MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - A new Vermont law requiring the separation of recyclables from garbage could in the future complicate the state’s annual Green Up Day.
Starting July 1, solid waste must be sorted with recyclables separated from non-recyclables.
It’s unclear who, if anyone, would be responsible for separating the two during future Green Up days, The Caledonian Record reports (https://bit.ly/1R5PHF3 ). The 2015 event took place Saturday.
Green Up Day volunteers in Lyndon bring their bags to the Lyndon Municipal Building where they’re emptied into a dumpster. Everything in the dumpster is then taken to a landfill, with no sorting ever done.
Justin Smith, Lyndon’s municipal administrator, said he doesn’t know what’s going to happen with the new law.
“That’s the problem. Nobody knows who the Trash Police are under the new law,” he said.
In Burke, Green Up Day trash has always been brought to the town’s recycling facility, then transported to a landfill. When reporters from The Record asked how the town’s Green Up Day officials plan to handle litter sorting next year, Burke Town Clerk Priscilla Aldrich replied: “That’s a good question.”
Volunteers generally gather bags of litter and drop them off at designated areas to be taken to a landfill. Paul Tomasi, executive director of the Northeast Kingdom Waste Management District, said it would be nearly impossible to get volunteers to separate the trash. He said it might be irrelevant since recyclables collected along the side of the road are usually too wet and dirty for recycling.
Cathy Jamieson, program manager for the Solid Waste Program with the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, said volunteers won’t get in trouble for violations, but they’re going to develop a guide before next year’s Green Up Day.
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Information from: The Caledonian-Record, https://www.caledonianrecord.com
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