cafeterias, convenience stores, mini-marts, supermarkets and schools throughout the state were required to gradually increase food scrap recycling and composting.
For now, the county encourages residents to bring food scraps to eight drop-off locations. It also provides online guidance and resources.( Just search for“ Montgomery County Maryland food scrap recycling program.”) Combined with a small pilot program that is testing food scrap pick-up curbside, the county says it has collected some 27,000 pounds of scraps from almost 4,000 residents over the last few years.( See Rescuing Food Waste story, page 25.)
But the big push on food scrap composting was supposed to launch this year— with expansion of the County’ s 50-acre yard waste compost facility in Dickerson. The County Council has allocated $ 28 million to renovate and expand the facility to accept food scraps, which make up 17 percent of the county’ s total trash by volume.
The facility produces and sells a soil amendment called Leafgro, popular with farmers and gardeners. Experts say food scraps would enhance that product and increase Leafgro production. But, it’ s now not clear when or how that initiative is going to move forward, which we discuss further below.
Opposition rises to County plans
Some aspects of the County’ s waste management plans have generated opposition. Chief among them is the County’ s move, announced in November, to extend operation of the trash incinerator in Dickerson for up to seven more years. The majority of the county’ s non-recyclable waste is burned there— some 550,000 tons a year.
Montgomery County is one of only 63 counties or cities left in the nation that still burns its trash in
so-called waste-to-energy incinerators. That’ s down from some 230 incinerators in the 1990s.
What happened? Simply put, community governments came to realize that the facilities were major polluters and that the energy they generated was not really worth the risks they created to health and the environment. Plus, as the incinerators aged, they became less efficient and more prone to problems, including fires. And they were expensive to build and operate. Most jurisdictions gradually shut them down and transitioned to hauling garbage by rail or truck to well-run landfills, which slowly became less environmentally hazardous( but, of course, still pose challenges).
The Dickerson incinerator is one of the last new incinerators built in the US, in 1995. Thus, it has operated for 30 years. The average age at which incinerators have been shut down is 26. Run by a private company called Reworld under contract with Montgomery County, the Dickerson facility is the worst single source of pollution and greenhouse gases in the
County. It emits a wide range of pollutants that can be harmful to human health, including dioxin, lead, mercury, arsenic, and sulfur dioxide.
It also emits some 600,000 tons per year of CO 2 and other green-
house gases into our region’ s air. Poor maintenance has also plagued the facility over the years. It has had more fires than any other Reworld( previously, Covanta) facility and by Reworld estimates, would need up to $ 100 million in additional maintenance funds if the County opts to keep it operating until 2031.
The debate over incinerator closure and food composting
In its press release last November and in-person before the County Council on Jan. 28, the County’ s Department of Environmental Protection( DEP) asserted that burning the County’ s trash cannot be stopped until( a) waste reduction strategies,( b) technological improvements and( c) alternatives means of trash disposal such as landfilling are substantially builtout and fully implemented.
DEP claims that would take a minimum of five years and more likely six to seven years.
The especially troubling challenge, the Department said, is renovating the sites at which the trash
plenty I spring sowing 2025 29