The Sierra Club offered commentary about the 90% Recycling rate achieved on Nantucket:
Learning from Nantucket
[Great footnoted article! There are links at the bottom of the article that offer recycling rates per municipality and much else.]
MASSPIRG has included Solid Waste issues, as well as Reduce, Reuse, Recycle among their focus and has been among those supporting the Expanded Bottle Bill recently enacted.
At the bottom, is an article about PAYT [Pay As You Throw] which makes far more sense than the unlimited trash disposal offered in Middleboro.
There's much that can be accomplished with sensible policies that reduce the volume.
Cape's garbage removal contract talks advance
Long-running talks over what happens with Cape Cod's trash after the existing disposal contracts run out at the end of 2014 have reached a tipping point.
After push-back last week from a regional group negotiating new contracts, Covanta Energy — the global company that owns the SEMASS Resource Recovery Facility in Rochester where most of the region's trash is taken — has a new offer on the table.
"I think we're there," Thomas Cipolla, business manager at SEMASS, said Monday.
Covanta had offered a group of communities both on and off the Cape a price of between $66 and $71 per ton, based on the total amount of trash sent to SEMASS, plus a 2.5 percent increase annually for the life of the 10-year-contract.
That price would be partially offset by between 25 cents and $1 per ton Covanta would provide for recycling, recycling education or energy conservation measures in each town. Towns that didn't come up with a minimum amount of trash based on 2012 figures would pay a penalty.
"The best price was about $65 for 120,000 tons annually," Harwich Town Administrator James Merriam said, referring to the combined tonnage for the towns. .
Currently most Cape towns pay $37.50 per ton to dispose of solid waste at SEMASS. Wellfleet pays $18.50 per ton and Bourne has its own landfill.
Falmouth has already agreed to ship its trash to Bourne's landfill for $58 per ton. Brewster signed a new contract with SEMASS in 2010 at $45 per ton until 2015 then $70 per ton plus a 2.5 percent increase annually until 2030.
Train pickup would be provided at the South Yarmouth railhead by 2015 or there would be $5 off per ton.
Yarmouth is negotiating separately with Covanta for both a disposal contract and the operation of the town's railhead.
Participants in a regional solid waste advisory committee formed by the Cape Cod Commission balked at Covanta's proposed terms during a meeting Wednesday, arguing that the minimum requirement penalizes recycling incentives such as "pay-as-you-throw" plans that charge residents per bag of garbage.
In response, Covanta agreed to adjust the minimum tons to reflect up-to-date estimates and to allow towns to adjust the amount again in 2017. That's 2½ years earlier than previously proposed. In return for the concession, the company added 50 cents to its fee across every pricing tier.
"Some communities are still concerned about the penalties," Merriam said.
Barnstable Public Works Director Daniel Santos said that, ultimately, the goal is for communities that participated in the joint negotiations to agree on the best course of action.
"We're going to look at it in the next couple of days," he said.
Unlike Barnstable, which has a town council form of government, most of the remaining 21 towns involved in the negotiations have received approval through town meeting to allow selectmen to move forward with negotiations with Covanta.
Covanta is pushing for a show of support for the new terms from selectmen and the Barnstable Town Council by the end of the month.
With a year and a half left before the existing contracts with SEMASS expire, towns don't have too much time left to decide, Cipolla said.
"If I'm a town manager, I want to try to lock this up sooner than later," he said.
Merriam and others, however, said they expect towns will look at all options in front of them before making a decision.
"There's nothing pressing us for June 2013 except Covanta," Merriam said.
New Bedford Waste Services looks to undercut SEMASS
NEW BEDFORD — It doesn't look like much right now but if Michael Camara has his way, a 68-acre parcel of wooded land just off the Cranberry Highway in Rochester will soon host an environment-friendly facility capable of processing all the refuse and recyclables communities on Cape Cod and elsewhere can produce.
"It's a viable green project," Camara said Monday during an interview inside the offices of his family's company, New Bedford Waste Services LLC, on Shawmut Avenue.
In what some are calling an eleventh-hour bid, Camara, who is president of the company, is vying for contracts to get his hands on trash and recyclable materials from Cape towns.
