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Yahoo
30-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Sorting through state's trash reveals missed opportunities in recycling and composting
Workers sorted through municipal solid waste, shown here, and construction and demolition debris to get a better understanding of what's in New Hampshire's trash. (Screenshot from presentation by John Culbertson, vice president of MSW Consultants) To get a better understanding of what's in New Hampshire's trash, workers hand-sorted more than 250 samples of garbage around the state and visually surveyed hundreds more. Those findings will be detailed in a waste characterization study set to be released early next month, with a presentation Friday to the state's Solid Waste Working Group offering a preview. John Culbertson, vice president of MSW Consultants, the Florida-based management consulting firm that completed the study, called it 'a sort of Gallup poll of trash.' The study focused on municipal solid waste — such as the trash residents bring to the curb — and construction and demolition debris. 'Those are far and away the largest components of solid waste,' Culbertson said, with the two categories making up 952,699 annual tons, or around 87.5% of the state's solid waste disposal, according to data cited in his presentation. Combining the categories, the team found 41.5% of what was disposed of was not recyclable in New Hampshire. But the other trash included materials that were commonly targeted in recycling programs (14.6%), recyclable through special collection (11.5%), potentially recyclable (8.1%), and recyclable organics (24.3%), such as food waste. The most common refuse found in municipal solid waste was unpackaged food waste (almost 12%), compostable paper (just under 8%), and packaged food waste (roughly 7%). 'What I see is that a very significant amount of the material that we are throwing away in New Hampshire could be recycled or composted or otherwise better managed,' said Reagan Bissonnette, the executive director of the Northeast Resource Recovery Association, a recycling nonprofit, and a member of the working group. Culbertson pointed out that recyclables sorted out of the waste were 'highly contaminated' with liquid and grit, meaning some figures could be an 'overstatement.' Like other statistical work, it comes with a margin of error. 'Our results acknowledge that we just can't ever get a perfect knowledge of what's in your disposed waste stream,' he said, stressing the 'nuance underneath just the reported, high-level numbers.' This study didn't deal with a major hot topic in the state's waste policy discussions: the hundreds of thousands of tons of out-of-state waste that pour into New Hampshire landfills each year, which make up about half of what is dumped there. Nor did researchers venture beyond the state to analyze the composition of New Hampshire trash exports. Instead, it dealt with trash generated and deposited within the state's borders. It offers insights into how the state can work to meet its diversion goals. New Hampshire has a statutory goal — but not a mandate — to reduce solid waste, in weight, by 25% by 2030 and 45% by 2050. These goals specifically target municipal solid waste and construction and demolition debris. The preferred way to minimize that waste, as established in the state's official waste management hierarchy, is to reduce it at its source. Then there's recycling and reuse, composting, waste-to-energy, and incineration, in that order. Landfilling is the last resort. The state has taken some recent steps toward cutting down on food waste. In February, a law went into effect prohibiting 'any person' generating one ton or more of food waste per week from disposing of that waste in a landfill or incinerating it, carving out exceptions if the person is farther than 20 miles from an alternative facility or if there isn't ample capacity at such a facility. The state plans to use federal grant money for a food waste generator study to identify entities subject to the law. Food releases large amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, when dumped in landfills, something supporters of the new law hope it will address. However, food waste bans have often been ineffective in diverting waste from landfills and incinerators. Out of the first five states to implement one, only Massachusetts succeeded in reducing landfill waste, a paper published in Science in September found. Researchers pointed to frequent inspections, an easy-to-understand law with few exceptions, and a strong composting network as factors likely influencing the state's success. The waste characterization study found a significant amount of materials commonly targeted for recycling instead ending up in the state's landfills. Bissonnette said education is key, and also pointed to the success of pay-as-you-throw programs that exist in some New Hampshire communities. Trash tonnage in Concord, for instance, has gone down by 40% since the program was implemented in 2009, according to the city. The reduction was 'pretty much overnight,' Bissonnette said. 'It was so dramatic that city staff called around to other towns to make sure that they weren't suddenly seeing a flood of trash coming from Concord,' Bissonnette said. 'And, no, it really was that people were thinking twice before throwing something away. We saw recycling increase.' There are opportunities to divert more construction and demolition debris, too. Major components of this waste included wood (29%) and shingles (14.4%), according to the presentation. In Littleton, Bissonnette's organization worked on a pilot program with the town that allowed for items that would typically be discarded in a construction and demolition debris container to instead be set aside for others to take home and use. That included materials like clean wood, which others could take to burn or use as building materials, or things like doors and windows. 'It was a really significant amount of material that just within, I think it was about a month-and-a-half pilot program, they were able to divert and keep out of the landfill,' Bissonnette said. 'And in that case, it was getting reused instead of recycled, which is even better.' The study was funded through Solid Waste Infrastructure for Recycling, or SWIFR, funds made available through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The Executive Council approved a $295,500 contract for the project in December 2023. 'A lot of our neighboring states and others have had this information profile, and we felt it would be really important to use these federal funds to get our own data,' said Michael Wimsatt, director of the Department of Environmental Services' waste management division, at the meeting. He added: 'It's not going to be apples-to-apples comparisons (to other states), but I think it's really going to help us.'
