Massachusetts Proposes Ban on C&D Waste, Including Treated Wood

In its Beyond 2000 Solid Waste Master Plan (SWMP), the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) set a goal of reducing nonmunicipal solid waste by 88% by 2010. In order to reach that goal, the SWMP has proposed banning the disposal of construction and demolition (C&D) waste at both private and municipally owned landfills. “The decision to focus on recycling and reusing nonmunicipal solid waste was based on a diminishing in-state landfill disposal capacity, increasing waste generation, and a goal of no net export of waste,” according to DEP’s Edmund Coletta. DEP hopes that the ban will stimulate markets for the recycling and reuse of C&D waste.

In August 2001, DEP formed the C&D Subcommittee of the Solid Waste Advisory Committee to inform DEP’s program. The subcommittee was made up of a variety of stakeholders, including architects, engineers, building owners, contractors, waste haulers, C&D waste processors, landfill owners, environmental groups, trade associations, law firms, and consultants. Based on input from this subcommittee, DEP has decided to ban asphalt paving, brick, concrete, metal, and wood first, and ban other C&D waste material, including gypsum and asphalt shingles, at a later date. Coletta believes that this approach “addresses the largest components of the C&D debris stream” and that it “strikes a balance between sending strong market signals and being realistic, given the current infrastructure for diverting C&D materials from disposal in Massachusetts.”