A cadre of towns from Southeastern Massachusetts, including 11 communities on the Cape, have been involved in long-running negotiations for new disposal contracts starting in 2015 with Covanta Energy, which currently turns trash from the region into electricity at SEMASS, its incinerator in Rochester.
Officials involved in those negotiations say that while Camara's proposed 90,000-square-foot facility sounds interesting and his price of $60 per ton is between $6.50 and $11.50 less per ton than Covanta's latest offer, they still have concerns about permitting and his ability to deliver on his promises.
"What they're offering is the kind of thing that most consumers on the Cape would really like to get to," said Sims McGrath, chairman of the Orleans selectmen and a participant in the negotiations with Covanta.
The idea of reducing the amount of material that is burned or dumped in landfills through higher rates of recycling is a priority, but it's hard to sell constituents on a facility that doesn't exist yet, he said.
"As much as I think their program is a preferential program, I can't see blowing off SEMASS for a maybe," McGrath said.
SEMASS business manager Thomas Cipolla said his facility has a proven track record of dependability with the towns it serves, and his company has been through exhaustive talks with local officials.
"I think the communities are comfortable that we're going to be there for a number of years," Cipolla said.
Camara, however, says he wasn't given a chance to make his case although he was promised a chance to meet with the regional solid waste advisory committee organized by the Cape Cod Commission.
"That never happened," he said.
The new facility would include both recycling and a new technology to create burnable briquettes out of solid waste that is first sorted for recyclables and cleaned of hazardous materials, Camara said.
In a building across the street from his office, Camara showed off the briquettes the company is producing using a scaled-down version of the machinery.
Solid waste is processed into Eco-Tac fuel briquettes through a proprietary technology developed by WERC-2 of Pocasset, he said, adding that the silver-dollar-size gray briquettes will look more like backyard charcoal briquettes when they come out of the new facility.
The briquettes can be burned in coal plants but give off fewer emissions, fewer particulates and less ash than coal, he said.
The briquettes, which cannot be burned legally in Massachusetts, are being sent to prospective customers elsewhere for testing and to gauge their interest, he said, adding that the company already has letters of intent signed with customers interested in buying the briquettes as well as financing the project.
The facility will cost $16 million, $13 million of which will go toward the recycling side of the process and $3 million toward the solid waste processing technology, Camara said.
Camara says his new facility will achieve a 90 percent recycling rate and its roof will be covered with 80,000 square feet of solar panels.
And while some Cape towns are able to move trash to SEMASS by rail, Camara said he plans to buy new trucks powered by natural gas that can make the trip with even less impact on the environment.
Perhaps most important for towns trying to reduce the amount of trash their residents produce by encouraging recycling, Camara said he won't have a minimum for the amount of trash the towns must deliver without a penalty, as the SEMASS proposal does.
The project has received approval from the Rochester conservation commission and is expected to receive approval from the planning board this week, he said.
The company is awaiting approval from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection of a minor modification for its existing permit at the property where New Bedford Waste Services currently operates a transfer facility, he said.
DEP spokesman Edmund Coletta said the agency received an application for the project in May and it is still within a 24-day review period to determine whether it is complete.
The company has 180 days to respond to any questions state officials may have about the application, he said.
Once the application is deemed complete a technical review period will begin, during which the DEP has 72 days to decide whether to approve the permit, Coletta said.
Even if the facility isn't built, Camara says, he can handle the Cape's trash at his existing facilities.
Most of the towns involved in the negotiations with Covanta are expected to make at least a preliminary decision on the SEMASS proposal by the end of the month.
Covanta versus New Bedford Waste Services
Covanta Energy's latest offer to the Cape towns for accepting trash at SEMASS in Rochester; all tiers would include a 2.5 percent increase annually for life of the contract.
- $66.50 for more than 120,000 tons
- $67 for 105,000 to 119,999 tons
- $67.50 for 90,000 to 104,999 tons
- $69 for 75,000 to 89,999 tons
- $70.50 for 50,000 to 74,999 tons
- $71.50 for up to 50,000 tons
New Bedford Waste Services' offer to Cape towns for accepting trash at its planned facility in Rochester
$60 per ton with no minimum amount required plus 2.5 percent increase annually for life of contract
PAYT program starts July 1
Here's a list of stores selling the municipal 'orange' bags
Wicked Local Plymouth
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