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
A big step forward in New Hampshire's efforts to reduce food waste
Food waste makes up about a quarter of the general trash that New Hampshire businesses and homes produce. (Photo by Matt Vasilogambros/Stateline) Next month, New Hampshire launches a new law to cut food waste, and in the process eventually save landfill space and reduce the methane gas emissions that drive climate change. Other potential upsides of the Feb. 1 start for the food waste law? New sources of healthy food for pantries and shelters, fertilizer for farms, and jobs transporting, processing, and marketing the food that once just got trucked and dumped. Under the new law, similar to those in neighboring states, facilities that create more than a ton of food waste a week will redirect that waste from landfills and incinerators to alternative management facilities that either recover edible food to feed people and animals, or use composting or anaerobic digestion to process wasted food into useable byproducts. Hospitals, colleges, restaurants, correctional facilities, stadiums, convention centers, large hotels, and big-box grocery stores are all likely contributors on the ton-a-week-plus side, but no producer of food waste will be required to transport that waste unless a management facility with adequate capacity is within 20 miles. The law came out of the state's Solid Waste Working Group headed by Rep. Karen Ebel, a New London Democrat, as a key part of the state goal to reduce disposal of solid waste tonnage by 25% by 2030 and 45% by 2050. New Hampshire's Department of Environmental Services (NHDES) is now seeking proposals for a consultant, to be hired with the approval of the governor and Executive Council, to help determine who exactly is affected by the new law, and begin working out logistics for education, transportation, and diversion. Even a small dent in the amount of food waste dumped in landfills makes a big difference: Food waste makes up about a quarter of the general trash that New Hampshire businesses and homes produce. In 2023, New Hampshire dumped roughly 171,785 tons of food waste, according to estimates from Michael Nork of the NHDES Solid Waste Management Bureau. In Vermont, a similar law has decreased food waste in landfills by 13%. In Massachusetts, with the most successful program in the country, one study indicated a 13.2% reduction in all landfill waste because of the law, and a 25% reduction in methane emissions. 'As New Hampshire develops a network of food waste management facilities within easy reach of the larger producers, we hope not only that landfill space will be saved and methane emissions will be reduced, but that the cost of transporting food waste from producers to management facilities will drop, saving businesses money,' said Nork of NHDES. New England's largest grocery store chain is already operating an effective food waste diversion program across all six states. Hannaford no longer takes any food waste from its 183 stores to a landfill – decreasing landfill disposal by 65 million pounds in 2020 alone. One boost to help food waste generators and management facilities divert food waste from landfill disposal is a $500,000 grant program appropriated by the New Hampshire Legislature. Grant funds will help with implementation of the law by providing financial assistance to increase infrastructure capacity for those who want to explore transportation operations or create or expand composting and digester sites. Jennifer Mitchell of NHDES, who is managing the implementation and operation of the new law, said money from that grant could be available to help manage food waste by deferring costs associated with compliance of the ban. For example, potential use of the funds could go toward the purchase of a new truck for a food bank that wants to increase mobile food distribution capacity. NHDES will need to develop rules to establish this new grant program, and intends to hold listening sessions over the coming year to help inform that process. As composting sites and digesters ramp up, and food pantry transportation replaces landfill dumping of good food, food waste producers should see not only a dramatically better outcome for their leftovers, but the potential reduction in costs from the current $100 a ton they pay to simply 'waste' food that has far better uses. To her great credit, Gov. Kelly Ayotte has made clear her strong opposition to a proposed new mega-landfill in New Hampshire's North Country. This is great news for finally getting New Hampshire off the never-ending treadmill of landfill expansions. The launch of New Hampshire's new food-waste law will play an essential role in pivoting the Granite State away from its historic focus on waste disposal to a new, more sustainable focus on waste reduction. Our communities, environment, and economy will all benefit.
