Bill > H647

This bill aims to increase access to recycling across the Commonwealth by requiring all cities and towns that offer curbside waste removal to also provide curbside pickup of recyclable materials, and any town with a waste drop-off site must offer recycling there as well. It also mandates that all entities providing solid waste collection services must offer either single-stream or dual-stream recycling collection to all their residential and commercial customers, including providing appropriately sized containers to encourage recycling and discourage disposal, with pickups occurring at least every other week. The bill clarifies definitions for "recyclable" and "recycle," specifying that recyclable materials are those with the potential to be reused, used as an ingredient in manufacturing, or as a substitute for commercial products, and importantly, it excludes energy recovery from combustion or fuel creation from the definition of recycling, and also excludes composting or conversion from the definition of recycling.