Waste disposal in Massachusetts reduced slightly to 5.51 million tonnes in 2015, while exports climbed and total disposal capacity fell, according to a new annual report from Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

To reach 1.38 million metric tonnes, garbage exports rose by 16 percent in 2015. Maine, New York, Connecticut, Vermont, and Rhode Island trailed closely behind New Hampshire and Ohio as the most popular vacation spots. The amount of waste imported into the United States increased slightly to 500,000 tonnes.

As of 2015, more than 70% of the garbage that was disposed of in the state was sent to the seven operating waste-to-energy combustion plants. Although the state’s nine active landfills might decrease to just one by 2021 if disposal rate aren’t lowered and expansion licences aren’t granted, it’s still possible that the number of landfills will continue to grow.

According to a long-term strategy, the DEP plans on reducing waste disposal from 6.55 million tonnes to 4.55 million tonnes by 2020 as part of the plan. The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has announced that it would no longer publish on trash reduction and recycling diversion rates in order to better concentrate on its primary goal of reducing the amount of garbage being disposed of. Waste exports may be at record lows, and the DEP may point to the fact that management hasn’t risen to keep pace with GDP growth, but it’s apparent that more effort is required to meet the government’s next objective.

It is possible that even if the objective is met, the state will still be short of internal disposal capacity, and exporting prices may increase. New landfill space has very modest public support, as shown by Casella’s continuing attempts in the municipality of Southbridge to expand a site, and compliance costs might potentially rise at any sites that enlarge. New WTE facilities are likewise unlikely to be built in Massachusetts.

Efforts to legislate per capita waste reductions have been ineffective, and more municipalities have adopted pay-as-you-throw schemes as a result. The state’s restriction on the discharge of organic waste from commercial generators since 2014 has also been beneficial. However, redirecting home organics would need a more sophisticated and expensive combination of elements than the present commercial strategy, which might lessen the requirement for disposal capacity.

It has evaluated the possible risks to health & the environment posed by chemical discharges from landfills and other municipal solid waste processing plants (MSW). Due to the widespread, long-standing, and continuous requirement to handle MSW disposal, there are many such sites and facilities. It is common for the MSW business to employ landfills and combustion (usually waste-to-energy) plants. There is a distinct section devoted to waste-to-energy risk assessment, which includes an examination of numerous exposure paths that track toxins across the ecosystem and food chain.

Environmental and health risks associated with landfills may be reduced by the use of new technologies. With little regard for the environment in the past, landfills were started on accessible land or in abandoned quarries. Many of these landfills became Superfund sites because they were unlined, uncapped, or indiscriminately accepted any trash (including industrial chemicals), which poisoned watersheds with salts, metals, or organic compounds. Properly planned and managed sanitary landfills avoid contamination leaching but increase landfill gas production, which may lead to nuisance smells and raise worries about possibly harmful elements if the gas is released. There are a number of places where landfill gas is collected. Air pollution is emitted as a result of treatment methods that entail burning.

Landfills, disposal sites, recycling facilities, compost operations, or other MSW management facilities, depending on their age and growth, all have the potential to discharge toxins into the environment. It is essential to identify and characterise pollutant emissions, estimate exposure levels along relevant routes, and evaluate toxicological relevance of such exposure in order to determine possible threats to human and environmental health. When doing a risk assessment, it is critical to take all of these variables into account.