With less than a year to go before a major trash plant in Hartford is scheduled to close, officials are scrambling to figure out what to do with hundreds of thousands of tons of garbage a year.
Katie Dykes, head of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, said she’s optimistic that a new $5 million grant program for cities and regional groups will help chip away at Connecticut’s waste problem by incentivizing new “sustainable” ways to manage trash.
“The desire was there to implement these programs. Many municipal leaders have been asking for them,” Dykes said Tuesday. “But we simply needed to find the funding to be able to support them.”
Dykes said the grants could help to fund local “pay as you throw” programs, which would charge residents based on the amount of trash they throw out. The money could also help support food scrap collections, which could cut down on trash volumes and save residents and towns money.
The $5 million is a one-time allocation from Gov. Ned Lamont’s budget.
“There’s been a big question out there about, ‘What really is the potential for these types of sustainable alternatives to take off in our state?’” Dykes said. “This $5 million, and this grant program, will really give us a chance to test the waters.”
While Dykes said the allocation represented a “historic level of investment” in newer forms of waste management, she noted that Massachusetts already allocates money each year to waste reduction efforts.
The $5 million comes as Connecticut faces an urgent question about what’s next for hundreds of thousands of tons of garbage that will likely get shipped to out-of-state landfills.
Much of that trash now goes to Hartford, where it is burned and turned into electricity at a plant operated by the Materials Innovation and Recycling Authority.
But that plant is scheduled to close next year.
If Connecticut’s grant program is successful, Dykes said she hopes the one-time $5 million allocation becomes permanent. But she acknowledged that money won’t be enough on its own to solve the state’s waste problem.
“It’s going to take many, many different steps … to help us address this waste disposal crisis,” Dykes said. “This is not the silver bullet, it’s not the only step that we’re taking, or we’ll need to take together with municipalities, to help get the state on the right course.”
