Bill > S410

This bill urges the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to establish a comprehensive waste management hierarchy, which is a prioritized system for dealing with waste. The proposed hierarchy, mirroring approaches used by the European Union and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, prioritizes waste reduction and reuse as the most environmentally beneficial actions, followed by recycling, then recovering energy from waste, and finally, landfilling as a last resort. This initiative aims to move away from relying on landfills, which are identified as significant sources of greenhouse gases like methane and air toxins, and instead promote more sustainable waste management practices that view waste as a resource.