Waste Disposal Rules To Impact Hotels, Food Stores
To reduce waste disposal by 2 million tons per year by 2020, hotels, grocery chains and other large institutions in Massachusetts will face a ban on food and organic waste and the state's solid waste incinerator moratorium will be modified, under an updated solid waste master plan draft released Thursday by the Patrick administration.
State environmental officials hope to increase recycling, and through changes to the incinerator ban, encourage private development of new technologies that convert waste into fuels, according to Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Kenneth Kimmell. Environmental groups are not happy about the incinerator changes, arguing incentivizing alternative technologies will hurt recycling.
There are seven solid waste incinerators across the state. For the past 20 years, the state has had a moratorium in place on the expansion capacity of incinerators. During that time, waste has continued to grow, and there is not enough capacity to handle it, state environmental officials said. By 2020, there will be 700,000 tons of waste material that will be unable to be recycled, burned or put in a landfill.
State environment officials hope half of that waste overflow will be taken care of by alternative technologies such as gasification – the process of putting waste material into a high heat system that breaks it down into its basic components, turning it into gas or liquid fuel that can be transformed into energy, DEP officials said. The draft rules would allow 350,000 tons per year for gasification statewide.
"The blanket moratorium has had the effect of possibly stifling new technology," Kimmell said. "The change we are making today is designed to allow some promising new technologies to make their case and to give cities and towns some new options in addition to landfilling or incineration."
Private companies run gasification facilities, which require state approvals to operate. One company is running a pilot program in Waltham.
Sue Reid, director of the Conservation Law Foundation in Massachusetts, said the gasification process could lead to harmful emissions.
"We are concerned about the potential for facilities that will introduce new damaging air pollution," Reid said.
Environmentalists also fear some recyclable material will instead be used in the gasification process to produce fuel, Reid said.
"It is at odds with achieving our recycling objectives. You have mixed incentives," she said. "You can recycle a bottle or you can use it as fuel. It makes a lot more sense to recycle it."
Chance To Boost Recycling?
Janet Domenitz, executive director of MassPIRG, described the gasification proposal as "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory." DEP is "throwing away" a chance to increase recycling efforts, she said.
Gasification is a burning process, Domenitz said, adding "we should not be in any way shape or form combusting waste. We should be reducing it and recycling it."
"They say it is different from incineration, and I say you put lipstick on a pig and it is still a pig," Domenitz said.
Also under the DEP plan, hotels, grocery stores, restaurants, and universities will face a phased-in waste ban on food and other organic material starting in 2014.
Currently, up to 25 percent of solid waste is organics and food, according to DEP. The Patrick administration's plan attempts to reduce that by increasing composting or encouraging anaerobic digestion, a process where waste products are broken down into organic into bio-gases in large tanks.
DEP is focusing on larger institutions like hotels, universities, restaurants and grocery store chains for its food waste ban, but eventually hopes to fold in residential restrictions, according to DEP spokesman Ed Coletta.
Kimmell described the food waste ban as an "ambitious" plan that was well-received among the food industry. Many grocery store chains and restaurants already send food waste to farms for composting rather than incinerators, he said.
"Composting is great, but a better use would be anaerobic digesters," Kimmell said.
Stephen Clark, director of government affairs at the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, said the restaurant industry is still analyzing the impact. Clark said, in his understanding of the guidelines, restaurants would be limited to one ton of waste per week.
"Many restaurants are below one ton of food waste a week. That is a lot of food waste," Clark said.
Clark said some restaurants are already composting, but not the majority. The biggest question restaurateurs have is how they will measure their waste, Clark said. "We are not sure how it is going to impact restaurants yet. It remains to be seen. We are investigating it," he said.
The master plan has been in the works since 2010, with most of the proposals already receiving public comment.
Other provisions of the plan include more DEP inspections of landfills, incinerators and transfer stations to check compliance with regulations. DEP is also proposing requiring solid waste facilities to hire independent third-parties to regularly inspect incoming trash loads.
DEP will offer municipalities performance targets tied to financial and other incentives to increase community recycling and compositing.
The plan also makes manufacturers of paint, carpets and pesticides responsible for their disposal. DEP plans to expand the existing "Recycling Works in Massachusetts" program, a statewide effort to help businesses and institutions increase recycling, composting, and reduce waste.
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