In one Western Maryland county, 350 tons of trash, yard and construction debris cross the scale each day at the landfill. In Annapolis, one new law is trying to cut that number down, making sure that statewide recycling rates are high and only what’s needed gets produced to begin with.
While the legislation’s most significant effects still may be years away, bill sponsor Sen. Malcolm Augustine, D-Prince George’s, is trying to get Marylanders to consider their state.
“Think of the entire state as (you) would think of (your) own living room or (your) own family rooms,” the Harvard-educated Senate President Pro Tem said, in a phone interview. “Treat it the way that (you) would want (your) family rooms, (your) yard, (your) living rooms, to be treated.”
The environmental law, Statewide Recycling Needs Assessment and Producer Responsibility for Packaging Materials, signed by Democratic Gov. Wes Moore last month, calls for a report and an analysis of where Maryland is as a state when it comes to waste and recycling. The law also creates an advisory council to recommend how to hold producers of packaging to account.
“We have a throw away culture as it relates to some of the physical things that we purchase,” Augustine said. “What’s different about this bill is it says, ‘Let’s try to deal with it up front.’ ”
Washington, Somerset counties rank in bottom half with recycling
With 350 tons going to the landfill each day, Washington County in Western Maryland had the fifth lowest waste diversion rate in the state in 2021. Most other jurisdictions (19 counties to be exact) had a higher rate of waste diversion.
Augustine’s Prince George’s County led the way with the highest rate, equating to 1,171,700 tons of recycling in that calendar year. Over half of that total was paper (671,323 tons), but over 17,000 tons of plastics were recycled too.
“We have had really strong efforts,” the two-term senator said. “It’s uneven across the state.”
On the state’s Eastern Shore, for instance, Somerset County was the only jurisdiction in the state with a single-digit waste diversion rate. Neighboring Wicomico and Worcester counties rates were much higher, and Cecil County, on the Upper Shore, trailed only Prince George’s rate.
Still, Augustine, a member of the Senate Education, Energy, and the Environment Committee, sees room for improvement.
“We’re nowhere near some of the best practices that are occurring around the globe,” he said.
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Best practices around the world and ‘Extended Producer Responsibility’
Maine, New Jersey and a handful of other states have passed laws calling for Extended Producer Responsibility, or EPR. A concept first piloted in the European Union, EPR legislation looks to shift the burden of recycling from governments and citizens to the producers of packaging.
Instead of thinking about what counties have the highest waste diversion rates and trying to address the issue on the back end, what if less, plastic, for example, was produced in the first place?, the idea goes.
“We are reactive right now to what marketers are doing,” said Augustine, “instead of being proactive, and working with (producers) up front, trying to make it more efficient.”
The state is one piece of a much larger ecosystem, trying to address a phenomenon of pollution occurring globally. Some corporations, like the Hunt Valley-headquartered McCormick & Company, which sells spices worldwide, set goals for packaging products in plastics that can be recycled.
A United Nations committee met in Paris in late May to try to hammer out an agreement on plastic pollution. Mankind produces more than 430 million tons of plastic annually, the majority of which are short-lived products that become waste, filling the ocean and contaminating the food chain, according to a U.N. Environment Program report released earlier this year. Plastic waste produced globally is set to almost triple by 2060 if the current rates are not altered, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in the report.
While Prince George’s County is an ocean away from Paris, this year’s legislation was a step towards better understanding recycling and waste in Maryland, and it did not come easily, either.
“Part of the process of this bill is for us to assess where we are,” said Augustine, referring to the needs assessment outlined by the law, which is set to be prepared by the state’s office of recycling and delivered to the governor and General Assembly on or before July 30, 2024.
The original 39-page legislation was slimmed down in the way that bill backers would like to cut out plastic packaging — most of it was no longer there. Over 20 full pages…
Read More: New Maryland recycling law aims to change “throw away culture”