonable. The few sites that work, to some degree, are the "trash to energy" plants that take in highly selective waste streams, make some money on electricity sales, andf still are big polluters in nitrogen oxides.

I have to agree with Andrew. I recycle as much as possible and have very little trash. But I don't have time to sit there turning in my bottles and cans so I toss them in the recycling bin. If left there, they'll still make it to being recycled. Only difference in placing a deposit on them is that I get charged a nickel more and some random person canvassing my neighborhood for cans and bottles gets my nickel. Educate people, make incentives for manufacturers to use less packaging and make it easier for people to recycle (ie, single stream recycling, more recycling options in public places, etc). Adding a deposit just makes it harder (or at least more costly) for me to recycle as I do now...not to mention that if I buy a drink when I'm out and about, drink it and then turn around to recycle it, I'm usually left with no option but to throw it in the trash because most public places don't give another option.

It is rather fascinating that you *never* hear anything about "greenhouse gases," "Carbon emissions" or "global warming" when incinerators are being discussed. What do you think comes out of those smoke stacks? (Besides the heavy metals and carcinogenic dioxins.)

In addition to MassPIRGs efforts and soem of the great comments here, there needs to be some bang of a marketing campaign that shows people the ways and benefits of not buying bottled water, coffee in styrafoam (sp?), etc.

Why doesn't MassPIRG team up with Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks to create a Going Green campaign where DD starts selling parabin (sp?) free coffee mugs?

Has anyone ever looked in a trash can outside one of these places?

No, we need to REMOVE the bottle bill as it is. We have a recycling program now and all cans and bottles can be recycled. But my neighborhood is strewn with garbage because the bottle pickers think their might be returnables in the trash so open it up and dump it on the sidewalk.

PULEASE! No additional bottle deposits. Those bottles might end up on the curb
and give homeless collectors an opportunity to get some additional change into their pockets. Who wants that? Besides the homeless collectors, ofcourse.

We definitely need a zero-waste plan for Massachusetts, and should NOT build more incinerators. They're terrible for air quality, and cause global warming pollution. Reduce, reuse, recycle is *definitely* the way to go. Thanks MassPIRG!

The current deposit system does not make sense. It's based on a few types of drinking beverages (beer, carbonated soft drinks, carbonated water) instead of all drinking beverages.

When the Bottle Bill was enacted, it was done to help promote recycling. Many years have passed and we now have sorting facilities that remove more than just beer and soda containers from our waste stream. How about changing the bottle bill from it's present form into a bill that would require sorting of all waste before it goes to a burning facility or a landfill? The only benefit I see for keeping the bottle bill is that it generates money to pay for cleaning up the litter on the side of the roads. But, if litter was the issue, then ALL beverage containers should have a deposit on them. After all, I see a lot of water bottles and juice containers in roadside litter.

One note for all. I hear a lot about composting. Composting generates methane gas. Methane gas is a lot worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. It should be a requirement that composting done on a large scale, including landfills, have a methane recovery system.

How about improving recycling programs state wide? I live in an apartment building that does not recycle. When inquiring with the town, they said that apartments were not required to recycle, that's just crazy; that's where the highest density of people live!

Many towns will be facing the doubling or tripling of solid waste tipping fees in the next five years as more landfills close. The market rate for tipping fees could exceed $100/ton by the year 2015. Fall River and Taunton will add 430k tons of trash onto the market when they close in 2012. Its essential the state lift the moratorium on the construction of new waste to energy facilities and allow existing ones the right to expanded if feasible. We need more competition to bring down costs; it creates jobs and tax revenue. Converting waste into useful electricity is recycling.

Build waste to energy generators! You can scrub out many or most of the pollutants and turn our waste into energy.

volunteerforfun what we call composting does not produce methane. Stuffing and compacting organic material, i.e. food scraps, nut shells, paper, crustacean shells, coffee grounds, into a large container or landfill to the point that it is compacted will prevent oxygen from getting to and breaking down this organic material and when the material breaks down it will produce methane, but this is not composting.

The solution is simple: hit 'em in the wallet. The way I see it, there are two options:

Towns need to get out of the garbage business altogether, it's an outdated model that needs to go. Let citizens contract with private haulers and pay the garbage collection fees themselves. This is how it's done in the remainder of the country -- so you know exactly what it costs to throw stuff out and it's a bill that comes just like the water, electricity, oil, gas, etc. With garbage collection fees hid inside property taxes (or rents), there is little incentive to change behavior since you don't know what it costs. And the town also generally needs to staff a position (and pay benefits for that position) to manage garbage collection. I'd rather see town money go towards things like schools, libraries, road repair and other infrastructure maintenance.

PAYT is another option, but the loonies come out in droves when that gets proposed, God forbid you actually pay as you use a service. Having to shell out for that bag and having free recycling means there's an immediate economic incentive to recycle. When the town picks up everything without question (and without economic hardship) why waste the time sorting out recyclables or returning bottles for deposit?

"Doing the right thing" will get some people, "Doing the cheapest thing" will do FAR more. Check recycling rates of PAYT towns versus ones that do not. You'll see the recycling numbers where there is an economic incentive to do so paint a very clear picture.

There are commercially available technologies (non-thermal) that can divert waste from landfills to beneficial use with zero environmental impact. The context of this discussion should be widened to include possibilities other than landfill - incinerator - reuse. Municipal solid waste is truly a resource. Why not replace transfer stations with material recovery facilities which sort MSW into recyclables, biodegradables and non-processible fractions? Recyclables are recovered and biodegradables are feedstock for production of compost and energy.

It is rather fascinating that you *never* hear anything about "greenhouse gases," "Carbon emissions" or "global warming" when incinerators are being discussed. What do you think comes out of those smoke stacks? (Besides the heavy metals and carcinogenic dioxins.)

The idea of "clean" burning of anything is really absurd. You will notice that the language lobbyists use is alway a matter of degree "cleaner" "more efficient" but if I gave someone a cleaner form of arsenic or cyanide it would still kill them, and these plants release, and will still release massive amounts of toxins by burning garbage unless the DEP stops them and moves us to a better more sustainable system.

Build em! Scores of them. I live next to one and have done so as long as I can remember. Nothing wrong with it, just has to be properly managed like any factory.
Europe doesn't landfill and has hundreds of power generating burners and on top of that a recycling rate double or triple that of every US state.
Waste should be managed publicly to avoid commercial interests harming good intentions and creating inefficiencies. Just look at Europe.
Anti burner myths should be unnerved to show what really is going on. There's just too much unfounded scaremongering about burners.