Vermont is far from its goal of diverting half the state’s solid waste away from expensive landfills and into recycle bins and compost piles, state legislators acknowledged.
It’s time to consider statewide mandatory recycling and more potent financial incentives, state solid waste regulators stated in a new report. The reports calls for a new emphasis on collaboration with manufacturers and retailers to prevent waste before it’s ever created.
Nearly two decades ago, Vermont set a goal of recycling 40 percent of solid waste from homes and businesses. In 2001, that goal was raised to 50 percent.
The actual rate is about 30 percent and has remained there “for the past five or more years,” the regulators reported.
“A new strategy is needed to improve how solid waste is managed in Vermont,” the report commented.
Waste prevention and recycling are the state’s top solid waste goals because landfills can pose environmental hazards and because they are so costly to site, build and operate. That’s if they can be built at all. The Chittenden Solid Waste District has been stuck for 17 years so far in its attempt to open a landfill in Williston.
The 845,000 tons of trash recycled or placed in landfills in Vermont in 2005 “was enough to fill about 30,750 tractor-trailer trucks lined end-to-end the length of Vermont and back,” according to the state Solid Waste Program.
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