Results of New Hampshire waste study reveal missed opportunities for diversion

The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services has completed a solid waste characterization study, conducted by Florida-based MSW Consultants, where workers hand-sorted more than 250 samples of waste around the state and visually surveyed hundreds more. 

The study focused on municipal solid waste (MSW) and construction and demolition (C&D) debris, which MSW Consultants Vice President John Culbertson said are “far and away the largest components of solid waste” during a solid waste working group meeting April 25. The two categories comprise 952,699 annual tons, or around 87.5 percent of the state’s solid waste disposal. 

Combining the categories, the team found that 41.5 percent of what was disposed of was not recyclable in New Hampshire. However, the other waste included materials commonly targeted in recycling programs (14.6 percent), recyclable through special collection (11.5 percent), potentially recyclable (8.1 percent) and recyclable organics (24.3 percent), such as food waste.

The most common refuse found in MSW was unpackaged food waste (almost 12 percent), compostable paper (just under 8 percent) and packaged food waste (roughly 7 percent). 

“What I see is that a very significant amount of the material that we are throwing away in New Hampshire could be recycled or composted or otherwise better managed,” Reagan Bissonnette, the executive director of the Northeast Resource Recovery Association, tells the New Hampshire Bulletin. 

Culbertson says recyclables sorted out of the waste were “highly contaminated” with liquid and grit, meaning some figures could be an “overstatement.” Like other statistical work, he adds, it comes with a margin of error. 
The study results will offer insight into how the state can work to meet its diversion goals. Currently, New Hampshire has a statutory goal to reduce solid waste, in weight, by 25 percent by 2030 and 45 percent by 2050, specifically targeting MSW and C&D. 

The state has taken recent steps toward cutting down on food waste, such as a recently enacted law prohibiting those generating one ton or more of food waste per week from disposing of that waste in a landfill or incinerating it. There are exceptions if the person is farther than 20 miles from an alternative facility or if there isn’t ample capacity at such a facility. 

As for the high amounts of recyclables recovered from the study, Bissonnette says education is key, and pointed to the success of pay-as-you-throw programs in some New Hampshire communities. Trash tonnage in Concord, for instance, has gone down by 40 percent since the program was implemented in 2009, according to the city. 

There are opportunities to divert more C&D debris, too. Major components of this waste included wood (29 percent) and shingles (14.4 percent), according to MSW Consultants’ presentation. 

In Littleton, Bissonnette’s organization worked on a pilot program with the town that allowed for items that would typically be discarded in a construction and demolition debris container to instead be set aside for others to take home and use. That included materials like clean wood, which others could take to burn or use as building materials, or things like doors and windows, the New Hampshire Bulletin reports. 

The study was funded through Solid Waste Infrastructure for Recycling, or SWIFR, funds made available through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The Executive Council approved a $295,500 contract for the project in December 2023.