Zero Waste
Sustainable Portsmouth – Community Action for Zero Waste
Created by Adrianne Harrison, Karina Quintans, Richard Katz, Charles LeBlanc, James Parkington, and Gary Epler.
This Action Plan was created by a group of Portsmouth citizens committed to rapidly reducing the amount of waste that is put in the landfill. In 2009, the Portsmouth Department of Public Works collected 5,259 tons of waste that was sent to the Turnkey landfill. That is roughly ¼ ton ton of waste per Portsmouth resident, which is equivalent to the size of a large pick-up truck. The current Municipal Solid Waste reporting system used by the City will serve as the primary monitoring tool for the impact of the Community Action Plan for Zero Waste.
The general recommendations of this group are for Portsmouth residents to:
- Reduce or prevent waste
- Recycle more
- Reuse items, and
- Compost organic waste.
Opportunities for community action are described below. In addition to actions for residents, this group recognized a strong need for City support to fully realize our goal for a zero waste community. These recommendations are highlighted alongside the community actions.
Reduce or Prevent Waste:
- Research Waste Reduction Programs. Citizens lead a research project to identify options for Portsmouth to reduce its solid waste, including variations of Pay-As-You-Throw and incentive programs. The research will result in grassroots recommendations for a robust waste reduction program. Citizens, through City Council Members, will work towards adopting elements of the recommended waste reduction program.
Community Impact: Environmental, economic, and social impacts of waste reduction strategies should be included in the research.
- Bring Your Own Bag Campaign – Make it a Habit and Grab it! Citizens participate in a BYOBag Campaign. Citizens work with Seacoast Local and the business community to create a Portsmouth shopping bag and to advertise the BYOBag Campaign.
Community Impact: In addition to reducing environmental impact by decreasing the number of single-use shopping bags, a campaign will promote shopping at local businesses and engage the business community in community action. With sponsorship or grant funding, reusable bags could be made available to residents for low or no cost.
- City Action: Create a Seacoast Buyers Guide that provides residents and visitors with criteria for analyzing their purchasing options, including benefits of purchasing bulk, recycled content, and recyclable packaging.
Reuse Items:
- Create a Community Swap Shop. Citizens volunteer to organize and oversee a ‘swap shop’. Neighboring communities of Kittery, Maine and Rye, NH have similar facilities, where residents could ‘swap’ used household items in good working condition that they no longer need for others to pick up. A Portsmouth Swap Shop would require a small enclosed structure of 300-400 square feet, ideally located at the Portsmouth City Yard. Volunteers would oversee the operation of the swap shop during regular recycling hours.
Community Impact: This facility would be free and open to the public, creating equal access to free household items. Promoting reuse of items that might otherwise be recycled or sent to the landfill reduces environmental impact and reduces the hauling costs and tipping fee for the City.
Recycle More:
- Downtown Recycling. Citizens create a downtown recycling project that would divert recycling from public waste stations in the downtown business district. Citizens will partner with local eco-artist, businesses, and schools to create artistic and educational combination recycling and waste stations. This project depends on outside funding sources for construction costs and commitment from the City to collect recyclables.
Community Impact: Visitors to the Portsmouth business district would have access to recycling and divert common items such as water bottles, coffee cups, newspapers, and paper bags from the landfill.
- Recycling and Composting Ordinance. Citizens request Portsmouth Listens to facilitate community discussion (study circles) around a new solid waste ordinance for the City that implements a Zero Waste program. The ordinance will result in grassroots recommendations for a stronger recycling and composting program. Citizens, through City Council Members, will work towards adopting the ordinance.
Community Impact: Environmental, economic, and social impacts of waste reduction strategies should be included in the study circle discussions.
- City Action: Citizens would like to see the City strengthen its recycling program to include ALL plastics and to provide for single-stream recycling.
Compost Organic Waste:
- Participate in Backyard Composting. Composting is an easy, inexpensive, and simple way to help reach our Zero Waste goal. A significant amount of household waste is made up of organic material – this group estimates as much as 50% of municipal solid waste is generated from yard waste and family food waste. Backyard composting eliminates the municipal hauling and disposing of a large portion of residential waste.
Community Impact: Backyard composting is something everyone can do and does not require a personal financial investment. The environmental benefits are great and enhances health of gardens and indoor plants.
- Neighborhood Compost Network. Citizens with composting bins invite neighbors to drop off kitchen waste in bins, creating an informal network of composting.
Community Impact: This action builds stronger neighborhoods and makes composting easy.
- Community Garden Composting. Members of community gardens install composting facilities for garden materials. Members can request a composting workshop from New Hampshire Cooperative Extension program.
Community Impact: This action builds community and provides fresh compost to Members for their gardens.
- Compost Bin Purchasing Program. Citizens work with the Portsmouth Department of Public Works and the Northeast Resource Recovery Association to re-instate a program for residents to purchase backyard composting bins at a reduced cost.
Community Impact: This makes containers more affordable and provides vermin-compost options.
- City Action: Citizens of Portsmouth would like to see the City commit to zero waste practices in public facilities, including schools and government offices. This includes installing waste station that separate recyclable, compostable, and landfill materials. Educational information on zero waste should be displayed at each station as well as training for municipal employees and schools.
Community Education:
- Adopt a Community Vision for Zero Waste.
- The entire Portsmouth community learns to minimize waste they bring into the community and places a priority on waste solutions that reduce, reuse, recycle, and compost before sending waste to landfills.
- Consumer-led Zero Waste Campaign. Citizens use their consumer power and ask local businesses to support zero waste goals. For example:
- Ask your favorite restaurants to use biodegradeable containers and utensils, then take them home and compost them!
- Ask your favorite restaurant to compost their food scraps, and patronize businesses already composting.
- Ask your favorite store to stop supplying plastic bags and sell reusable bags made of recycled plastic.
- Ask your favorite coffee shop to use only paper or compostable plastic to go cups and to sell reusable mugs.
- City Action: Citizens of Portsmouth would like to see the City rapidly adopt a Zero Waste Goal of zero or close to zero waste by 2025. As part of this goal, the City should engage in a diverse community education program on strategies for residents, visitors, and businesses to reduce their contributions to the landfill. In the short term, this group would like to see the City do the following:
- Enhance its website to include resources on community composting and buying bulk,
- Adopt a Zero Waste Events Policy for all events held on City property, and
- Commit staff time to forward the City Actions listed in this plan.