Who is a member?
Our members are the local governments of Massachusetts and their elected and appointed leadership.
The Legislature’s Joint Committee on the Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture has granted extensions to a number of bills supported by the MMA related to recycling and solid waste.
Under what is known as Joint Rule 10, legislative committees had a Feb. 2 deadline to issue a favorable report on bills, send them to study (i.e., decline to take further action for the remainder of the legislative session), or grant them extensions.
The following bills, supported by the MMA in testimony during their initial hearing in June, were granted extensions until March 31:
• H. 878: Pertaining to extended producer responsibility for packaging materials
• S. 569: To establish a mattress stewardship plan
• S. 570: Providing for an investigation and study by a special commission relative to mattress recycling
• H. 869: To reduce single-use plastics
• H. 902: To reduce the use of plastic bags
• H. 938: To promote paint recycling
The MMA and other advocates for legislative interventions to address the ongoing challenges associated with recycling market conditions now have until March 31 to push for favorable reports on the pending bills.
A recent MMA webinar, “The State of Waste and Recycling,” part of the virtual Annual Meeting workshop series, discussed the concepts of extended producer responsibility and product stewardship, as well as related legislation.
The MMA has also endorsed legislation that would expand the bottle deposit law to add new categories of beverage containers and increase the deposit from 5 cents to 10 cents. The Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy held a hearing on the bill (S. 2149) and gave it a favorable report. It now awaits action by the Senate Committee on Ways and Means.