John Matthews
WMAL.com
ROCKVILLE — (WMAL) You can recycle newspapers, plastic, glass, metal and all sorts of other items in Montgomery County, but lawmakers say the county is still not close to meeting its long-term goal of recycling 70 percent of its waste.
Councilmember Roger Berliner says the next step in reaching that goal is to recycle food waste through composting.
“Wasting food is not a good thing, and if we can compost it, it’s good for the earth, it’s good for storm water. It reduces what goes into landfills, [where it] creates methane, which is bad for climate change,” says Berliner. “It’s good all the way around, and without making a more aggressive effort at food waste, we can’t get there,” he adds, referring to the 70 percent recycling goal.
Berliner is pushing legislation to direct county staff to come up with a strategic plan to promote composting through new policies and initiatives to reduce food waste. He also wants staff to identify possible sites to host a county composting facility.
“Right now, when people compost, food gets sent to Delaware or Virginia. We have literally no place in Maryland,” Berliner told WMAL. “So we’re looking to see whether we can create a centralized composting facility in Montgomery County. And we can do that if we get homeowners, we can get restaurants, if we get people to realize the benefits of doing this,” he added.
Berliner says he is not looking to make composting mandatory.
“This is voluntary by definition,” says Berliner. “This is simply to move us forward and then to inform the community and create options for the community.”
Those options would, of course, include using the very compost that is collected.
“When you compost, you are allowing the organic processes to happen in a way that yields richer earth, and you’re not wasting material. You’re not throwing it in a landfill,” he says.
Berliner’s bill would require the county’s Department of Environmental Protection to submit an annual report that outlines the progress being made to promote composting in the county. A public hearing will be held next month to kick off the process.
Copyright 2016 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (Photo: Flickr/Arenamontanus)
