RecyclingMonster - Boston’s looking to cut down on waste by expanding composting and recycling programs, with the goal of cutting trash by 90% by 2050 — even as other cities and towns chuck their increasingly costly recycling programs.
“The city’s not giving up on recycling,” said Brian Coughlin, Boston’s superintendent of waste reduction. “Something needs to be done, and if we just stop recycling, nothing’s going to happen.”
Coughlin, along with Chief of Streets Christopher Osgood and Christopher Cook, the city’s environmental chief, announced the rollout on Tuesday of Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s “Zero Waste Boston” plan, which is trying to reduce waste significantly by doubling down on recycling initiatives and contracting a residential composting program.
The city plans to put out two requests for proposals in the coming weeks, Osgood said. One will be for an optional residential composting program, in which people can pay to have a to-be-determined company pick up whatever compost — made up of organic matter like food — people leave out.
The other RFP will be for a program to recycle textiles through a free curbside service. The city also will be offering 20 more weekends of access to drop off yard waste at the city’s facility on American Legion Highway.
Osgood wouldn’t estimate how much any of this is going to cost the city. Officials also wouldn’t speculate about how much people would have to pay to get the service, but they did point to Denver’s program, which costs $117 a year.
The city also plans educational campaigns to show people what they can’t throw in the recycling bin, such as items with food on them as well as styrofoam and plastic bags.
All of these initiatives are optional — they’re meant to inform people or provide other options — but city officials insist educating people about recycling and offering more choices will be readily received.
“There is a significant appetite for a lot of these services,” Osgood said.
This comes at a turbulent time for the recycling industry at large as changes in policy in countries such as China that used to buy shipped-out U.S. recycling left a scant market. Boston hasn’t turned a profit on recycling since 2017, though it’s still generally cheaper to dispose of than the same weight of trash, officials said.
Between the falling prices for recycled products and people’s difficulty navigating what actually can be recycled, some municipalities have canned their programs. But officials insist that if the city’s residents recycle well and therefore Boston has a more clean product to put out, the market is still there for it.
Courtesy : www.bostonherald.com
