Governor Chafee comes to Charlestown to sign Walsh-Rumsey food scrap recycling bill

Legislation will take tons of food waste out of landfills for reuse as compost, farm feed or green energy

Left to right: Sen. Sue Sosnowski, Rep. Donna Walsh and Sen. Cathie
Cool Rumsey. They not only have overlapping interest in protecting the
environment, but also overlapping districts

By Will Collette

Last Friday, on a bright and beautiful afternoon, Governor Lincoln Chafee came to Charlestown’s Earth Care Farm, site of Rhode Island’s only large-scale composting business, for the ceremonial signing of a new law that will require large Rhode Island institutions to stop sending food waste to landfills,

This practice contributes to global warming, since when organic wastes decompose in the anaerobic environment of a landfill, they produce methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

The Governor handed ceremonial pens and framed versions of the bill to House sponsor Rep. Donna Walsh, Senate sponsor Cathie Cool Rumsey, and Sen. Sue Sosnowski, who chairs the Senate Environment and Agriculture Committee.

About 25% of all the waste that goes into Rhode Island’s Central Landfill is wasted food. Earth Care Farm’s owner Mike Merner pointed out that only 1% of food waste gets composted.

Mike Merner spoke passionately about his mission to preserve the
environment by enriching the soil. Two mountains of finished compost
served as a backdrop. We were about 50 feet away and there was no odor

Rep. Walsh and Senators Cool Rumsey and Sosnowski all stressed that diverting that food waste will save state and local governments money and open the way for new green businesses and green jobs, but Merner also noted the much broader point that “soil is the foundation of our health.”

For over a generation, Merner has been a visionary for that principle – by closing the cycle, we enrich our soil, improve the quality and quantity of foods we grow and eat, enhance our health and clean our environment.

Earth Care is also partnered up with the Compost Plant (featured here). The Compost Plant has signed up several institutions already, such as Roger Williams University, for the pick-up of food waste that is brought to Earth Care Farm for composting.

Rep. Walsh’s website gives this description of what the new law will do:

The legislation (2014-H 7033Aaa,2014-S 2315Aaa) will require the institutions it affects, beginning Jan. 1, 2016, to separate organic waste including food scraps, food processing residue and soiled, nonrecyclable paper from their trash and either compost it, arrange to have it used agriculturally, such as for animal feed—feeding it to pigs quite literally turns garbage back into food—or have it processed by a composting or anaerobic digesting facility.

The expectation is that as institutions sign on, there will be more business activity, such as at least one anaerobic digester that converts food waste into biofuel with a compost byproduct, though that compost is far from being as good as Earth Care Farm’s since Merner has been extremely scrupulous about making sure that material coming in for composting is uncontaminated.

Of course, Earth Care Farm should see a sharp up-tick in their business as well.

Also present at the ceremony was Charlestown Town Council President Tom Gentz, who was invited by the Governor as a courtesy.

He mumbled through a prepared statement that showed he had no idea what was in the bill. Gentz did note, apropos of nothing, that he knew Charlestown had a lot of farms. Good to know.

Gentz and the CCA Party-controlled Town Council did not adopt a resolution to support this legislation.

Gentz reading his prepared nonsequitors in front of big piles of fertilizer

It seems odd that the CCA Party did not support this food waste bill, given their claims to be the protectors of Charlestown’s environment. 

But maybe it’s not so odd given that Democrats - Donna Walsh and Cathie Cool Rumsey - were the bill's sponsors.

But perhaps more to the point, neither the CCA Party in general nor Gentz in particular seem to care very much about the environment, other than playing the NIMBY when one of their favored groups are affected.

Even then, as we see in the on-going Copar mess, they won’t take truly effective action.

The CCA Council members have never cared all that much about recycling and blew off ex-Town Administrator Bill DiLibero when he tried to draw their attention to Charlestown’s poor recycling record. Watch this Clerkbase clip for a prime example of what I mean.

But here’s an example that really shows the kind of environmentalists we’re dealing with. Go to the minutes for the Charlestown Town Council meeting for February 14, 2011. The Council received a request from the town of Jamestown to sign on to a resolution supporting “Extended Producer Responsibility.”

Rep. Donna Walsh has been working tirelessly on this for the past eight years, to make it easier for consumers to deal with products that should not be put in landfills (paint, electronics, batteries, plastics, tires, etc.) by holding the makers at least partially responsible.

The Town Council voted by three to two to sign on to Jamestown’s resolution. Councilors Tom Gentz and Lisa DiBello voted NO.

According to the official minutes of the meeting:

Motion made by Mrs. Frank and seconded by Mr. Avedisian to support the resolution. Mr. Gentz stated that the resolution is onerous and that he would not support it. Mr. Gentz asked for a roll call vote. ROLL CALL:  Mr. Avedisian-Yes; Ms. DiBello-No; Mrs. Frank-Yes; Mr. Slattery-Yes; Mr. Gentz-No. The motion passed.

Click here to see the video. “Onerous?” Really?

With his record on the environment, and especially on recycling, Gentz had some gall showing up at the bill signing at Earth Care Farm. But maybe he was just there to enforce Charlestown’s new border control policy.