BRISTOL – Bristol City Council approved a grant application for a pilot and research project aimed at reducing waste through the implementation of a food organic waste program.
As part of a Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Sustainable Material and Management Grant, the program would be implemented for one year within the city at no cost to it or its residents. The initiative would target around a few hundred individuals on a specified trash collection route and not be citywide as a part of the testing phase.
“We are looking to join in with a couple of other local towns, Wolcott included, to see if we can take advantage of Connecticut’s Sustainable Material Management Grant to look at alternative waste opportunities,” said Mayor Jeff Caggiano.
Caggiano said, residents would look to take organic food waste and put it in separate trash bags which would then be transported to an anaerobic digestion facility.
“There is an awful lot of state pressure,” said Caggiano. “We do have a trash crisis in this state and it’s only going to get worse. This is an opportunity to jump in with a bunch of other towns that are looking at this.”
According to Bristol Director of Public Works Ray Rogozinski, residents participating would be asked to separate organic waste into a differently colored bag and it would be collected the same way Public Works employees do now. However, instead of the rubbish heading directly to the Bristol Covanta facility, organic waste would be sent to a digester facility, potentially in Wallingford or Southington. The non-organic trash would go back to the Bristol Covanta facility for processing.
John DiCarlo, Municipal Shared Services Director for the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments (NVCOG), and Christine O’Neill, Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments environmental planner, said that other municipalities within the organization were also engaging in the same program. NVCOG is a regional body which assists municipalities in commonly shared issues and the coordination of federal and state programs to address them. Bristol is a member.
“We’re not sure if there will be funding next year but it’s a really excellent opportunity to try something that’s been proven effective in many other places to see if you can lower your tipping fees,” said DiCarlo.”While the City of Bristol currently has a good long term contract right now for disposing of things, we can see the shifting sands right before us that this is probably not going to last a long time.”
O’Neill said the organic waste would be utilized in the creation of electricity and the remaining portion would be turned into a “digestate” which she likened to a starter for composting.
Noting the proximity of a Southington anaerobic digestion facility, the mayor said he was interested in potentially lessened costs to area residents and that, in accordance with comments from DiCarlo, the state was heavily looking into incentivizing such waste management processes. Anaerobic digestion builds gas and is then burned to create electricity.
“I think this is going to be an interesting thing because what you’re really doing is changing behaviors of the people who are disposing,” said Councilwoman Cheryl Thibeault.
Thibeault said she was against increased tax costs to residents and was cautious of unit-based waste disposal, but she was interested to see the results of the program.
The point of the pilot program is to truly targeted at seeing how the community responds, said Rogozinski. Separating organic waste may not ultimately save governments and residents money unless specific sorting facilities are utilized on a commercial scale. O’Neill confirmed the state was exploring the possibility of the creation and implementation of more anaerobic digester and sorting facilities and the commercial models that go with such waste disposal methods along with investors who may be interested in it.
DiCarlo said that should a program be implemented, residents on organic separation routes would be given two bags and an organic waste bag per week which he estimated was generally enough to satisfy most household disposal needs. Should homes need more, they would have to purchase more bags. The mayor said such bags were like large garbage bags that kitchen garbage bags might be placed within.
“It has been proven across Europe and Massachusetts and Vermont, it can change behavior to the point of reducing waste from 40 to 60%,” said O’Neill of the organic sorting and anaerobic digestion waste disposal model. “The real savings come from pairing organics with unit-based pricing because when people do it bag-by-bag, they change their behavior to reduce waste.”
