Climate-Waste Action

In 2007, the Environmental Commissioners and Directors from the New England States challenged the Northeast Waste Management Officials' Association (NEWMOA) and the air and water interstates to identify regional activities to address climate change as a priority. As a result of this challenge, the NEWMOA Board of Directors developed a Climate-Waste Action Plan [PDF], which was released in the summer of 2009. The Plan presents a strategy for mitigating and adapting to climate change through improving waste prevention and recycling initiatives, increasing renewable energy on contaminated sites, implementing "greener" site remediation, and improving management and recycling of disaster debris. The Plan is intended to provide a framework for regional initiatives to advance shared goals; however it recognizes that not all states may be in a position to move forward on all of them.

All of the NEWMOA-member state environmental agencies implement programs to prevent and properly manage pollution and waste. Redoubling the efforts of these programs are key elements of the NEWMOA Climate-Waste Action Plan. The Plan is designed to ensure that the generation of waste is minimized, that discarded materials are managed to reduce their environmental impacts, and that oil and hazardous material that has been released to the environment is appropriately managed. The experiences of the NEWMOA-member programs have shown that there are significant opportunities for increasing waste prevention and recycling for municipal solid waste, construction and demolition debris, non-hazardous and hazardous industrial waste, and other wastes. The NEWMOA Climate-Waste Action Plan presents a series of recommended actions to address the climate impacts of various waste-related activities.

NEWMOA's overall Climate-Waste Action Plan goals are to:

• Assist Northeast states in achieving their greenhouse gas reduction goals by supporting and helping states implement programs that mitigate the climate, energy, and overall environmental impacts of products and materials use, waste generation, waste management, and site remediation; and
• Promote effective prevention and management strategies to assist states in adapting to the impacts of a warmer climate in the near term.

Through the Action Plan, the NEWMOA-member state programs commit to sharing information, conducting research, discussing and developing joint policy actions, coordinating implementation of programs, and conducting needed training and capacity building to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The NEWMOA Board of Directors has formed a small Workgroup of its members to help facilitate and lead the Associations efforts to implement the Climate-Waste Action Plan.

For more information, contact Terri Goldberg, NEWMOA (617) 367-8558 x302, .