Massachusetts

General History

Under British rule, Massachusetts' ports were critical locations for international trade. As material and energy flows increased, the towns surrounding Massachusetts Bay flourished, as did waste accumulation and degradation of waterways. The Boston Tea Party of 1773 intensified a trend of pollution into Boston Harbor that would continue for the next 200 years. After the American Revolution, Massachusetts developed into a primary site of the Industrial Revolution, where textile manufacturing centers such as Lowell and Holyoke blossomed early in the 1800s, as well as other centers focused on machine tools, shoes, and paper products. This transition from agriculture to industry created long-lasting environmental damage as populations soared and industries took advantage of local natural resources. New Bedford, a shipping and textiles center on Buzzards Bay, exemplified the unfortunate outcome of years of neglect; the harbor was labeled a Superfund site in 1982 by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The textile industry's collapse in the early 20th century has led to growth of high-tech and biotech industries emerging out of the many local educational institutions, which have generated associated hazardous and biological wastes.

Solid Waste Collection and Disposal

Throughout the commonwealth, waste collection and disposal has historically relied on both landfills and combustion. The use of one method over the other was, until the 1960s, a matter of availability and cost of transport, but with little regulation for health or environmental concerns. In the heavily populated eastern regions, local landfills have gradually been replaced by combustion and larger regional landfill sites because of space limitations.

Massachusetts enacted its first solid waste disposal law in 1955, allowing local health boards the power to approve new waste disposal facilities before construction. In 1982, voters passed the Beverage Container Recovery Law, or “Bottle Bill,” requiring a $0.05 deposit on all retail sales of bottles and cans. A 1987 overhaul of the law included new regulations for siting facilities and provided funds for municipalities to improve outdated facilities. In 1990, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP), the commonwealth's waste regulator and manager, introduced the first Solid Waste Master Plan, as well as a series of measures aimed at decreasing hazardous waste and banning specific materials from landfill or combustion. Since then, MassDEP [Page 512]has overseen the closure and cleanup of countless contaminated sites, reducing the number of landfill sites from 150 before 1990 to 24 in 2010. Mass-DEP has also regulated mercury since 2006, with the intent of phasing it out of the Commonwealth's waste stream.

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