Island Waste Haulers’ Updates on Their Recycling Services
By Marnie Stanton, Vineyard Conservation Almanac

In keeping with its long history of concern for waste management and recycling on the Vineyard, VCS is actively surveying the island business community to find out how much they are able to recycle. In order to complete the total picture of recycling on the Vineyard, and facilitate the creation of a climate that will maximize efficient waste management practices on island, it seemed only natural to also interviewing the three main waste haulers. We were particularly interested in how the current recycling push is affecting their businesses. Monte Bizzarro, owner of Bizzarro Waste Disposal, Inc., Heidi Rydzewski, from Allied Waste Services of MV and Greg Carroll, from Bruno’s Inc, all sat down with us to give us their stories and update us on their recycling practices.

Monte Bizzarro arrived on Martha’s Vineyard 24 years ago with $70 dollars in his pocket and a bag of clothes. Determined to make a go of island living he hired on to work in construction. More often than not he found himself cleaning up job sites and soon he decided that the rate of return from managed waste pick up would be far more lucrative than working construction. With that goal in mind he worked three jobs in order to get enough money to buy his first dump truck, affectionately referred to by his friends as the “Chicken Coop.” Twenty-three years later he has 7 trucks and a thriving waste removal business. His residential and commercial customers are all over the island and know his generous reputation for helping people out. It is not unusual for him to pick up a load of discarded wood and take it to a friend’s house to be used for firewood in the winter. Or on the occasion of being hired by a customer to clean up their garage or basement, he would much rather distribute some of the items that he removes to friends than throw the stuff away. In his own way he is a one man recycling center, always watching out for items that his friends might be able to use.

Greg Carroll, owner of Bruno’s, comes from a local trucking family and for a long time has been part of Carroll’s trucking business. In 1989, at the age of 17, he drove his first load of refuse off island and by 1999 was transporting waste and recycling on a regular basis. That same year he bought his first truck with two recycling containers and, with the help of friends, started spreading the word about recycling to his customers. In 2002 he was able to offer information and containers to his customers to help educate them about the economics of recycling. Shortly afterwards he began his residential weekly and bi-weekly recycling pick up service. Currently he has over a thousand customers and those that recycle have increased by 25% since he first offered his recycling service. In addition to being one of three main waste haulers on the island, Bruno’s Rolloff is the manager of the Oak Bluffs Transfer Station, and also processes and markets cardboard and paper here on the island.

Although Allied is a nationally based waste service company, Heidi Rydzewski, the island company representative, is thinking very locally, particularly since her family’s roots on island go back generations. She lives here and her children go to island schools. Her emphasis is on waste and recycling education not only in the school classrooms but also with all her old and potentially new customers. Allied has an Eco Initiatives program which supports ‘no waste’ and ‘green events’. They often offer free totes for these events and on occasion provide free pick up service to non-profits. Allied is also responsible for bringing LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) projects to the island. LEED is a certified green construction program that requires specific building materials be used and strict management of waste and recycling disposal. Allied provides a comprehensive Waste Management Guide to their LEED customers, as well as a monthly waste stream report. Heidi also mentioned that all construction and demolition from these projects are taken off island to a recycling facility where the materials are recycled at a 79% rate or higher.

Under Heidi’s guidance Allied has taken a leadership role in helping the MVRH students separate recycled items, and compost from their waste stream, saving the school a considerable amount of money on their waste pick up costs. She also works closely with the Tisbury School students to guide them with recycling in their lunch program.

When asked what services each hauler offers the island, many of the answers were the same. Since trash handling fees are determined by weight, educating the public about separating out recycling items to reduce the overall tonnage makes good economic sense. The cost to process recycled items is generally less than trash, especially when the recyclables market is down. Providing convenient and multiple pick up times and appropriate totes and containers has also been helpful. Before the collapse of the economy last year, the recycling market was hot and materials like plastics and metals were in demand overseas and commanding premium rates. Now it is a different story, the demand isn’t there and, as a result, the distributors are stockpiling the collected recycled items when they can and even paying for removal. This all serves to drive up the disposal costs to the haulers. However, in spite of the downturn in the economy, both Bruno’s and Allied have opted to maintain the original reduced rates for recycling to their customers. Bizzarro’s, who is charged more for recycling, often will take recycling for free as an incentive to get new customers.

