Dumpster Dive 2024!
🌊
DIVE IN
🌊 DIVE IN
🌊
DIVE IN
🌊 DIVE IN
Last Saturday, Baltimore City volunteers came together at the Baltimore ToolBank for the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore’s & Volunteering Untapped Baltimore’s annual Mr. Trash Wheel Dumpster Dive!
Over 100 volunteers got their hands dirty sorting through one entire Professor Trash Wheel (stomach 😉) Dumpster. All in order to provide yummy data on the contents to shape policy decisions across Maryland.
Two of those policy decisions, thanks in part to the dumpster dive event, were game-changers: plastic bag and polystyrene food ware bans. Bans show results. These used to be among the top numbers of items counted. Now? Much lower on the list.
Numbers of plastic bags in the count continue to decrease thanks to the bans across Maryland. Baltimore City’s ban went into effect in October 2021, resulting in an immediate decrease of plastic bags from 1,337 in 2019 (no dumpster dive in 2020 or 2021 due to Covid-19) to 525 in 2022 and 450 in 2023. The Baltimore County bag ban went into effect in November 2023, causing the plastic bag count to fall to a record low of 343.
Plastic Bag bans work. 16 jurisdictions in Maryland now have plastic bag bans in place. College Park, Baltimore County, Easton and Salisbury implemented new programs last year with Anne Arundel County, Prince George's County, the City of Frederick, and the Town of Centreville joining them at the start of 2024.
Polystyrene numbers are similarly declining in the dumpster dive data since the 2020 ban. In 2019 the number of polystyrene pieces counted was 2,398 (no dumpster dive in 2020 or 2021 due to Covid-19). In 2022 the total was 214 and 2023 it was 277. This year we did see an increase in polystyrene pieces at 865.
But wait, there's more! The top items found in this year’s dumpster dive were Wrappers: 9,915, Drinking Bottles: 1,596, Cups: 1,471, and Airplane Bottles: 824. Notice a pattern? They’re all forms of packaging!
That's why we championed the beginning stages of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for Packaging. It's time to shift the responsibility away from consumers and back to producers that produced the packaging waste in the first place!
As part of the EPR process a comprehensive needs assessment is underway to revamp our recycling systems and keep packaging waste out of our waterways and from ending up in our trash wheels. It aims to reduce packaging volumes, fortify recycling infrastructure and improve markets for recyclables.
Using the information from the statewide needs assessment, as a member of the EPR Advisory Council we will be working hard to ensure the recommendations for a full Extended Producer Responsibility Program in 2025 to the Governor and the Maryland General Assembly in 2025 is the most effective proposal possible.
