With the holiday season now in full swing, trash cans around the state may be getting more of a work out than usual. The聽U.S. Department of Agriculture聽estimates that more than 700 million pounds of turkey were purchased prior to Thanksgiving, and 35 percent of it will end up in a landfill, according to a report done by the聽Food Tank, a nonprofit dedicated to educating people about sustainable eating. The good news is that the thrown out meat can be composted.
Here in Connecticut, about 40 percent of the solid waste thrown out every year is compostable organic material, according to state聽Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, the agency that has been tasked with coming up with a management plan that will reduce municipal solid waste production in the state by 60 percent in the next eight years.
That鈥檚 roughly 2.3 million tons of trash per year statewide that needs to be diverted to recycling or composting, according to the DEEP. Not doing so could cost the state $2.5 million more per year if residents continue to produce trash at the same rate of about 3.5 pounds per day, according to DEEP.
The DEEP has created and released a聽comprehensive management strategy targeting this environmental initiative, written into聽Public Act 14-94 two years ago. 鈥淪tepped up efforts to reduce waste, divert waste, and recycle are critical to controlling the future costs for waste disposal,鈥� said DEEP Commissioner Robert Klee in a release announcing the department鈥檚 new strategy. 鈥淭he (management plan) outlines realistic steps we will take together to transition our materials management system from a cost driver to an economic driver for our cities and towns, and businesses.鈥�
The management plan looks at ways to improve recycling, increased composting, and calls on municipalities to reduce their waste production by 10 percent. 鈥淓ssentially, 60 percent of the material that would have otherwise gone into a landfill, would go elsewhere,鈥� said Lee Sawyer, a policy officer for the DEEP. 鈥淲e鈥檙e working with (municipalities) to implement strategies.鈥�
According to DEEP, other components of the plan include:
- Strengthening local waste reduction and recycling programs, including Increased enforcement of existing recycling laws and local ordinances.
- Fast-tracking deployment of new technology that more effectively sort recyclables and recover energy and materials of value from waste, including development and strengthening of state incentives for new technologies that generate electricity from waste such as anaerobic digestion and gasification.
- Greater responsibility and participation by corporations that produce materials in sharing in the cost and development of recycling programs.
A Local Look
In the last six months, the city of New Haven has produced more than 286,000 tons of municipal solid waste, according to the city聽Department of Public Works.
Edwin Martinez, the refuse superintendent for the city, said each of the department鈥檚 trucks can collect between 10 tons and 20 tons of solid waste each day on route. 鈥淥ur trucks go out five days a week and they are worked hard,鈥� Martinez said.
Each New Haven household is provided with a 95 gallon recycling can and Martinez said that even if people were to start to recycle more, the bins should still be enough for a weekly collection of recycling. The main problem is that people aren鈥檛 recycling correctly, Martinez said, so many materials end up getting sorted out at the plants after collection.
Further, only about 40 percent of the glass collected in statewide recycling bins actually gets recycled because most pieces are contaminated, according to the DEEP鈥檚 comprehensive management strategy. Things that cannot be recycled include film plastic, shredded paper, wood, electronics, bulky items, textiles, diapers, sanitary products, and other organic waste. Broken glass or glass containers that still have food on them or have been contaminated in transport cannot be recycled, the report notes. The state pays more than $20 per ton to have contaminated recyclables hauled away from recycling plants.
Recycling properly could save taxpayers and businesses $75 million in disposal fees every year, according to the DEEP.
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