Great news from Massachusetts!

[Lynne Pledger]

Today the Massachusetts Office of Energy and Environmental affairs
announced that the Patrick Administration will retain the moratorium
on additional incineration capacity, including gasification
technology, and will aggressively promote waste reduction and
recycling programs. They are also promoting producer responsibility by
urging passage of our e-waste EPR bill and our expanded bottle bill.
Anaerobic digestion also gets the thumbs up. All biomass permitting is
suspended, and they plan to tighten the screws on existing
incinerators and landfills. See the attached for details.

This represents a reversal of the Administration's plan a year ago,
when it seemed inevitable that the incinerator moratorium would be
lifted. It was this threat that prompted eight environmental and
public interest organizations to start Don't Waste Massachusetts,
which now has 35 organizational members. Most of the measures listed
in today's announcement are part of our platform.

I'm one of many who worked on this, and want to give my personal
thanks to other individuals and organizations around the country who
gave us critical help of all kinds over the last year and a half. I
also want to express appreciation to MassDEP staff, past and present,
who have been working on these issues for years, and whose expertise
will be critical to the success of these measures.

Hopefully, other communities will bring this decision of the Patrick
Administration to the attention of state and local officials who are
listening to the empty promises of disposal companies, and urge them
to adopt proven Zero Waste strategies instead.

--Lynne Pledger