Montgomery County’ s plans to overhaul waste management are laudable— with one big exception
By Steven Findlay and Lauren Greenberger
Montgomery County plans a major overhaul of how it handles its garbage over the next decade. It’ s an ambitious, laudable project. If all goes well, the county could become a regional or even national leader in environmentally sound waste management.
On the other hand, if all does not go well, the County’ s plans could end up creating a messy, suboptimal program that continues to pollute and costs county taxpayers more money than it should.
It’ s no secret that waste management is one of the least sexy things that cities and counties do. But, of course, it’ s an essential public service. It’ s also no secret that attempts at reinventing garbage disposal over the past 20 years have fallen short of ambitious goals.
For example, the 1970s and 1980s brought forth the wide adoption of recycling as one big solution to the ever-mounting volume of waste( think plastic) in communities nationwide. Yet today, as we all know, recycling rates vary greatly from one material to the next. Indeed, recycling rates have actually declined recently.
Overall, about 32 percent of all waste in the U. S. today( by volume) is recycled. That’ s up from around 10 percent in the mid-1960s. But the rate has declined from around 35 percent in 2015.
As for variability: almost 85 percent of corrugated cardboard boxes, 65 percent of newspapers, 60 percent of metal beer and soda cans, and 60 percent of yard trimmings get recycled( or composted). But only 40 percent of consumer electronics do, along with less than 20 percent of glass bottles and jars, plastic bags, and food waste— and most famously, less than 10 percent of plastic cups, cartons and packaging.
To their credit, Montgomery County officials claim to have achieved a 45 percent overall recycling rate in 2024, including a 110 percent increase in plastic recycling since 2020. County officials also claim a reduction in garbage per person, down 11 percent from 2018 to 2022.
The county touts their emerging food scrap recycling program as well. The program was launched in pilot mode in 2020 to decrease the 89,000 tons of food waste entering the waste stream each year. A new Maryland law helped spur the program; beginning Jan. 1, 2023, institutional
Garbage headed for the fire at the trash incinerator in Dickerson, MD.
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