May 15, 2009

Editorial

More money for less litter

NOW THAT snow has vanished from roadsides, the annual crop of new litter is all too visible. Empty plastic or glass bottles of water, tea, and fruit drinks are ubiquitous, not least because there is no deposit required for them, as there is for beer and soda containers. The state should extend the bottle bill to all beverages, and require that all unclaimed deposits go toward the state's anemic efforts to increase municipal trash recycling.

Instead, state officials working on a solid-waste master plan are giving serious consideration to ending the 19-year-old moratorium on new incinerators. Pressure for such a move is coming from builders of trash-to-energy facilities. They tout the incinerators as less harmful to the environment than the alternative of landfilling solid waste, which produces a greenhouse gas, methane, and often pollutes wells, rivers, and underground aquifers. The environmental impact of landfills is especially damaging when the state first exports the trash to a distant state in carbon-emitting trucks or trains.

But incinerators, a major source of toxic mercury, can be as hard on air quality as landfills are on water quality. The top priority in any master plan should be to reduce the generation of waste, which should include take-back requirements on electronics manufacturers. The next emphasis should be on improvements to recycling.

Massachusetts residents now recycle at a paltry rate of less than 40 percent. The state could do better if it steered most of the almost $40 million in unredeemed deposit funds to recycling initiatives. These could include more convenient collection methods, such as single-stream recycling, in which paper, glass, plastic, and metal objects all go in one container. The state could also help communities move to "pay as you throw" systems in which a per-bag fee on curbside trash motivates residents to recycle more. Already, about 120 towns and cities have adopted this approach.

Still, less than $3 million of the unclaimed bottle money goes toward recycling. Governor Patrick has called for expanding the bottle bill to include water and juice containers, but even his budget earmarks just a fraction of the uncollected deposits for recycling.

The economic downturn has weakened markets for many recycled materials. But demand and prices will increase as conditions improve. The challenge for the state will be to generate more recycling to take advantage of that uptick when it comes. Approving new waste-to-energy incinerators now would move the state in the opposite direction and undercut efforts to achieve European-level recycling.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2009/05/15/more_money_for_less_litter/