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In one North Country town, the transfer station facility manager asked to close for staff safety. The town’s leadership refused.
Meanwhile, the manager of a southern New Hampshire transfer station faced uncertainty about whether to close his facility. He wanted to close to keep his staff safe. However, if he did close, his part-time staff would not get paid.
At yet another transfer station, staff face the lack of a heated indoor space to warm up in between trips outside. Over the manager’s objections, it remains open on Saturday.
These are just three of the many stories I’ve heard recently from some of our state’s most essential workers: our solid waste facility operators who handle our trash and recycling, help...Read more
The Northeast Resource Recovery Association (NRRA) is pleased to announce the release of our 2021 Annual Report . The report is provided in a printable pdf format that makes it easy to share the value of recycling and NRRA membership with municipal staff, elected officials, and residents.
The report includes the following features:
Fiscal Year 2021 Revenue and Expense breakdown with easy to understand pie charts An overview of the full calendar year, including speaking engagements, articles, and virtual events NRRA hosted to keep recycling strong and our members connected through the Covid-19 pandemic Our Environmental Impact Report The amount NRRA was able to return to our member communities in 2021, thanks to recycling (and it's a BIG number) - scroll down to preview the image!Finally, we would be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge the impact of the COVID-19...Read more
Member Services Manager, Brian Patnoe, recently shared his thoughts on the current recycling markets:
How things change. Just a few months ago recycling was as strong as ever. Cardboard and paper were up, plastic was holding its own, and metals were good. But before you knew it, there was a drop. Interest rates increased, the housing market slowed, and people started to buy less.
The graph below represents our industry, and for many of us, our passion. It is the lifeline, the heartbeat.
At the peaks, our lives seem easier. The economy usually is strong and we can brag about how much money we have made and/or saved the town. It also seems to be easier to upgrade equipment when towns see the revenue that is passing through. But when prices - and revenues - are down, it usually means people don’t have extra money...Read more
Press Release: NRRA turns attention to C&D Debris, an often-overlooked contributor to landfill waste
Contact: Reagan Bissonnette Executive Director Phone: (603) 736-4401 ext. 116 rbissonnette@nrrarecycles.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 3, 2023
NRRA turns attention to Construction and Demolition Debris, an often-overlooked contributor to landfill waste!
EPSOM, NH: The Northeast Resource Recovery Association (NRRA), the largest and oldest cooperative-model recycling nonprofit in the United States, enables communities to manage their own recycling programs, in part, through its recycling education and technical assistance work. With support from the EPA Region 1, New England, 2022 Healthy Communities Grant Program, NRRA has begun work on its Increasing C&D Diversion in Coös County, NH project.
Organizations such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) have recently increased grant support for programs aimed at reducing food waste, which according to the EPA makes up an estimated 24% of municipal waste. However, construction and demolition debris,...Read more
In 2022, the NRRA Board of Trustees elected to establish a Member Benefits & Dues Working Group to reassess the benefits, dues, and structure of the NRRA membership and determine what updates may be needed for NRRA's membership dues and benefits, and make recommendations for the full board to consider. The board voted to increase membership dues overall by 9%. NRRA membership dues had not been increased since 2015.
NRRA is the oldest and largest cooperative-model recycling nonprofit in the United States, partnering with over 450 municipalities, businesses, and individuals throughout New England to make recycling strong through economic and environmentally sound solutions. In particular, NRRA supports many small, rural communities in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts. NRRA is one of only a handful of nonprofits in the country that enables communities to manage their own recycling programs by connecting them with end markets for recyclables. Founded in 1981,...Read more
The report focuses on nine priorities - or Focus Areas - for the upcoming year, as well as recommendations to adopt legislation to advance the Focus Areas listed below.
Focus Areas:SHORT-TERM IMPLEMENTATION PLAN: The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (NHDES) plans to develop annual short-term implementation plans to prioritize actions, measure progress, and track timeframes for completion of the Solid Waste Management Plan (SWMP) goals and priorities .
The SWWG looks forward to providing input to NHDES on the development of its first short-term implementation plan.
WASTE CHARACTERIZATION & GENERATION STUDIES: The completion of waste characterization and generation studies are foundational to many other actions...Read more
New Hampshire is known for the political engagement of its residents, with a first-in-the-nation Primary and the third-largest legislative body in the world - the New Hampshire House of Representatives boasting 400 members! This means that every-other year New Hampshire roadways fill with corrugated plastic signs sharing all political affiliations. (Even Bigfoot got in on the action this year!)
But what happens to all that plastic after the election is over?First, those corrugated plastic signs are Coroplast®. On the Coroplast® website , it states:
"Coroplast® uses polypropylene copolymers which makes for easy recycling at the end of their useful life. Polypropylene, being a polyolefin, recycles in processing streams such as plastic milk cartons and detergent bottles. Contact your local plastics recycling center for local information on polypropylene recycling."
This is confusing! Polypropylene is denoted by the recycling symbol and the...Read more
As a recycling nonprofit that helps municipalities manage their own recycling programs, the Northeast Resource Recovery Association (“NRRA”) values conserving both natural and financial resources. Thanks to a $7,434 grant from the Madelaine G. von Weber Trust, NRRA was able to do just that at its headquarters.
The grant allowed NRRA to work with Prism Energy Services to replace all the interior and exterior fluorescent and incandescent lights at NRRA’s office building in Epsom, New Hampshire with LED lights. The existing light fixtures were retrofitted to handle the new LED lights, which reduced waste. And of course, in light of NRRA’s recycling mission, the replaced lightbulbs were responsibly recycled.
“This grant allowed NRRA to both reduce our annual electricity costs and also reduce our carbon footprint,” said Reagan Bissonnette, NRRA Executive Director. “We are grateful that the Madelaine G. von Weber Trust was willing to...Read more
The NRRA Board of Trustees and staff would like to recognize and thank Dennis Patnoe and Paul Tomasi for their service to the Board. Dennis and Paul recently retired after completing their final terms on the Board.
Dennis Patnoe served on the Board of Trustees for 20 years, though Dennis credits his initial involvement with NRRA to a former Littleton operator who asked him along to a MOM meeting because he wanted Dennis to drive! Since that fateful first meeting, Dennis has been a steady presence on the NRRA Board and a strong supporter of Pay As You Throw programs, after helping to shepard his hometown of Lancaster, NH through to a unanimous vote to adopt their own PAYT program in 1999. He retired in December 2020 after being the Lancaster Transfer Station Supervisor for more than 15 years. In recognition of his service to...Read more