Single stream recycling, meaning collecting all recycling materials mixed together, is how Allied picks up recycling on the Vineyard. It is then taken to the District Refuse Center in Edgartown to be shipped off to Cassela Waste Systems Inc. where it is separated into particular groupings before it is sold. Bruno’s also does the single stream recycling with the exception of separating out the cardboard. All their recycling and waste pickup is then taken over to their company- run Oak Bluffs Transfer Station. From there it is also sent on to Cassela’s. Bizzarro co-mingles the recyclables, meaning the items are separated into glass, cans, plastic, paper, etc. and then are taken over to the Oak Bluffs Transfer station. Bruno’s does pick-ups at some of the LEED construction sites. Greg emphasized that there are strict rules that have to be followed when the construction materials are sorted and picked up by a hauler. If the protocol is not followed the hauler, as well as the construction supervisor, can be fined. It is that kind of attention to detail that makes the LEED program problematic for Bizzarro’s to take on at this time. Bizzarro’s often picks up construction and demolition and rather than take it directly to the transfer station, will sometimes sort out the reusable materials and distribute them to people who could use them. All three haulers encourage customers to remove cement and brick from other waste so that these materials can be recycled as aggregate here on the island rather than paying fees to ship it off-island as “waste”.

Each hauler talked about the need for some way to recycle compost. Nantucket use of a digester to compost organic materials was mentioned as a model which could be followed here on the island. They all felt that it made sense to keep the compost local, as it is a valuable commodity. In addition, it would eliminate the expense of shipping it off-island. Bruno’s is enthusiastic about composting and is currently conducting a study with a sampling of his commercial customers to determine on how much weight is generated in compostable materials. If there were a sufficient quantity of compostable materials produced by the island, then it might be feasible to look into the economic feasibility of acquiring a compost processing facility on a larger scale i.e. one with the capability to process, sort, shred and digest materials.

Our last question asked what they could do for commercial customers who found recycling problematic because of such issues as space, cost and no place to put compostable materials. All mentioned the importance of educating the customer as to the recycling services that they offer. Trash and waste cost more to dispose of than recyclables, especially when markets are thriving, so when the recyclable items are removed from the trash, the trash disposal costs can be drastically reduced. For customers with limited space for storage of recyclables, they all suggested a more frequent pick-up schedule.

We found all three haulers providing substantial pro bono work to help out individuals and non-profit organizations reduce waste costs and increase recyclable rates at various events. And they each educate their customers about the advantages of recycling, not only for the health of the planet, but also for their own personal savings.

A report on the very successful Slow Food September dinner

By Tomar Waldman, Member of the Board of Directors of VCS

The September 27th dinner was wildly successful in all ways including our goal of producing a waste free event. The one hundred diners left behind less than one third of a ninety six gallon tipster of recyclables and the same amount of trash.

Eco MV generously donated compostable place settings and the ten gallons of this compostable trash were delivered to a compost heap. Mary took the small amount of plate scrapings to her farm animals.

Slow Food diners are really getting the idea of zero waste. The compostable plates were late in arriving, as they were locked away in the Ag Hall basement, to the horror of those that did not bring their own place settings. I think we will have less waste next time as a result.

The July dinner of 500 people had yielded 2 1/2 - ninety gallon tipsters each of recyclables and of trash. The food scrapings from that dinner were taken to Native Earth teaching farm by Rebecca Gilbert. Much of the trash was composed of non recyclable disposable plastic plates and cups. The three - 32 gallon corn bags of compostables were placed in the compost heap at the Edgartown Transfer Station. They will soon be checked by Manager Don Hatch to see how effective the composting has been. If the products degraded well, in the future we may be able to bring all event compostables to the Transfer Station.

In the past, the waste stations consisted of varying size and shape containers, so a recycling statement could be more prominently made.

The September Slow Food Dinner waste station consisted of more uniformly shaped and sized bins with differently colored signs.

In the future these stations will be composed of four bins of differing colors with color matched signage. Hopefully, the colors of this system will become universal across the island and event attendees find it easier to recycle.

MV Hospital’s “Medication Disposal Day”

By Marnie Stanton, Vineyard Conservation Almanac

Have you ever wondered what to do with all the half empty bottles of medicine that clutter up your medicine cabinet? Martha’s Vineyard Hospital is actively working on this problem through their “Medication Disposal Day,” which was created through the energy and enthusiasm of David Caron, Director of Pharmacy.

