Who is a member?
Our members are the local governments of Massachusetts and their elected and appointed leadership.
On Sept. 28, the Healey-Driscoll administration announced the award of $5.2 million in grants to 283 municipalities and regional solid waste districts for recycling, composting, and waste reduction programs.
Gov. Maura Healey said the grants, from the Department of Environmental Protection’s Sustainable Materials Recovery Program “help further our collective efforts to meet our aggressive goal of 90% waste reduction by 2050, while also boosting local economies by investing in the waste reduction industry.”
The SMRP’s Recycling Dividends Program is distributing $3.65 million to 278 municipalities and regional districts to improve community recycling efforts.
Other projects eligible for SMRP awards include pay-as-you-throw programs, mattress recycling, household hazardous waste collection, and food waste diversion.
The towns of Arlington, Marshfield, North Attleborough and Westborough received pay-as-you-throw awards of between $150,000 and $300,000 each, totaling more than $1 million.
Eleven municipalities were awarded $10,000 each to provide mattress collection containers, as the ban on the disposal of mattresses and box springs approaches its one-year anniversary on Nov. 1. (View the MMA webinar on this topic.)
The South Shore Recycling Cooperative, which represents 12 communities, received a grant of $250,000 to establish a regional household hazardous waste facility at the Hanover Transfer Station, where area residents will be able to bring hazardous waste year-round, with materials collected from the station monthly.
Medford received a $105,000 grant for wheeled-carts for curbside collection of food waste, and Nahant and Norwood received funding for a curbside food waste collection pilot program.
The SMRP grant program was created by the Green Communities Act of 2008, which required a portion of state proceeds from the sale of Waste Energy Certificates to be directed to waste-reduction programs approved by the MassDEP. The SMRP has awarded more than $55 million to recycling programs since 2010.