“I am not so sure our goal should be no net export of waste,” Robert Golledge Jr., the new commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), told the nearly 100 attendees of a recent meeting of the Construction Materials Recycling Association (CMRA) New England Chapter.
Golledge made the remark in relation to his talk on the proposed Massachusetts C&D disposal ban. He admitted progress had been slow on getting the ban in place, but expected public hearings on the ban would be over by June and that it is only a matter of time after the hearings that the ban should be in place.
Golledge’s other main subject in his speech to the group was a proposed 70-cent-per ton fee on C&D waste going to landfills. He tried to persuade the group that the fee, which he insisted was not a tax, was necessary to make sure DEP could maintain its current level of service to the recycling and waste industries. Already, he says, there have been 289 people laid off from the department because of the state’s fiscal crisis.
If the fee is not put in place, more people will have to be let go, “and then about all we will do is enforcement,” he says. “Be careful what you wish for.” He adds that solid waste and recycling does not bring in any revenue to the agency.
However, Golledge did say that already the DEP is contributing about $50 million to the general fund of Massachusetts, and that legislators are looking for more revenue for the fund.
Also at the meeting, James McQuade of DEP presented the latest information on how the proposed disposal ban is shaping up and more on the mechanism of how the public hearings will be set up.
Separately, CMRA members broke up into four groups to formulate a CMRA response to the ban and the proposed fee. In general, the feeling was that the ban still needed a little tweaking, but was inevitable. The new fee, which has been planned since last November but was only leaked to the public two week prior to the CMRA meeting, may also be inevitable, but there probably will be strong opposition to it from the industry, if the participants’ responses are any indication.Latest from Construction & Demolition Recycling
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