STURBRIDGE – The Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) draft Solid Waste Master Plan is self-described as the “pathway to zero waste.” Locally it could be termed “highway to the biggest landfill in the state.”
Released earlier this month, the plan confirmed that recent changes in the Southbridge Barefoot Road landfill permit were not merely a “reallocation.” Instead they were a prelude to hauling in more than 3 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) by 2019.
In June, the DEP changed the permit of the Southbridge landfill (which is about 3,000 feet from the residential neighborhood of McGilpin Road in Sturbridge). No longer will the landfill accept only Southbridge waste. Beginning July 1, it can accept up to 180,000 tons per year of MSW from anywhere. But in 2011 it goes up to 305,000 tons. The year after that, it leaps over every other landfill in the state to take 405,000 tons of trash per year and continues at that level for seven years, according to the Master Plan. At that rate, the landfill will have spent its entire capacity by 2020.
Today there are 16 active landfills in the state. In 10 years, all are planned to be closed but five. By 2030, every current landfill in the state will be closed, according to the plan.
The capacity for all landfills combined for the next 10 years is more than 15 million tons.
Sturbridge resident and attorney Kirstie Pecci is battling in court to turn the Southbridge Board of Health’s approval around. She says DEP’s Master Plan “talks the talk, but it does not walk the walk. We need meaningful reductions in burning and burying our waste now.”
Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Ian Bowles announced that the Master Plan would reduce the amount of trash sent to incinerators, but according to the numbers, the projected incinerator capacity remains at 3,228,033 tons per year for the whole decade.
Pecci countered that unlike the path taken by DEP, “our waste problem has clear, sustainable solutions” that dramatically reduce the burning and burying of valuable raw materials.
An objective of the Master Plan is to increase recycling and composting by providing technical support, requiring waste haulers to provide free recycling, and more aggressively enforcing waste bans on items such as cardboard.
However, “the early phases of the plan reflect the challenging budget conditions the Commonwealth currently faces,” the report states. “As fiscal conditions improve, MassDEP will be poised to make further
investments in reducing waste, increasing recycling, including single-stream recycling, and composting, and reducing disposal of our materials.”
DEP Commissioner Laurie Burt said, “Massachusetts disposes of enough trash each year to fill 74 Fenway Parks, and even with all the progress we've made, too much of that trash still contains materials that can be recycled and reused. This 10 year plan charts a course toward a zero waste future where natural resources are protected and new, green jobs are created.”
By following the plan, the state “should” reduce the amount of waste produced in 2050 by 80 percent “and virtually eliminate products containing toxic chemicals from disposal facilities,” according to the Master Plan.
But that’s 40 years down the road. For the next 10 years, says Pecci, “the DEP is making our home the state’s garbage can. Why should we pay because the DEP has not instituted proper zero waste programs?”
Pecci also asks what Southbridge will do when their landfill is full. Will they “build a new landfill? Pay to have their waste buried or burned somewhere else? If Southbridge stops accepting waste from other communities, and implements their own programs for reducing, reusing, recycling and composting of waste, the landfill could not only last for decades, but be less toxic and dangerous as well.”
Pecci says the plan is rife with quick fixes and lacks real change. She adds that calling the plan the “pathway to zero waste” is just lip service.
The state also exports millions of tons of trash per year.
A public comment period is now open and will close at 5 p.m. on Sept. 15. Comments on the draft Solid Waste Master Plan can be submitted by mail or e-mail to John Fischer, DEP, 1 Winter Street, Boston, 02108 or john.fischer@state.ma.us.