Antibiotics, pain medications, sleep aids and multiple other medicines are reaching and contaminating our ground water through our daily use. To date there is no way of removing these medications from the water once flushed down the toilet or poured down the sink where they can enter our septic systems or our municipal sewer systems. Even our wastewater treatment plants have no way of removing these molecular contaminants. It is a growing problem that only recently has been identified with some of the mutations that are developing in the aquatic life that live in our receiving water bodies.

In spite of this looming problem David Caron has not been discouraged from doing his part to collect and safely dispose of outdated or unused medications collected during the hospital’s first “Medication Disposal Day,” this past spring. The day was a big success and is a program that Dave would like to do more than once a year. We will be sure to announce upcoming dates in the Conservation Almanac. For more information on proper medication disposal go to www.smarxtdisposal.net which is an online resource that offers information to consumers on how to properly dispose of pharmaceutical waste and encourages keeping our aquifers safer and the Vineyard green.

David Caron and his family have been living on island for the last eleven years, He is personally invested in the environmental health of the island and keeping it as green as possible because he is raising his three children here. We at VCS applaud his efforts on behalf of all the Vineyarders as well as our fragile environment. If anyone has questions please call 508-693-0410 ex: 227.

VCS is keeping boat shrink wrap out of the waste stream
By Marnie Stanton, Vineyard Conservation Almanac

The Vineyard Conservation Society has just launched a new Shrink Wrap Initiative targeting boatyards and boat owners. Many tons of recyclable white shrink wrap boat plastic is generated every season, and VCS board member Tomar Waldman recognized an opportunity.

She approached Ralph Packer, who provided a 20-foot black dumpster which is now in place just beyond the Shell Station on Beach Road in Vineyard Haven. There is signage attached to the dumpster explaining its purpose. The boat yards that will be participating in this recycling program are Maciel Marine, Vineyard Haven Marina, MV Shipyard, Gannon and Benjamin, and Edgartown Marine. The dumpster will be in place until filled, or until the end of June, at which time Packer Company will deliver it to the H.L. Harvey Company in Westborough, Massachusetts.

There, the plastic will be turned into building and decking material. The Harvey Company does not charge to take the shrink wrap but there is a transportation cost to take the dumpster off island. That cost is being shared among participating boatyards.

Boatyards (or individuals who shrink wrap their boats) interested in participating in this important recycling program should contact Tomar Waldman at 508-693-5353.

Where does our garbage go?
By Tomar Waldman, VCS Board Member

Construction Debris Dumpsters
Casella, 48 Cranberry Highway, West Wareham, MA 508-295-0222

Construction dumpsters arrive here and are accepted for a fee of $125 per ton. The refuse from these are combed through to separate out the cardboard, lumber, plastic, large metal objects, with magnetic separation for metal. The lumber is shredded and sent off to be burned for electricity. The remainder is sold for recycling.

Our mixed bags of everything
Covanta Energy, 141 Cranberry Hwy., West Wareham, MA 02576, 508-291-4427

This is a 99 acre state of the art site designed to convert waste to energy (EFW). Garbage brought here is checked for radiation and then dumped onto the tipping floor. Metal objects are removed by magnets before and after burning. The mixed waste is fed onto a conveyer belt where it is fed into a boiler. The waste is burned at a controlled rate where it heats water to produce steam to power a turbine. The resultant electricity is put into the power grid. The plant processes around 15 million tons per year of waste and from this produces 1,000 megawatts of electricity.

During the process, 1,000 fabric bags remove particles from the burning air and gasses are neutralized by a scrubber. Oxygen is injected to capture mercury. The waste water around the facility is recaptured in ponds around the plant and the air perfumed by giant mist blowers. Lime is added to the ash to neutralize and the ash is sent to a land fill. For every ton of garbage processed, one ton of CO2 is eliminated.

Single stream: You’re mixed recycled products

The Recyclery, Recycle America, Stoughton MA

This is a new facility which processes the mixed recyclables picked up from recycling containers. Through the use of hand sorting water floatation, vibraters, blowers, and sizing systems, everything is separated, baled and resold to the appropriate end users as cardboard, paper, glass, plastic, metal etc.

