By Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) Commissioner Katie Dykes
Stratford is among the nine municipalities and regional organizations to be awarded a grant in the inaugural Materials Management Infrastructure (MMI) Grant Program, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection recently announced.
Stratford is receiving a $544,583 grant. A total of $15 million in grant funds — to date the state’s largest investment in local and regional waste management infrastructure — have been made available through a “competitive application process to Connecticut municipalities, councils of government, and regional waste authorities to support the development of waste management infrastructure in direct response to the solid waste disposal challenges that are impacting these entities,” according to a news release.
“Connecticut is facing a waste crisis, as traditional options for disposing of municipal solid waste (MSW) are diminishing or becoming more expensive,” officials wrote in the news release. “With fewer, and rapidly aging, disposal options located within the state, residents and municipal leaders can expect to see increasing disposal costs over time as more waste is shipped out of state.
“The MMI grant program is designed to help municipalities and regional entities respond to this crisis, by providing grant funds to develop small- to medium-scale waste management infrastructure.”
The funding provided by Governor Ned Lamont and the Connecticut General Assembly will invest in infrastructure to reduce municipal solid waste and help divert valuable recyclable and compostable material from disposal. By investing in waste separation and sorting infrastructure; composting and anaerobic digestion facilities; food scraps/food waste collection and processing equipment; infrastructure for managing hard-to-recycle materials such as plastic film and glass; and establishing a regional materials reuse exchange shop. Competition for the MMI Grant funds was very strong, with 20 applications submitted requesting approximately $30 million in funding.
“The MMI grant is another example of DEEP working to provide municipalities and regional organizations with tools and resources to help them tackle the waste crisis,” DEEP Commissioner Katie Dykes said. “These funds will assist towns and cities as they work to create MSW solutions that will help reduce costs and environmental impacts. This is the state’s largest investment to date in local and regional waste management infrastructure, and DEEP is eager to work with our partners to put these dollars to work to achieve greater system reliability, environmental sustainability, and fiscal predictability.”
To help develop workable solutions to the state’s waste crisis, DEEP originally created and managed the Sustainable Materials Management (SMM) Grant Program. Over the course of three years, the SMM Grant Program has funded waste management pilot programs in 15 municipalities, with a focus on separation of food scraps from the MSW waste stream.
These pilot programs provided a wealth of data on waste diversion initiatives across a diverse subset of Connecticut’s municipalities and demonstrated that these various approaches and strategies are effective in reducing costs and environmental impacts associated with MSW disposal.
Supporting municipalities that want to pursue these strategies will help Connecticut become more self-sufficient in the management of our waste, by reducing the amount of MSW tonnage that may be disposed of at out-of-state landfills. These strategies also help to advance progress towards the statewide 60% diversion rate set forth in the State’s Comprehensive Materials Management Strategy (CMMS).
Grants have been approved by DEEP for the following municipalities and regional entities:
Coventry – $202,896
Greenwich – $15,892
Housatonic Resources Regional Authority (HRRA) – $779,750
Manchester – $4,775,000
Mansfield – $129,500
New Haven – $3,347,876
Southeastern Connecticut Regional Resource Recovery Authority (SCRRRA) – $4,500,000
Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments (SECOG) – $425,711
Stratford – $544,583
