TORRINGTON >> The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection is aiming to increase the percentage of recyclable materials the state is able to take in and process significantly by 2024, according to a presentation shared last week with the Northwest Hills Council of Governments.
At this time, the state generates 3.2 million tons of municipal solid waste per year, 800,000 of which are successfully recycled.
The agency hopes to improve practices to the point that it can divert 60 percent by 2024.
“It’s an ambitious goal, but we think it’s realistic,” said Lee Sawyer, who works for the DEEP Bureau of Materials Management and Compliance Assurance, and spoke before the council Thursday.
According to Sawyer, to speed progress toward this mark, DEEP is looking to “more closely coordinate state, regional and local planning,” find room under current regulations to allow new technologies to come into use, support market growth to drive the creation of useful infrastructure, increase public awareness and participation at the consumer level and strengthen enforcement of existing law at the state level.
A study to characterize state municipal solid waste is currently underway — the first such work since 2009, before single-stream recycling was instituted in a number of municipalities across the state — while a study of waste generated by construction and demolition, which the state currently recycles 5-10 percent of compared to 33 percent recycled in Massachusetts, is set to begin in June.
“We’re looking at developing some statewide data on the composition, flow patterns and recycling rates of various materials included in the construction and demolition category, and opportunity for higher uses of those materials,” said Sawyer.
The department is also looking at refining the single-stream recycling process.
A study designed to aid in altering and adding to infrastructure, largely by considering economic modeling of various strategies under consideration, is also planned.
A draft of DEEP’s plan, which will encompass the results of these studies, as well as input from local and regional actors, is tentatively expected to be released for public comment in November.