VCS Island-Wide Recycling Initiative
By Kaysea Cole, VCS Communications and Development Coordinator

The VCS Island-Wide Recycling Initiative is gaining momentum. Building on the flagship collaboration that brought recycling to the Steamship Authority, VCS has started working with various other Island groups to help them more responsibly handle their waste.

In August, we partnered with the Agricultural Society to bring single-stream recycling to this year’s fair. And at the big summer event of the Martha’s Vineyard “Slow Food” group, we tackled not only recyclables, but also biodgradable waste. Biodegradable materials account for 20 to 30 percent of what goes into landfills and incinerators across the country, so removing them from the waste stream and putting them to good use is an important element of any comprehensive waste reduction plan. We wanted to show how it could be done, and thanks to a few tireless VCS board members, our efforts were a success.

At the Slow Food event, we set up each waste station with one bucket for food scraps to be fed to pigs, and another for non-edible biodegradables, destined to be turned into compost. Patrons who forgot their own utensils were provided with corn-based biodegradable tableware, supplied by Eco MV, which could be added to the compost stream. After the event, Island farmer Andrew Woodruff took this material for composting at Whippoorwill Farm, while the slops went to feed the pigs at the Allen Farm.

The Slow Food potluck was a great test run for September’s Living Local Harvest Fest. For Living Local, VCS upped the ante by publicly declaring that this was to be a zero-trash event. This was a large-scale commitment on our part, and genuinely demonstrated sustainability in action.

Every aspect of the day was designed to heighten awareness of resource conservation. Vendors were required to use only biodegradable products; waste stations were strategically placed throughout, accompanied by instructions; and kids were trained as monitors to oversee their use. Even the water supply was a model of sustainability: instead of being sold in pint-sized throwaway bottles made of petroleum products from who-knows-where, drinking water from our Island aquifer was available for free—but biodegradable cups were a dollar apiece, to encourage conservation and reuse.

Our waste-reduction effort continued into the evening, as VCS volunteers helped with the potluck cleanup while local musicians kept our spirits high. Once again, compostables and pig slops went to local farms, and remarkably, only three barrels of trash were generated during the entire event. Everything else was recycled, eaten, or given back to the earth.

What’s next? You tell us. If you know of a venue or organization that’s ready for recycling, tell us about it. Contact VCS Communications Coordinator Kaysea Cole at 508-693-9588, or at kcole@vineyard.net.

How Trash disposal works on Martha’s Vineyard

The following is a break down of the collection and distribution of trash and recyclable items for the towns of Oak Bluffs and Vineyard Haven.

OAK BLUFFS
508-693-5454

If you are a resident you may purchase a $10 sticker and dispose of all your trash in the proper recycling bins at the OB Transfer Station on Pennsylvania Ave. This is a free service for residents, paid for by the town, after sticker purchase.

Non residents must weight in to the scale and then, hopefully separate all trash into the proper bins. They will accept all waste except hazardous materials. The cost: mixed trash (single stream) - $153/per ton; Recyclables - $80/ton; construction debris - $171/ton. Appliances are $35

An alternative: a 96 gallon residential recycling container picked up at your site every other week by Bruno’s- $5.95 per pick-up.

VINEYARD HAVEN
508-696-4220

Trash is picked up weekly on the street at your house. Any trash container (up to 40 gallons,) single stream, must have a $4.00 sticker on the bagged material.

Everything in the recycling bin is free. This includes cans, glass containers, and plastic containers with the triangle on the bottom. You must separately tie newspapers and flattened cardboard. Magazines and phone books can be tied together. Nothing in bags.

These items must be included as trash: wax coated containers such as those containing milk, junk mail, glossy paper, wet paper, plastic bags, window glass, dishes, Pyrex, aluminum, paint or aerosols.

Tisbury Local Drop Off, open to residents only with a $5.00 sticker.

Residents may recycle there for free but must pay $4.00 for all 40 gal. containers of trash. All clean brush, leaves and garden vegetation is free.

The Tisbury Drop Off produces compost which residents may take home. MV landscapers can buy a $150/yr. permit to drop of landscaping debris.

Where does our garbage go?

Casella, West Wareham, MA
Construction dumpsters arrive here. The refuse from these are combed through to separate out the cardboard, lumber, plastic, large metal objects, with magnetic separation of the remainder. The lumber is shredded and sent off to be burned for electricity. The remainder is sold for recycling.

