Charlestown could do better, too
By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff
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| Charlestown is in the bracket for towns without curbside pickup, where trash is either brought to a transfer station or picked up by a private contractor. Compared to similar towns, Charlestown is not the worst, but is far from the best. |
Nearly 12 years after the state imposed recycling and waste diversion mandates on its cities and towns, most municipalities still struggle to achieve them.
EDITOR'S NOTE: As early as 1986, Charlestown resisted mandatory recycling. According to a letter from Charlestown Public Works Director Alan Arsenault, Charlestown would be unable to comply because, he predicted, part-time and summer residents would not cooperate so the town should be exempt. The letter also makes the dubious claim that mandatory recycling would be bad for tourism. Read that letter HERE. - Will Collette.
The Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation (RIRRC),
the quasi-public state agency that operates the Central Landfill in Johnston,
recently released its annual report detailing
how much every city and town in the state is recycling, and how much waste they
are sending to the landfill.
Last year’s results were abysmal. Only 15 of the state’s
39 municipalities met or exceeded the 35% recycling rate mandated by a 2012 state law. Their
waste diversion rates were even worse. The same law requires municipalities to
divert at least 50% of overall waste sent to the landfill. Only two met the
minimum in 2023: North Kingstown and Portsmouth.
By far the state’s worst-performing municipality, according to the report, remains Providence. It’s the only municipality whose recycling and diversion rates sit comfortably in single digits. The capital city last year had a recycling rate of only 7.8%, and its diversion rate was only 8.3%.
It’s nearly half of what the city accomplished in 2020,
when the recycling and diversion rates were 15% and 15.2%, respectively. The
city also had 624 pounds of rejected recycling per household, according to the
report.
“Providence is engaging in a multipronged approach to
expand and enhance recycling rates across the city, and support infrastructure
expansions for food waste diversion for businesses, institutions, and
households,” Josh Estrella, press secretary for Providence Mayor Brett Smiley,
said.
The city received a $3.4 million grant last year to
improve composting and start a pilot recycling program for businesses, Estrella
said. The grant also included money for the city’s Department of Public Works
to deploy new trash and recycling bins on two of the busiest route days.
Providence has its own recycling goals. The city has
pledged to increase residential recycling rates; reach a 30%
recycling rate by the end of the decade; and eliminate food waste by 2040.
The second-worst performing municipality for recycling?
The landfill’s own host town, Johnston. According to the report, Johnston had a
recycling rate of 13.6% last year, and an overall diversion rate of 13.7%.
Meanwhile, many of the state’s rural towns with no
curbside collection tended to have better recycling and diversion rates. On
average, the 13 rural towns had a recycling rate of 40%.
Statewide, the recycling rate sits at 29.6%, and the
overall diversion rate is a smidge higher, at 30.7%.
The report’s numbers come with a couple caveats, as the
data is ultimately incomplete. Only residential areas are required to send
their trash and recycling to the Central Landfill, either through curbside
collection or by taking it to a transfer station.
All other areas, including schools, institutions, and
commercial and industrial zones, are still required to recycle, but typically
do so by contracting pickup via a third party. Where that trash and recycling
goes isn’t tracked, leaving the true numbers of how much Rhode Island is
throwing away or recycling a mystery.
Improving recycling efforts and reducing the amount of
waste Rhode Island produces are important environmental solutions, and they
come with a very real due date. Currently, the Central Landfill, the only
active one remaining in Rhode Island, is expected to reach its maximum capacity
by 2040, just over 15 years away.
What will happen after that remains to be decided. The
state will have three options: continue expanding the current site; build a new
landfill somewhere else in Rhode Island; or start shipping the state’s waste
out of state. Shipping waste out of state is prohibitively expensive, and
finding a place for a new landfill is expected to be widely unpopular.
Meanwhile, the General Assembly is considering a number
of bills to reduce the amount of waste sent to the landfill. The
legislature’s study commission on
a bottle deposit system, in which individuals can return empty plastic bottles
and cans for a small fee, is expected to release its policy recommendations
within the next month.
Also under consideration this year is an extended producer responsibility for packaging program (H7023). Single-use packaging is around 16% of the waste landfilled in Johnston every year.
The legislation, heard in committee earlier this year and held for further study, would require manufacturers to reduce the amount of packaging material used in packaging products and ensure that the material used reaches certain recycling rate standards.