Campaign for Zero Waste
WORKING FOR ZERO WASTE— In Massachusetts, cardboard must be recycled by law. Yet each year, business violators send enough card and paper to landfills and incinerators that it would fill Fenway Park.
Don't Waste Massachusetts
Recycling Laws Are Being Violated
We already have a law that bans dumping recyclable materials in landfills and incinerators. And yet, every year more than 2 million tons of recyclable materials get dumped with the rest of the garbage.
Why?
Because the Department of Environmental Protection is lax on enforcement, while businesses, haulers, and landfill and incinerator operators ignore the regulations.
Waste Is Piling Up
Our incinerators are spewing toxic pollution, and our landfills are overflowing and leaking. That’s because we bury, burn or export 53 percent of our waste. But, of the waste that ends up in incinerators and landfills, more than half of it is recyclable, and a third of it is from excess packaging.
We Can Achieve Zero Waste
MASSPIRG is fighting to get the Commonwealth on the path to zero waste. The first step is to enforce the recycling laws already on the books. But we can’t stop there: we’re working to ensure that state waste policy is dedicated to the principle of reduce, reuse, recycle, and that the Department of Environmental Protection is held accountable for the goals laid out in its Solid Waste Master Plan 2010-2020.
In order to accomplish these goals, MASSPIRG is pushing for commonsense solutions – such as a statewide ban on unnecessary plastic bags and an updated Bottle Bill, our most effective recycling program. We have also called for enforcement of waste bans which have been on the books for years but which many big businesses ignore. And, with the leadership of Senator Cynthia Creem and Rep Gloria Fox, we filed a bill which, when passed, will put the Commonwealth on a set timeline to achieve 70% recycling for water bottles and similar containers.
Issue updates
The number of statewide plastic bag bans in the U.S. tripled in June, with Maine, Vermont, Connecticut and Oregon adding themselves to the list.
We've been telling everybody who will listen that the companies that make electronics and other products should make it easier to repair your stuff. In July, we got to tell the Federal Trade Commission...
BOSTON -- While New Englanders’ thriftiness is alive and well, a new report released today by the MASSPIRG Education Fund, “What are Bay Staters Trying to Fix?” chronicles some big obstacles in their way. The report analyzes data from the popular repair website iFixit.com and looks at what items people in Massachusetts are trying to fix, and why that can be harder than it should be.
Here in Massachusetts, we want to fix our stuff.
Something breaks, or doesn’t work right. You could throw it away, but you don’t want to be wasteful so you try to figure out how to get it fixed.
According to a review of data from iFixit, a self-described “repair guide for everything, written by everyone,” 1.6 million unique users from Massachusetts went onto their website www.ifixit.com to look up how to repair something in 2018. That’s about 23 percent, nearly 1 in 4 Massachusetts residents.
Looking more closely into that data from iFixit, the top ten device types that Bay Staters attempted to fix were cell phones, laptops, automobiles, desktop computers, gaming consoles, tablets, clothing, watches, wireless speakers and iPods. Cell phone repair guides were by far the most popular, receiving 26 percent of all the page views.
If a plastic product is rarely reused, and virtually never recycled, then reduce is the only way to go.
Solid Waste | MASSPIRG
Legislative committee severely weakens plastic bag ban
MASSPIRG and our allies are working to restore a strong bag ban bill and support communities that have already banned plastic grocery bags.
Solid Waste | U.S. PIRG
We want the right to repair our stuff
Companies make it hard to repair our phones and other electronics so more of us trash our old stuff and buy new stuff. The Federal Trade Commission can make it easier.
Solid Waste | U.S. PIRG
Let's move beyond plastic
Nothing we use for a few minutes should threaten our health and pollute our future for hundreds of years. One of the best ways to reduce the amount of trash headed to landfills is to ban items such as plastic foam cups and takeout containers.
Solid Waste | U.S. PIRG
Let's move beyond plastic
Nothing we use for a few minutes should threaten our health and pollute our future for hundreds of years. One of the best ways to reduce the amount of trash headed to landfills is to ban items such as plastic foam cups and takeout containers.
Latest Reports
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A New Direction In Driving Trends
Our Changing Relationship with Driving and the Implications for America’s FutureMASSPIRG Education Fund -
Southbridge Landfill Petition
Petition to MassDEP and MEPA Jan 2016 -
Southbridge Landfill Petition
Petition to MassDEP and MEPA Jan 2016
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