Check into mattresses, computers, TVs. CFL fluorescent light bulbs recycled at the ‘Universal Shed’ at the Edgartown Refuse District Center on the Edgartown West Tisbury Rd by the airport.

Covanta Energy, Rochester, MA, recycle all fluorescents and CFL bulbs.

Stop and Shop has a container at the door for plastic bags

Recycling on the Vineyard

The article on recycling in the recent VCS newsletter, ?Does the Vineyard really recycle? was featured in a recent edition of the Vineyard Gazette (see link here). This is a message that needs constant repeating as long as we continue to have such a confusing set of rules. One encouraging development since VCS prepared its? newsletter article is that Allied Waste has rolled its? residential recycling trial program into a full time single stream recycling pick up for residential customers. The Gazette article unfortunately did not include a reference to this new program which was introduced after publication of our newsletter. Allied now offers recycling pick-up in dedicated vehicles so there should be none of the mixing of recyclables with waste that people have reported over the years with various haulers. Allied now offers residential and commercial recycling services for the entire island except for Chappaquidick which will start on Sept. 4 according to Brian Smith.

Mr. Smith seemed excited and maybe even a little surprised that interest in recycling picked up so quickly . They will be adding vehicles in anticipation of expanding this effort. Although they are dedicating individual vehicles, Allied will be co-mingling the typical residential recyclables which most of us have become accustomed to faithfully separating. They can do this because their off-island processor manages recyclables in that way all recyclables are mixed (co-mingled) and brought to the processing facility which then sorts into the various types of recyclable materials.

Another positive effort took place recently at the Slow food event for both recycling and composting. Event-based waste management offers many unique opportunities and event sponsors are increasingly looking at ways to promote environmental awareness.

David Nash, Vineyard Conservation Society Board member

Farm and Field
By JULIA RAPPAPORT
MV Gazette

First published in the Vineyard Gazette on July 1, 2008. Reprinted with permission from the Vineyard Gazette. Copyright Vineyard Gazette 2007. All rights reserved.

Coffee grinds, apple cores and curly orange carrot peels: straight to the trash they go in most households. But on Island farms, these food scraps (along with egg shells, wilted greens and watermelon seeds) go to the compost. For the farmers, this trash is treasure.

“It’s like crop insurance,” explained Jim Athearn of Morning Glory Farm last week as he stepped down from his tractor.

“We have sandy soil,” he continued. “The goal of every farmer or agriculturalist is to increase the organic content matter of their soil so things will work better. This helps a lot. Things grow more uniformly. They grow faster and lusher.” He looked out over the green corn stalks now coming up in his fields along the West Tisbury-Edgartown Road. In just a few short weeks the stalks will reach shoulder height. In a few more, Mr. Athearn will harvest bushels of the large, sweet ears.

“Before we added the compost here, we could not produce a marketable-sized ear. There was not a full yield. Along where it was super sandy, it would grow only four or five feet high, even with all the water,” he said.

“Now that we have compost on it, we can expect to get corn along the whole length of the road. It’s bolstered by the soil, which adds nutrients. It just sort of adds life to this soil.”

Behind him was an empty field with soil a light brown. One small patch, however, was a dark espresso color, having just been covered with the fertilizer Mr. Athearn makes behind his farm stand.

A good fertilizer takes 18 months to make. It starts with heaps of food scraps and yard waste. Moisture builds over time and nutrients develop. Three times a year, Mr. Athearn turns the piles of dirt, grass cuttings, vegetable scraps and leaves. In the spring, he spreads it over his fields, mixing the rich soil with the sandy stuff. “It turns barely farmable soil into uniform soil,” he said.

More than 10 years ago, Mr. Athearn received a license from the state Department of Agricultural Resources to operate a composting site on the farm. He invited Island landscapers and local families to leave off their household food and yard waste. The compost is one of only a few places on the Island where the community can come dump its organic waste. The Edgartown transfer station accepts yard waste, but no food scraps, as does John Keene at his excavation pit in North Tisbury.

“It’s a good thing to do to open up the compost to the community,” Mr. Athearn said. “It’s keeping all of this material out of the landfills.”

