[B]URLINGTON — Beginning next week, state law will require recycling containers to be located in all public buildings and property, and solid waste haulers must offer curbside service for residential recycling.
Act 148 was unanimously passed by the Vermont Legislature in 2012 and since then the Statehouse in Montpelier has implemented a similar recycling program. Starting July 1, the rest of the state will be required to offer the same options when it comes to recycling.
Deb Markowitz, secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, discussed the reasoning behind the law at a news conference Thursday in front of the Burlington location of the Resource Building Materials store. For the event, Resource employees created a podium out of old books.
“You know, we are right now in the middle of rebooting recycling in Vermont,” Markowitz said. “And it’s going very well.”
The law bans the disposal of certain solid waste that could be recycled, including aluminum, glass, plastic, paper, cardboard and boxboard beginning Wednesday. The law also provides incentives to reduce waste by implementing a Pay As You Throw program for materials collected from residential customers based on volume or weight.
“We’re at a stage in our collective life where we recognize that we can’t afford to just throw stuff away,” Markowitz said.
The Pay As You Throw program will change the way communities pay to have their waste hauled away each week by charging people based on the amount of waste they send to the landfill. It is also referred to as variable rate pricing.
Facility owners, such as businesses or public use buildings, that offer trash collection must additionally pick up leaf and yard debris beginning July 1; they were required to offer the collection of recyclables last year. The facilities cannot charge a separate fee on the collection of residential recyclables, but can charge commercial haulers for collection of recyclables, according to the summary sheet of Act 148. Haulers cannot charge for collection of leaf and yard debris and will not be able to charge for the collection of food scraps when that is required July 1, 2017.
Though the law will officially go into effect Wednesday, Markowitz said she is not worried about enforcement yet. She said she is more concerned with focusing on compliance, as she is sure some small towns will “wake up” July 2 and say they have never heard of the law.
This is the latest step in Act 148, and more requirements of the law will take effect over the next five years. The disposal of leaf and yard debris and clean wood waste as regular trash will be banned as of July 1, 2016, and food scraps banned from disposal by 2020. There will also be parallel collection at curbside for leaf and yard debris July 1, 2016, and food scraps July 1, 2017.
The goal of the bans established by Act 148, or the Universal Recycling Law, is to send a message to the public and private sector that recyclable materials will be available for use, which causes an incentive to invest in infrastructure to meet the demand, according to the summary sheet.
Claire Innes, marketing and outreach coordinator for the Chittenden Solid Waste District, said residents and businesses in Chittenden County kept 80 million pounds of materials that could be recycled out of the landfill this year. Innes said that there is still more that can be done and that a third of what Chittenden County residents and businesses send to the landfill could have been recycled.
“Act 148 provides us with a goal — to trim that waste stream,” Innes said.
Tipping fees increased
Also on July 1, the recycling tipping fee is being raised for those whose waste and recycling is picked up by Chittenden Solid Waste District haulers, which pick up for residents outside and inside Chittenden County. The fee for in-county and out-of-county residents will be $21 per ton. Currently, the tipping fee is $6 per ton for those inside Chittenden County and $11 per ton for those outside the county.
That fee, paid by haulers, will likely be passed on to residents whose recycling is picked up by Chittenden Solid Waste District, Innes said.
The last time the fee changed was July 1, 2014, when it went from free to $6 a ton for Chittenden County residents and from $10 to $11 a ton for non-Chittenden County residents, according to the Chittenden Solid Waste District tip fee history.
The last time the non-Chittenden County residents’ typical tipping fee was this expensive was January 2010, when it was $25 a ton. The last time Chittenden County residents’ typical tipping fee was that high was in June 1996, when it was $30 a ton.
