Latest News
Last Friday, I received a troubling email from my colleague. She had been contacted by the manager of a New Hampshire transfer station. You know, what some people still refer to as the town dump. The transfer station manager had resigned his position because the town directed him to open his recycling building back up to residents despite the manager’s objections.
The facility has a drive-thru with close quarters, making it difficult to enforce social distancing. On the other hand, the town offices remain closed to ensure adequate social distancing.
The transfer station staff are all over the age of 70. The manager quit out of frustration for the inequity of what the town was asking of the transfer station staff.
We all know by now that transfer station staff provide essential services, during a pandemic or not. But did you know that in New Hampshire, solid...Read more
In the fall of 2019, the New Hampshire HB 617 Recycling & Solid Waste Study Committee held fourteen hearings to study how the State can assist municipalities during these challenging recycling markets. NRRA’s Executive Director, Reagan Bissonnette, actively participated in these hearings and testified multiple times, along with some NRRA members. The committee’s final report was issued on November 1, 2019.
In the 2020 legislative cycle, numerous bills have been proposed in New Hampshire that are relevant to NRRA’s NH members with respect to solid waste and resource recovery. Most resulted from the HB 617 Recycling & Solid Waste Study Committee’s report. NRRA has provided a brief summary of these bills below. Please see the full text of each bill (provided as a hyperlink) for complete details. If you are interested in an update on these bills after the date this document was last updated, the NH Department of...Read more
From December 2014 to January 2019, Rollinsford NH (Population 2,527) embraced single stream recycling i.e. putting all recyclables, including aluminum cans, cardboard, glass jars and bottles, paper, plastics and steel cans, into one container and shipping them to market where they were separated back into their individual components for marketing.
As recycling markets continued to deteriorate and the cost per ton of single stream material exceeded the cost to throw it away, Rollinsford made the difficult decision to return to a source separated program. Rollinsford purchased a refurbished baler and, in July 2018, residents were called upon to once again begin separating their fibers and containers to create materials that the Town could market and achieve revenue for.
NRRA has been privileged to work with Rollinsford throughout this transition from single stream recycling to shipping full tractor trailer loads of cardboard and mixed paper and truck loads of...Read more