All Island landfills are capped and all trash is shipped to the mainland. Donald Hatch, district manager at the Martha’s Vineyard Refuse Disposal and Resource Recovery District, said a study done last year estimated 40,000 tons of waste are hauled off the Island each year, a figure which is hard to calculate exactly because more than one operation collects and transports waste.

With fuel costs and Steamship Authority ticket prices rising, it is an expensive operation. “It now costs $500 round trip for one tractor trailer,” Mr. Hatch said.

“And one truck can carry 22 tons.”

Keeping natural waste on Island farms reduces the amount of trash shipped off-Island and helps cut some costs for Vineyard farmers, who pay a premium to buy fertilizer from off the Island. “It turns the garbage into an asset and a resource,” said Rob Kendall, a longtime board member of the Vineyard Conservation Society.

This summer, the society has teamed up with the Whippoorwill Farm Community Supported Agriculture program to start a community compost on the farm for members. “It’s critical to our goal, which is to improve the soil health and to grow our crops organically,” said farm owner Andrew Woodruff. The society will soon make available countertop composting bins made of recycled milk containers to members.

“We are encouraging members to bring their food scraps back to the farm,” said Kaysea Cole, communications, membership and development coordinator at the society. “We are encouraging people to reduce their waste and give back to the community, to think locally so we don’t have to ship compost in from off-Island.”

In mid-July, the farm will start building its piles and each week, will offer prizes to kids who bring in the most compost. Mr. Kendall hopes local chefs and stables will participate as well. By next year, Mr. Woodruff hopes to have his own fertilizer he can use in the fields and even in the greenhouse.

“A farm like this will always need as much organic waste as it can get,” Mr. Kendall said. “You can’t just plant and grow in the soil, you have to replace [the nutrients].”

The Whippoorwill Farm composting area likely will be a busy place. Over at Morning Glory, signs in both English and Portuguese mark the site entrance. Down a small dirt road sit two heaps of compost. Reaching up to 12 feet high in some spots, they stretch back 150 feet.

Since it opened, a gate leading to the compost has gone unlocked. The site went unmonitored and workers could dump for free. But as the piles have grown, the compost has taken up more of Mr. Athearn’s time. He scans the heaps daily for bottles and branches, which he has to remove, and turns the piles periodically.

“Without turning it, you won’t get the oxygen in there. Without the oxygen, there’s no decomposition,” he said.

It is the decomposition which turns the grass, the fruit rinds and vegetable peels into the rich soil Mr. Athearn will then spread on his fields and mix with the existing dirt, another time-consuming process. “I till the soil a lot more frequently than a hay farmer,” he said. “It takes a lot of time to spread on the fields. It delays the planting and requires special equipment.”

For Mr. Athearn, using his own fertilizer also increases the per acre cost of producing a crop. “You pay $250 per acre with fertilizer and $600 per acre to use compost once you’ve paid for the work and the tractor and hired the man to drive it,” he said.

This year, Mr. Athearn has for the first time hired a compost attendant to monitor the operation and he will charge a fee of $5 per truck load and $1 per garbage can to dump. The program is still in the experimental phase and prices could change, he said.

But, with healthy fields and thriving plants, Mr. Athearn said making his own compost is worth the extra effort. “It makes the soil useful,” he said.

When the topic of recycling comes up, one of the most frequently asked questions is: do we really recycle here on Martha’s Vineyard?

The answer is a clear and definite yes, but confusion does exist due to the different methods of handling recyclables.

Where does it all go?
Exactly where do our recyclables go after we put them at the curb or at one of our recycling centers? All our town and district transfer stations provide for recycling of bottles, cans, plastic containers, newspaper, and corrugated cardboard, as well as disposal options for tires, appliances, electronics, fluorescent bulbs, scrap metal and brush and leaves. You can be confident that all recyclable materials are being properly transferred to off-Island facilities for further processing into raw materials for the plastic, glass, paper and metals markets.

Curbside pickup is an entirely different story. That is where it pays for the consumer to know exactly what services are—or are not—being provided. In Oak Bluffs, for example, town service includes curbside pickup for trash only and residents must bring their recyclables to the transfer station. Seasonal visitors and vacationers may not be aware of that procedure and are surprised to see the local hauler place recyclables in with the trash. The haulers may be breaking state law (more about that later) but they are actually providing the service they were hired to provide. The Town of Tisbury provides residential pickup using trucks which have a compartmentalized feature which allows for more efficient handling of recycled items.

