Overview
Bury, burn and waste?
• In Massachusetts,
we bury, burn or export 53 percent of our waste.
• According to the Department of Environmental Protection, the “...growth
[of recycling] has leveled off and we continue to dispose of materials that
have significant value.”
• Of all the garbage we generate, one-third is excess packaging that
gets thrown away immediately.
Or something new . . .
Instead of our government figuring out how to “manage” our waste by
looking for more places to bury or burn it, we should launch an ambitious plan
to reduce —and reuse and recycle the rest.
• Reduce: Less than 5 percent of plastic bags ever get recycled, so many
stores and municipalities are phasing them out altogether in favor of reusable
bags.
• Reuse: If all we did was update the Bottle Bill to include more containers,
in one year we’d recycle enough containers to fill up Fenway Park
to the Monster seats.
• Recycle: Recycled content requirements have helped build markets for
recycled materials, cutting back significantly on waste.
The Zero Waste solution
Every 10 years the Commonwealth puts together a plan for dealing with
waste, the Solid Waste Master Plan. The current plan expires next year.
That
plan could take us down the same-old path of "managing" waste by
burning and burying. Or, we could finally change direction and set out
an ambitious plan to change course, by enacting smart policies to
reduce, reuse and recycle the waste that currently winds up in
landfills and incinerators
MASSPIRG is working to push back against burying and burning and
for much more ambitious goals to reduce, reuse and recycle—to move toward zero
waste in Massachusetts.
