Closure Of MIRA Plant Sets Off Scramble To Recycle Thousands Of Tons Of Wasted Food

(Patrick Skahill/Connecticut Public Radio)

After decades of burning trash, the Materials Innovation and Recycling Authority (MIRA) will close its Hartford incinerator by July 2022. That means hundreds of thousands of tons of trash will be destined for out-of-state landfills, a costly reality that has state and municipal officials questioning how to quickly reduce trash volumes.

One solution? Recycling leftover food.

You may not know it, but Connecticut actually has a law that says food waste needs to be recycled. The thing is, it only applies to big commercial producers in certain locations.

When COVID-19 shut everything down, Brian Paganini said many of those producers just stopped sending old food to his recycling plant.

“Mostly because restaurants and hotels and universities were ceasing operation,” said Paganini. “So those places weren’t diverting food waste. They weren’t creating food waste.”

Read the rest of the story at Connecticut Public Radio’s website.