Vermont's Biennal Report Shows Lack of Waste Diversion Progress Despite Legislation

Vermont legislators passed Act 148, also known as the Universal Recycling Law, in 2012, which was meant to accelerate recycling in the state.

The law banned all recyclables and organics such as yard waste and food scraps from regular municipal waste bins in an effort to boost Vermont's recycling rate to 50 percent. 

The state's 2023 biennial report showed while the annual tonnage of recycled and composted materials has risen, "disposal nor overall waste generation have consistently decreased."

This comes despite officials' efforts to update and revise the Universal Recycling Law, which included the 2019 Vermont Materials Management Plan (MMP) to decrease waste generation by 10 percent and reduce waste disposal by 25 percent by 2024.

The report dove into the current challenges of revamping the state's entire waste infrastructure such as researching feasible disposal sites and addressing PFAS and unrecyclable plastics with the implementation of extended producer responsibility (EPR) legislation.

"Upstream incentives, such as producer responsibility programs, not only sustain and grow recycling but can reduce waste and its toxicity," the report stated.  "Regional/national collaboration to reduce toxic PFAS chemicals is needed to help protect both human health and the environment, as well as recycling, composting, and disposal activities."

NEWSVT, located in Coventry, VT., is the state's only landfill, and it has fewer than 20 years before it reaches capacity, which is creating urgency among government officials and others to increase waste diversion capacity in other areas. Along with producer responsibility, the report cited increasing municipal Household Hazardous Waste costs and bottle redemption systems as possible alternatives.

"Recycling and Bottle Redemption systems both need support to address years of high costs from market volatility, unrecyclable plastic packaging, and system inefficiencies," the report stated."Without modernizing the existing collection system, Bottle Bill expansion is not feasible."

To address all of these challenges, the synergies between Vermont's Bottle Bill and traditional "blue bin" recycling must be taken into account.

The state's Agency of Natural Resource also is investigating waste reduction strategies with a small stakeholder group. Key findings are expected in early 2023, with the goal of integrating these discussions into the Materials Management Plan, which is slated to be completed in late 2024.