Latest News
NRRA's Finance Manager, Paula Dow, recently celebrated her 30th Anniversary of working here at NRRA. Paula has worn many hats in her years here at NRRA. Even once, acting as NRRA's interim Executive Director. This organization and our members are extremely fortunate to have Paula among our ranks. Former NRRA Board Member Susy Mansfield said it best when she said that "Paula is the NRRA's memory, chief organizer, our calm and steady point person." We dug deep into the NRRA archives to find some pictures of Paula through the years and many past and present NRRA staff members and trustees sent in videos and words of accolades to congratulate and thank Paula for her many, many years of dedicated service to NRRA. We hope you'll take a moment to check out Paula's 30th Anniversary Presentation that includes the pictures, videos and accolades collected in...Read more
Keene, NH asked NRRA to research two food scrap composting systems in order to reduce the weight that is going into MSW (Municipal Solid Waste). Heather Herring created a video to show how she set up a Subpod composting system using worms in her yard to test the ease of setup, use, and amount of material she can keep out of the landfill. NRRA would love to work with organizations, schools, or restaurants in the Keene area using food scrap composting systems. Stay tuned for more as this project continues and for more videos!
Heather Herring, Education Manager of NRRA, joined the Strafford Regional Planning Commission meeting to discuss current issues with recycling, solid waste, and composting with their members in New Hampshire. SRPC's focus for this meeting was on finding ways communities could band together to share resources, define what regional recycling/composting looks like, increase the revenue for recycling, and avoid hauling costs if necessary. SRPC has 18 member municipalities in Southeastern New Hampshire and other invited guests included Mark Richardson, SRPC Commissioner and retired Transfer Station Manager from Hampton, NH, and Jen Czysz, from Mr. Fox Composting in Maine.
The following topics were discussed: Composting set-up in NH; single stream recycling issues, contamination, the human behavior component of recycling, education, and recycling budgets.Read more
Welcome back, MOM meetings! Members drove their trucks up, up, up and around the capped Manchester, NH landfill to meet in person for the first time since March due to COVID-19. We had the best view and the best September weather on top to catch up on NRRA news and discuss items! Later in the afternoon, Reagan, Heather, and Bonnie also held a remote version of the MOM agenda for members who could not make it in person. We reviewed the latest in cooperative marketing and purchasing, especially the challenge with marketing #1 PET plastics; summarized the success of the Summer Webinar Series and other items in our Resource Library, reviewed recent topics on the listserve; updates on the Keene Composting Grant; a School Club report; reviewed recent events NRRA participated in and reminded everyone about NH the Beautiful sign points. Dawn Quirk reviewed the layout...Read more
The Times They Are A-Changing
If nothing else, the recycling market is exciting! Prices for recyclables go up and down, tipping fees for MSW (Municipal Solid Waste) increase, methods of collecting waste change, and our members change with them. NRRA has worked with Merrimack, NH for the last 20 years and Solid Waste Foreman, Kris Perreault, is active on our listserve. Merrimack has changed from a community that source separated recyclables (residents sort aluminum cans in one bin, cardboard in another bin, etc.) to baling single stream material (residents combine all recyclables into one bin) in a 100 cubic yard trailer to compacting this material. They currently work with NRRA to move their single stream material, as well as scrap metal, freon, electronics, bulbs, propane, and tires.
We are approaching town budget season, and some have their Municipal Solid Waste contracts to review. NRRA can assist members with...Read more
Did you know that NRRA helped its members recycle 2,206,857 pounds of plastics in 2019? According to estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency, those recycled plastics had the environmental impact of conserving 1,655,145 gallons of gasoline! To learn more about the other materials NRRA members have recycled and their environmental impact, check out our most recent Annual Report . NRRA members and their residents are increasingly hearing negative news about plastic recycling, including a recent NPR story " How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled ." While there are some challenges and limitations with plastics recycling, NRRA enables its members to responsibly recycle many plastics.
For example, NRRA offers a #1-7 baled plastics program for our members, which accounted for 25% of all plastics marketed for NRRA members in 2019. NRRA’s Vendor, Trigon Plastics in Newmanstown, PA, processes 90% of...Read more
NRRA would like to thank Madeleine DiIonno for her valuable volunteer service to NRRA. Over the past year, Madeleine assisted NRRA as a graduate student at the University of New Hampshire Carsey School of Public Policy. She volunteered her time to assist NRRA with its glass recycling work, and in particular, its processed glass aggregate program. Thanks to Madeleine's efforts, NRRA was able to provide a number of valuable resources to its members related to NRRA's processed glass aggregate program, including the following:
PGA Specifications and Approved Uses by State in New England : A document summarizing the gradation and contamination requirements, as well as the approves uses, for processed glass aggregate for the environmental protection agency and the transportation agency for each of the New England states. Preparing this document involved considerable research and consultation with various state agencies.
Processed Glass Aggregate Survey Report...Read moreNRRA's School Recycling Club has pivoted their on-site classroom workshops and school-wide technical assistance programs to remote workshops and created nine free lesson plans from NRRA's school recycling curricula in response to COVID-19.
Nine lessons from NRRA's nationally recognized curricula ( 3R's of the Common Core: Use it Up, Wear it Out, Make it Do, or Do Without and Teaching Toxics : Creating Solutions to Household Pollution ) were broken out for age groups K-3, 4-6, 7-8 and 9-12. Each lesson plan packet includes a video introduction aligned with each packet theme, the Common Core Matrix (for teachers), a NRRA curricula lesson, a craft or activity and a link foradditional sources.
Lessons include: Recycling and Composting; Reuse and Repackaging; and Hazardous Homes. The goal is to keep recycling education alive both in the home...Read more