Private haulers such as Bruno’s Inc. and Bizzarro Services already provide that separation service, but may also be guilty of some co-mingling if the compartments they have dedicated to recyclables become full. If you observe any deliberate mixing of recyclables you should call the responsible party and report what you have observed.

Allied Waste (formerly BFI), is currently not fully outfitted to provide recycling pickup at the residential level. If you are their customer you should ask them what they are doing to better plan for recyclables. They have recently offered, on a trial basis and for an additional fee, residential pick-up for recyclables. According to the company, the service will be expanded if demand is demonstrated. Bottom line: waste haulers can provide recycling services. So there is no reason for any private, public or commercial generator of waste not to recycle.

Besides, recycling is the law!
Recyclables in Massachusetts are managed by the imposition of what is called the “waste ban” regulation. This means that certain materials are prohibited from being disposed of in a manner that will cause them to end up in either a landfill or a resource recovery facility (incinerator). Recyclables are “banned” from being disposed of at those locations. This differs from a mandatory recycling law which many Massachusetts communities have independently adopted (although none have done so here on the Vineyard).

The waste ban regulation is weaker. It allows recyclables to be mixed with trash as long as there exists a “reasonable plan” to inspect and observe incoming loads so that any with “excessive” amounts of recyclables can be rejected as violating the waste ban provisions. This less stringent standard introduces confusion and discourages good recycling practices.

Closer scrutiny
So what can we do? First, we can make sure that haulers responsible for getting recyclables to the transfer facilities are doing so in a manner that supports your wishes. If they are not, hire someone else, or take responsibility for your own recyclables, consistent with town rules. Simply bring them to your local facility, where they will be handled according to proper procedures.

And all of us need to encourage our local officials to be more proactive in increasing the availability of recycling opportunities for both the resident population and the seasonal and tourist populations. We need to encourage placement of recycling containers in locations exposed to high volumes of pedestrian traffic. The recent collaboration between VCS and the Steamship Authority resulting in recycling containers at the SSA terminals and on ferries is a tremendous first step. Other locations which could benefit from such efforts include special-event venues, shopping areas, downtown shopping centers, and transportation centers such as the airport and Transit Authority hubs.

We need to place satellite drop-off centers for recyclables closer to residential areas rather than having the town trash transfer stations serving as the only location for recyclables. Another tip: if you rent your property, make sure you are providing proper instructions and supplies for your renters to be able to recycle here just as they do at home!

Toward mandatory recycling
There will always be those who litter and those who make business decisions that aren’t in the best interests of the environment. Recycling is not an easy thing to do for many people and we need to make sure that we have the support systems in place to minimize obstacles and inconvenience. Understanding existing laws and working with our town leaders to assure that they provide a high-quality system are good places to start. Next steps? Ask your town selectmen to bring to the All-Island Selectmens’ table the question of whether the time is right for island-wide mandatory recycling!

David Nash, VCS Board
oystercatcher@verizon.net

ON BOARD!
THE VINEYARD CONSERVATION SOCIETY AND STEAMSHIP AUTHORITY INTRODUCE RECYCLING IN TERMINALS AND ON FERRYS

The Vineyard Conservation Society (VCS) is pleased to announce that recycling has begun at the Steamship Authority. The achievement comes thanks to the enthusiasm and cooperation of SSA management, and is part of VCS’s broader advocacy campaign for improved waste management on Martha’s Vineyard.

Starting last summer, the two organizations began working together to identify an appropriate bin design, research cost-effective purchase options, and arrange for Vineyard-based recycling services. VCS supported the effort with funds from a bequest from conservationist Nellie Mendenhall, a pioneer in introducing recycling on the Vineyard.

The result of the collaboration is new recycling bins on the Steamship vessels and in the terminals. The bins are made entirely from recycled plastic milk containers.

First impressions go a long way, and now visitors will see that Vineyarders recycle! This launch is the first phase of a larger waste management initiative by the Vineyard Conservation Society, where the hope is that standardized recycling bins like those at the SSA will be installed at public places around the Island.

For more information on how you can help support efforts like this one please call VCS at 508 693-9588 or visit us online at almanac.vcsmv.org.

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