In the Pioneer Valley, recycling feels like a given, but that’s a false sense of environmental do-gooding.
There are multiple bins for your paper, plastics, and trash — and in some communities, for compost — in just about every public outdoor and indoor space. But recycling hasn’t become the default for trash disposal, and as the state and the nation’s landfills are capped, the importance of reuse, reduce, recycle grows.
Right now, Chicopee is struggling to find a new place to dump city garbage once the landfill on New Lombard Road reaches capacity in late 2018. WasteZero, a Raleigh-based nonprofit that helps municipalities cut trash output, estimates that Massachusetts spent nearly $163 million in 2013 throwing recyclables in the trash. The company estimates those materials, including textiles, metals, paper, and plastics, could have been sold for $217 million.
Locally, communities are recycling at a far higher rate than in other parts of the nation. About 33 percent of everything Americans throw out gets recycled.
According to an Advocate analysis of state trash data, the communities with the top recycling rates in the Pioneer Valley are:
Belchertown, which recycles 67 percent of everything it tosses out
Northampton, 64 percent
Leverett, 62 percent
Longmeadow, 54 percent
Ludlow, 51 percent
Northfield, 50 percent
Southampton, 50 percent
These cities and towns are also the only Valley communities in which residents recycled more tons of garbage than they threw in a landfill in 2015.
Valley communities with recycling rates below the national average include:
Agawam, 32 percent
Holyoke, 32 percent
West Springfield, 31 percent
Granby, 30 percent
Springfield, 28 percent
Huntington, 26 percent
Southwick, 23 percent
Recycling rates are often influenced by convenience of recycling, cost, and awareness. So it’s surprising that Agawam, West Springfield, and Springfield have such low rates — all three have curbside recycling pick up, while the other towns on the list run drop-off programs.
Springfield does deserve some applause, however. The city has steadily brought its recycling rate up from 19 percent two years ago to 28 percent now.
Contact Kristin Palpini at editor@valleyadvocate.com
