Recycling Requirements
There is no federal law in the U.S. that absolutely mandates recycling. State and local governments are left with the difficult task of introducing recycling requirements and implementing a successful recycling program on their own. There are currently 25 states that have mandatory recycling requirements including states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Texas, Washington, and California.
If state governments don’t mandate recycling, some local governments require businesses to show proof of recycling. Staying up to date with the latest landfill bans, waste laws, and other recycling statutes and regulations can help businesses to save money while lowering their carbon footprint.
New Hampshire’s Recycling Regulations
While New Hampshire follows federal hazardous waste regulations, the state has its own recycling rules for recycling facilities. The state’s Department of Environmental Services (DES) encourages the recycling of plastic bottles, white goods (appliances), glass, plastics, aluminum containers, steel cans, scrap metal, motor vehicle batteries, and tires. The state currently bans video display devices from state landfills and incinerators. Although NH’s Solid Waste Management Act does not establish waste reduction or recycling as mandatory practices, it does encourage the management of wastes in accordance with the Waste Management Hierarchy.
Source reduction lies at the top of the hierarchy to prevent waste from being generated in the first place. This can be practiced by buying second-hand or using something until you physically can’t anymore. This prevents more of something from being made in the first place. Practices like source reduction prevent waste from being generated, resulting in less waste needing end-of-life management, conservation of resources, and an overall cutback in environmental impacts. Simply don’t buy something new just because you can.
If waste is being created, the next steps are to recycle, reuse, and compost if applicable. These practices are self-explanatory and have been preached to us while learning about sustainability. But other practices like turning waste to energy, incinerations, and landfills are usually left out of the lesson plans. These being the least preferred methods are more harmful for our planets and atmosphere. Ideally, if we have waste, we would want to turn that waste into energy to use up every bit of what we can. If we can’t do that successfully, incineration allows us to get rid of materials by burning them so they don’t take up space when they aren’t being used any longer.
Last and very much least, are landfills. They take up space and are hard to contain properly, but are still a very important part of our waste management process. Some landfills can be used to turn waste-to-energy. Others are solely a vessel to contain trash in one place. When done properly, landfills can break down trash, contain hazardous gases and liquids, and ultimately be turned into something useful (like golf courses or parks).