3 Ways You Can Help Protect Our Soil
1. The Depackager Stakeholder Group has submitted their report & recommendations to the VT legislature. Read the report here
3. Share our message through your networks
Action during the 2022 Legislative Session
The Protect Our Soils Coalition urged the Legislature to recognize and address increasing concerns about soil contamination in Vermont. The resulting bill (Act 170) launched a process for regulating depackaging technology as well as an ANR study on microplastics and PFAS in food packaging and food waste.
The Depackager Stakeholder Group is charged with making recommendations for the management of food waste that address contamination issues with microplastics (including PFAS). This includes proposing guidelines for the role of depackaging technology.
Tom Gilbert (Black Dirt Farm), a member of the Protect Our Soils Coalition, is one of the seven members of the Depackager Stakeholder Group. However, we remain concerned by the emphasis on industry stakeholders over independent experts and are advocating for additional members to be included.
In regards to the management of food residuals, Act 170 includes:
A moratorium on further permitting of food depackaging facilities until rules have been adopted. This does not impact the existing facility in Williston, VT but the expansion of capacity for this new industry
A collaborative stakeholder process, that will recommend rules to define a role for depackagers in managing food waste
A study on microplastics and PFAS in food packaging and food waste by ANR and VAAFM, to be presented to the legislature by January 15, 2024
Why this work is important
The Protect Our Soils Coalition formed to address the “zero sort” consolidation of waste streams of food residuals. This practice creates new resource concerns that the Universal Recycling Law was intended to solve and hinders market development for small scale composters.
The Protect Our Soils Coalition advocated for Sections 24-28 of Act 170 (H.446, relating to miscellaneous natural resources and development subjects) that was signed into law by the Governor on June 2, 2022.
The coalition continues to advocate for:
A ban on the application of organics (”slurries”) derived from depackaging facilities on agricultural land;
Regulation of the industry with the goal of strategically supporting the implementation the source separation requirement;
A ban of all non-packaged, easily unpackaged and post-consumer materials from being mixed with packaged materials for processing at depackaging facilities;
A pathway for clean waste streams and the use of composts from food residuals that have been separated from their packaging prior to their processing and land application; and
Transparency for farmers, gardeners and other consumers utilizing compost, digestate or other end products that may contain pollutants that could get into soil, microorganisms, and plants as well as finding ways on how to address those issues best.
