BOSTON - Environmental and public interest groups across the continent applauded the announcement that a new Massachusetts waste plan will retain and strengthen the moratorium on increased incineration of municipal solid waste, and introduce new measures to reduce waste dramatically.

“With this announcement, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts secures a leadership position in the solid waste arena and a challenge for the rest of us in New England to take-up,” said Donna Casey, Executive Director of the Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District.

A statement issued on December 11 by the Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs outlined a plan to reduce burning and burying by new approaches that will increase recycling. “Focusing on incineration and landfills is the wrong end of the waste equation,” said Secretary Ian Bowles.

While the Master Plan will be drafted this winter, the statement released Friday commits the Patrick- Murray Administration to “an aggressive agenda” that gives cities and towns assistance to expand and improve their waste reduction efforts, and requires greater responsibility from manufacturers of certain products to pay for the cost of reusing or recycling them.

"By urging passage of the Extended Producer Responsibility law for electronics, and an expanded bottle bill, Massachusetts will reduce the volume and toxicity of the waste it generates," said Roger Dietrich, Chair of the national Sierra Club Zero Waste Team, in an email message from Virginia.

A year ago, widespread public concern that Massachusetts’ 20-year-old incinerator moratorium might be lifted prompted the formation of Don’t Waste Massachusetts (DWM), an alliance of 35 organizations, concerned with public health and the environment. The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (Mass DEP) received hundreds of letters opposing incineration and thousands signed petitions for Zero Waste policies.

“Despite a powerful public relations campaign by the incinerator industry, the Governor has acted in the best interest of Massachusetts,” said Lee Ketelsen of Clean Water Action New England, one of the founding members of the alliance. “His decision will promote energy and resource conservation, and create green jobs.”

Mass DEP will seek additional authority from the legislature to address especially egregious landfill problems and to require haulers to offer recycling services. The Department will also develop “stringent new standards” for existing waste-to-energy facilities, including higher recycling rates in waste collection areas and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

The new plan will also promote anaerobic digestion - a low-heat process that captures energy from organics such as locally discarded food, leaving material that can then be made into compost. 2 Presently most discarded food is deposited in landfills where it generates methane, a greenhouse gas that is 72 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 20-year timeframe.

“Massachusetts is sending a clear signal to policymakers around the world that waste reduction should be adopted as a core strategy to save the climate and invest in community resilience,” said Helen Spiegelman of Zero Waste Vancouver, Canada.

While many communities across the U.S. have rejected specific incinerator proposals, the Massachusetts moratorium, which includes gasification, is unique in the nation, and is coupled with a focus on reusing, recycling and composting resources that are now being wasted. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data shows that over 90% of municipal solid waste can be recycled, reused and composted. However, the national recycling rate remains only 33%.

“Waste incineration produces significantly more CO2 per unit of electricity produced than coal power plants,” said Neil Tangri with the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, writing from the UN Climate Talks in Copenhagen. “While policymakers in DC and abroad have been bending to pressure from the climate polluters lobby, Massachusetts, in this instance, has responded to public demands by protecting the climate, community health and local economies.”

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Don’t Waste Massachusetts is an alliance of organizations, businesses, and individuals calling for systematic waste reduction through state and local planning, with a goal of Zero Waste, supporting the hierarchy of reduce, reuse, and recycle, with additional emphasis on diverting discarded food and other organics to compost sites, and implementing Extended Producer Responsibility to give manufacturers an incentive to design reusable, less toxic and recyclable products. The DWM Steering Committee represents Alternatives for Community & Environment, Clean Water Action, Green Acton, Haverhill Environmental League, MASSPIRG, Residents for Alternative Trash Solutions, Sierra Club Massachusetts, and Toxics Action Center.

The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives is a worldwide alliance of more than 600 grassroots groups, non-governmental organizations, and individuals in over 86 countries whose ultimate vision is a just, toxic-free world without incineration. For more information about incinerators, their impacts and zero waste alternatives: www.no-burn.org