Curbside Composting in Peabody

No way around the fact: we produce a lot of trash. It comes in every kind and variety and a hard question every city and town must answer is what should we do with all of our waste.

In Peabody, most of the trash we produce that isn’t recycled is incinerated. This results in large amounts of toxic ash or other materials that require further disposal, probably in a landfill somewhere. The amount Peabody taxpayers pay for garbage collection varies, in part, based on how much waste is being disposed. And, this makes sense: the more we need to have burned and buried, the more it will cost. But, the reverse should also be true: the fewer tons of trash that are going in that direction, the less we should have to pay (and, you know, it could, like, good for the environment too and stuff).

Source: https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/national-overview-facts-and-figures-materials

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), approximately 21% of our trash, or municipal solid waste, is biodegradable, food waste. This is the kind of stuff Mother Nature has been recycling for us since before the dawn of time – long before plastic packaging and garbage incineration.

My family's compost bin

There already exist curbside composting solutions that many Peabody residents have purchased. One way to quickly and easily reduce the amount of waste we are having incinerated and buried is to encourage more individual households, condos, apartment complexes, and businesses to use these composting services. Every ton of food waste these folks compost is another ton the rest of Peabody’s taxpayers don’t have to pay to have incinerated and buried.

Other cities and towns are already offering their residents inducements to purchase curbside composting services. Nahant offers a rebate for the first year of curbside composting services and then a $20 trash bill abatement. Ipswich subsidizes a portion of a curbside composting fee and the town pays a composting company directly. In Beverly, residents who pay for curbside composting receive a $20 rebate on their water bill ($5 per quarter) and the city covers the cost of a composting bin.

Our campaign has identified a cost-neutral way Peabody could provide similar inducements. First, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection offers a Sustainable Materials Recovery Program Municipal grant that Peabody could apply for and, if awarded, use those funds to defray startup costs for new subscribers. Second, the city can establish a rebate or abatement program that makes sense for us. So long as we calibrate the amount of any rebate or abatement such that it is always lower than the amount we save on our trash collection, no net costs are incurred. In return, more residents might take up curbside composting, the cost of composting services would come down overall as more people signup, and there is a serious environmental benefit to diverting this kind of waste from the incinerator.

If elected Peabody City Councillor, at-Large, Tristan is going to call for public hearings to explore how Peabody can encourage growth of curbside composting. Especially at a time when Republicans at the federal level are weaking havoc on environmental regulations and science-based policies, we need leaders on the local level who are ready to get creative. Tristan is ready to do just that.

NOTE: Tristan is a customer of Black Earth Composting and was able to arrange a meeting with company representatives to get information on how other cities and towns are supporting curbside composting. He has not received (and will not knowingly receive) any campaign donation or any other thing of value from Black Earth or any of their representatives.