Latest News
In October 2020, NRRA Executive Director Reagan Bissonnette recorded a MassRecycle Podcast episode with Gretchen Carey and Waneta Trabert, President and Vice President of MassRecycle. They discussed NRRA's glass recycling programs, including NRRA's new glass recycling StoryMap , which shows how over 100 municipalities in NH, VT and MA are successfully recycling glass for over 500,000 residents. They also talked about how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted municipal solid waste and recycling facility operations, as well as recycling markets. The 35-minute episode was recently published and is available for anyone to listen.
Reagan also took the opportunity to share NRRA's appreciation for the work of solid waste operators during the pandemic. Thank you to our solid waste operators! We appreciate the essential work you do.
"One thing I really would like to stress is just how incredibly grateful I am to all the solid waste operators and...Read more
Did you know that 2021 marks NRRA's 40th anniversary? In 1981, four New Hampshire municipalities founded the Northeast Resource Recovery Association, then called the New Hampshire Resource Recovery Association, to provide a clearinghouse for current, up-to-date information and a source of technical and marketing assistance in the general areas of waste reduction and recycling. Since then, membership in NRRA has grown to include over 400 municipalities, individuals, and businesses in New England. We're asking our members to help us celebrate our 40th anniversary by sharing how NRRA has benefited your community. We'll then share some of these stories on our website, in future Full of Scrap newsletters, and other communications throughout 2021.
How to ParticipateUsing the below form, please describe in one to three sentences the value of your experience with NRRA. Consider answering one of the following questions:
...Read more
Individuals are more likely to compost their food scraps if they have the tools/equipment readily accessible at their home. Help offset the amount of food scraps ending up in your town's MSW by offering Compost Bin Sale items for sale to your residents!
Items Available to Order (MUST ORDER in full pallets):
Compost Bins
Compost Turners
Rain Barrels
Kitchen Pails
Get All the Information & Sign Up for the Sale!
Why should NRRA municipal members consider participating in this compost bin sale?
Food scraps are heavy, and therefore expensive to dispose of as municipal solid waste. Nationwide, food scraps comprise 24% by weight of the material going into our landfills, which makes food scraps the largest single...Read more
Marc Morgan, Solid Waste Manager for the City of Lebanon and Member of NRRA, is helping to demystify recycling as part of the Beyond the Curb: Recycling 101 course at the Osher Life-Long Learning Institute at Dartmouth. Virtual classes included talking about the global impacts of recycling, contamination, emerging technologies and more. Classes were taught by NRRA's Executive Director, Reagan Bissonnette, on recycling markets, and by Member Services Representative, Heather Herring, on behavior change and recycling. This engaged group of NH and VT residents had thoughtful questions for the presenters with a lively dialogue that they can bring to their towns and on their recycling journeys.
For example, in the class on behavior change, Heather asked why some recycling facilities are welcoming, engaged social places with signs and gardens and informed residents while other facilities are less welcoming where both staff and residents are defensive, tense, and frustrated. We...Read more
At NRRA’s February 10th Member Operations Marketing (MOM) meeting, Rick Norton, Market Area Manager from Universal Recycling Technologies, gave a thorough presentation on how they process electronic and universal waste at their Dover, NH facility. NRRA has a long-standing relationship with URT as a solid vendor with a fantastic reputation in the field. They have an 80,000 square foot facility that accepts 4-6 truckloads a day of material and has 40 employees. Rick shared an informative video and commented on the path of computers, TVs, cellphones, batteries, fluorescent lamps, mercury thermostats and more that are inventoried, broken down, and inspected to remove hard drives before they are shredded and separated into more basic materials. After years of sending those materials out to the market, URT decided to invest in fully separating their materials directly so that they could sell to the marketplace.
When gaylords of materials are...Read more
NRRA is expanding our Member Services team by moving all our educational programs under the Member Services Department. Bonnie Bethune will continue to serve as NRRA's Member Services Manager. Heather Herring has moved from her role as Education Manager to become a Member Services Representative. In that role, Heather will support our members with cooperative marketing and purchasing and technical assistance while continuing her prior focus on NRRA's educational programs, including coordinating Member Operations Marketing meetings and educating students through our School Recycling Club.
In addition, we are hiring a new Member Services Representative to work with Bonnie and Heather to support our members with cooperative marketing and purchasing, education, and technical assistance in the areas of waste reduction and recycling. Know someone who may be interested in this position? Please help us find the right candidate by sharing the below position announcement and...Read more
At a time when depressed recycling markets and negative news stories about recycling have residents across the country wondering what actually happens to their recyclables, the industry could use a case study that highlights recycling sustainability.
One such example can be found in efforts around glass recovery in the Northeast U.S., where the recycling nonprofit group Northeast Resource Recovery Association (NRRA) has worked with over 100 member communities to reliably move material to fiberglass insulation and glass aggregate end users. In addition, the systems in place are being detailed through digital storytelling, helping residents, government officials and others better understand what happens to the glass material they recycle.
A COOPERATIVE MODELNRRA was founded in...Read more
As an alternative to NRRA’s usual fall bus tour, NRRA Staff and municipal members joined ecomaine staff on January 13 for a private virtual tour of their Portland, Maine facilities followed by a question and answer session about their processes. In one campus, ecomaine runs a single-sort facility since 2006, offers food waste recovery, operates a waste-to-energy plant, and also has room for a landfill on site.
Ecomaine’s goal is the reduction of waste generated; reuse of resources; recycling and employing materials back into the marketplace; composting or digestion of organic waste; creating electricity via waste-to-energy; and landfilling as a last resort. They are a leader in public awareness to provide long-term public waste solutions and serve 450,000 people in 70 communities in southern and central Maine.
Ecomaine switched from dual sort to single-source recycling (when you place all recyclables in one bin at home) in 2006 to...Read more
In response to questions from our members, NRRA reviewed the available information about when solid waste operators can expect to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, and how to handle disposal of any vaccine waste received at transfer stations.
Availability of COVID-19 Vaccine for Solid Waste OperatorsThe availability of the COVID-19 vaccine for solid waste operators varies by state. In New Hampshire and Vermont , the vaccine distribution plans do not provide a specific category for solid waste operators. Instead, solid waste operators will have access to the vaccine depending primarily on age and medical vulnerability based on a range of underlying medical conditions. In Massachusetts , sanitation and public works staff are included in Phase 2 of priority (out of 3 phases) and can expect to receive the vaccine in February or March 2021.
In New Hampshire, "first...Read more
Shannon Choquette , Outreach Coordinator of NRRA municipal member Northeast Kingdom Waste Management District in Vermont, spoke with NRRA recently about their successful food scraps composting program . In addition to managing solid waste and recycling, they assist in collecting totes of food scraps from 23 Vermont communities , and then sending those scraps to farms to be composted. The goal is to reduce tonnage going to Vermont’s landfill.
Some of these community-to-farm partnerships go back to 2007, when the district started a pilot project to offer food scrap collection at recycling centers, providing an easy drop-off location for residents to voluntarily dispose of food scraps. This program was easy to start, since NEKWMD’s truck drivers visit the recycling center s weekly to collect recyclables. The drivers were trained to safely pick up the totes and pre-screen them for contaminants.
The program, which now reaches...Read more