As communities across the country begin to adopt zero waste policies, some have had success by coordinating with state programs that provide technical assistance, grant funding and training.

Speakers at the National Zero Waste Conference on Oct. 3 shared their experiences building relationships between municipalities and state agencies. They highlighted programs in Massachusetts and Colorado that are specifically meant to help smaller and mid-sized communities.

Smaller communities don’t often have the staff or resources needed to adopt overarching zero waste plans or make major changes to their materials management programs on their own, said Jeremy Drake, principal of Strategy Zero Waste Solutions. That’s where technical assistance and grant programs can make a difference, he said.

“More than 60% of the U.S. population live in communities of fewer than 100,000 residents, so the U.S. can only get to zero waste if these communities are on board,” he said.

Managing municipal programs in Massachusetts

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection has created several programs and working groups meant to offer guidance and resources designed to be easily accessible for small and mid-sized municipalities, said Kathi Mirza, the agency’s branch chief of municipal waste reduction programs.

One program is a yearly cohort of municipal officials who are invited to take part in a best practices program for hauling contracts. MassDEP invites communities whose contracts are expiring within the next 24 months to monthly meetings that walk participants through the procurement process and keeps them on track with timelines and deadlines. The current cohort has more than 20 municipalities involved, including small towns and larger cities like Boston.

“It's about building these peer networks and sharing across communities and sharing resources and experiences,” Mirza said. “We as DEP really want municipalities to be educated consumers when they go out to bid. We want them to understand the procurement process and all the complicated rules and methods and to develop confidence when they go out.”

MassDEP also offers ready-to-use templates for municipalities to modify for their own needs. This includes templates for organizing solid waste and recycling service procurement, curbside collection programs and recycling audit guidance. 

Though such programs and services focus on offering technical assistance, the state also offers grant funding through its Sustainable Materials Recovery Program, which supports municipal recycling, composting, organics, source reduction and program development efforts. Over the last 10 years, the program has offered $24 million for such initiatives, Mirza said.

Drake highlighted recent program changes in Medford, Mass., as an example of how states and municipalities can work together. In 2022, Medford, a city of about 58,000 residents, faced the end of a 10-year municipal collection contract and considered making some changes “to orient toward zero waste,” Drake said. 

Medford considered offering recycling pickups weekly instead of every other week, but the cost would have been high. So officials used state recycling and waste data, along with data from MassDEP to help determine the city would benefit from continuing twice-monthly recycling service while also investing in residential compost collection, he said. Medford also applied for a MassDEP grant to help fund 5,000 new compost collection carts. “Ultimately, the MassDEP data really helped open the door to citywide residential composting,” he said.

Consulting with Colorado communities

Colorado’s state government also offers funding and technical assistance for communities who need more resources to launch or improve zero waste initiatives. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment runs the Colorado Circular Communities Enterprise, known as the C3 program. The program is funded through a landfill services fee that allows the enterprise fund to continually replenish, said Erin Girard, a waste diversion outreach and technical specialist at CDPHE.

A major aspect of this work is the Technical Assistance Service Provider program, which assists local governments, K-12 public school districts and tribes with waste diversion and zero waste programs. CDPHE works with Resource Recycling Systems and EcoCycle as consulting contractors.

So far, the program has helped Colorado communities with policy development assistance, educational initiatives, stakeholder engagement work and data collection for efforts such as waste composition studies, Girard said. In particular, the TASP program has helped several communities develop single-hauler ordinances, which are becoming a trend across the state, she said. 

C3 also offers funding opportunities, which the agency expects could start up again in 2025 as the program transitions from a previous funding configuration. 

The City and County of Broomfield, Colorado, is an example of a smaller locality that leveraged state resources to develop its zero waste plan. In 2021, Broomfield received a Front Range Waste Diversion program grant, a predecessor to the C3 program, which it used to hire a consulting team. That team helped develop a “robust, stakeholder-driven” plan that included input from numerous haulers. The final zero waste plan also helped officials set the groundwork for a new single-hauler ordinance, which went into effect in September. 

These Colorado and Massachusetts programs are just two examples of how states across the country can make meaningful connections with municipalities, Drake said. Such programs help bridge knowledge gaps, offer more staff time for implementing ideas, and leverage regional resources like data collection efforts.

“These statewide programs have a real opportunity here to be the clearinghouse for all things zero waste in the state or the region, and to track that and provide data, because data can drive innovation,” he said.