Tennessee legislation would ease strain on landfills

As some Tennessee landfills approach their limits, state legislators have introduced legislation to ease the state’s landfill crisis, the Elizabethton Star reports.

State Sen. Heidi Campbell has introduced the Tennessee Waste Reduction and Recycling Act (Senate Bill 0573, House Bill 0550), aimed at reducing litter, reducing strain on local landfills, increasing recycling and creating local jobs in Tennessee.

The bill would establish a producer responsibility organization (PRO) to implement strategies to increase recycling and reduce the amount of packaging that ends up in landfills, requiring sellers, distributors and importers of certain packaging materials to take certain actions to reduce the amount of packaging material that becomes litter.

It also would create an advisory board for the PRO, require the development of periodic needs assessments and plans to address recycling, and require the department of environment and conservation to perform certain duties to assist in such purposes.

The bill defines packaging materials to mean a part of a package or container, including primary, secondary and tertiary consumer packaging as well as service packaging such as carry-out bags, bulk goods bags and take-out and home delivery food service packaging.

“We urgently need to solve Tennessee’s trash and litter crisis,” says Jeffrey Barrie, CEO of Tennessee Environmental Council. “We fully support this legislation that promises to create local jobs in Tennessee’s recycling sector while tackling our dwindling landfill space head-on.”

RELATED: Tennessee approves 40-acre landfill expansion

Cited as the reasons behind the state’s landfill challenges are a population boom in middle Tennessee and the Nashville area paired with community opposition to landfill expansion, according to WKRN.

Approximately $162 million worth of recyclable materials are buried in Tennessee landfills every year, according to a recycling report from Eunomia Research & Consulting and Ball Corporation. Recycling those materials would add up to 7,700 jobs and add up to $420 million annually in additional wages for the state’s residents, according to the report.

Read the full bill here.