Too Much Trash: | Vermont Community Foundation

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Actionable Insight To Inform Your Giving

January 2023

IT’S FRUSTRATING TO REALIZE that despite some

of the most forward-thinking laws in the nation when it

comes to recycling, composting, and the environment,

Vermont has not lowered the volume of trash it sends

to landﬁlls. Instead, we’re building bigger mountains

of garbage and going in the wrong direction when

it comes to state goals on waste reduction. Vermont

residents produced 1,302 pounds of waste per capita

in 2021, up from 1,251 in 2020. The increase puts us

even further away from the state’s “waste-trim” goal of

1,000 pounds per person by 2024.

Granted, there’s some consolation in the fact that

Vermont recycles and composts about 34 percent

of total waste. But this number, known as the

diversion rate, is supposed to hit 50 percent under

Vermont is generating more

trash despite laws designed to

curb the problem. Charitable

individuals can help tackle the

trash monster by supporting:

• Organizations that promote

reuse, repair, and the low-

waste lifestyle

• Advocacy for policy steps that

will help reduce waste

• Partnerships with businesses

and government on reuse

THE TAKEAWAY

the state’s 2024 targets. Instead, there’s been no

meaningful increase in the diversion rate over the past

decade, according to the Vermont Department of

Environmental Conservation.

The unpleasant reality is that every pound of progress

we make on recycling and composting seems to be

undermined by the growing volume of unnecessary

packaging, single-use plastics, and other disposable

products ﬂooding our lives and environment. In 2021,

Vermont landﬁlled 420,334 tons of trash, an increase

of 4.5 percent over the volume in 2020, state ﬁgures

show. And the bad news doesn’t stop there. A growing

body of research from national environmental groups

contends that most of the plastic thrown into the

recycling bin cannot be recycled, period.

Too Much Trash:

How charitable giving can help Vermonters generate less waste

2 | vermontcf.org/insighthub

Law Foundation, a nonproﬁt New England-wide

environmental group whose Vermont ofﬁce is based in

Montpelier. She sees many signs of over consumption,

including the ubiquity of storage units that her parents

and grandparents didn’t seem to need. “Why do we

have all these storage units?” Silverman asked. “We

keep buying so much stuff that we can’t even keep it on

our own property.’’

Charitable individuals can help Vermont make

progress by supporting:

Reuse, repair, and low-waste living

Everything from refrigerators to computer laptops

and construction salvage gets a new lease on life at

ReSource: A Nonproﬁt Community Enterprise. The

organization’s four stores around the state take in goods

and sell used and refurbished items. ReSource has also

become an important job training center, taking what

began as teaching people to ﬁx things and expanding

into training for high-paying ﬁelds such as construction,

appliance repair, and the heating/mechanical sector.

Unpacking the complexities of these trends is not an

easy task and many of the nuances are under debate.

But there is a simple truth that should unite us and

motivate action: One of the best solutions to the

garbage problem is to reject disposable products and

the single-use plastic hydra and learn to generate less

waste to being with. The thinking that a full recycling bin

is the solution to our trash woes is increasingly outdated.

More and more, environmental groups are recognizing

that repurposing and generating less waste to begin

with are key to reducing the trash mess that is polluting

our lakes, oceans, land, and atmosphere.

For Burlington environmentalist Julie Silverman, who

has helped document the presence of micro-plastics

pollution at all levels of the Lake Champlain ecosystem,

it’s partly about returning to the Great Depression era

motto she learned long ago from her grandmother:

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.”

Granted, Silverman doesn’t expect modern consumers

to embrace the forced austerity of a historical period

characterized by profound economic shock. But the old

motto can be updated to apply to modern times and

encourage individuals to be more careful consumers,

whether that means rejecting single-use plastics that are

used once and live in the environment for a thousand

years, or repurposing and repairing goods rather than

buying disposable wares. It also means questioning the

sheer volume of what we may buy.

“We’ve just gone a little bit crazy. How much do

we really need?” said Silverman, who works as the

Lake Champlain Lake Keeper for the Conservation

Actionable Insight To Inform Your Giving

The trash problem

is not insurmountable.

We can ﬁx it.

3 | vermontcf.org/insighthub

the organization helps build awareness of how

individuals can make a difference to reduce society’s

trash problem.

“People sometimes get to a point where they are

passionate about the environment and then realize

that their own life is contributing to the problem,”

Longstreth said. “So, their New Year’s resolution might

be to make big changes. Part of that is to shed stuff

they don’t need or want any more and put it back

into circulation for people who can use it.” Very soon,

the nonproﬁt will offer an additional service. With the

help of University of Vermont students, it will provide

customers with a calculation of the carbon savings

represented in each item they purchase. “In addition to

the price of the item,” said Longstreth, “there will be

an estimated carbon savings of buying that item versus

buying something brand new.’’

Many nonproﬁts are working toward similar goals.

Goodwill Northern New England has multiple drop-

off sites and retail stores that sell repurposed goods

in Vermont. It also conducts job training and provides

jobs, including for people with disabilities. Many

environmental groups, including the Conservation

Law Foundation, the Vermont Public Research Interest

Group, and the Vermont Natural Resources Council,

offer strategies on individual changes that can up add

up to less trash. Vermont’s municipal solid waste districts

are also good outlets for information and for fresh ideas,

whether that’s putting on a community “repair café”

that teaches DIY repair skills or running a workshop on

bulk grocery shopping.

Advocacy for policy steps to reduce waste

Vermont is doing some things right when it comes to

reducing waste. It’s important to acknowledge that and

generate discussion about additional steps, including

through charitable giving to nonproﬁt organizations

that are leading public policy discussions and, in some

cases, supporting important research. Certain proposals

With retail outlets in Burlington, Barre, Hyde Park and

Williston, the nonproﬁt last year logged reuse sales of

$2.5 million, and diverted 706,836 items representing

745 tons of material from landﬁlls. The operation

has grown over 30 years from an enterprising idea in

Burlington to a job training and reuse solution with

99 employees. Every year ReSource gives more than

$100,000 in goods to people in need, working with

nonproﬁt organizations such as the Committee on

Temporary Shelter (COTS).

“The sweet spot for us is where we can teach skills

to disadvantaged people who need jobs, protect

the environment, and relieve poverty. When we can

do all three things at once, that’s a very powerful

impact,” said Thomas Longstreth, ReSource

executive director.

On a typical day, shoppers might include teen-agers

browsing for bargain fashions, tiny home builders

hunting for used cabinetry, or refugee families looking

for an affordable kitchen table. Some shoppers are ﬁrst-

timers and others already have the reuse bug, in certain

cases regardless of income, according to Longstreth.

“They can afford to shop elsewhere but they love the

hunt. It makes them happy to decorate a bathroom with

recycled tile.”

ReSource works with private companies who hire the

nonproﬁt to come on-site, wipe data off computers,

and then take the entire lot for resale or recycling. It’s

an example of the services ReSource has developed in

response to emerging need, in some cases with support

from donations. There’s another beneﬁt, too: every time

someone drops off an item or buys one at ReSource,

Actionable Insight To Inform Your Giving

People realize their

own life is contributing to

the problem.

4 | vermontcf.org/insighthub

that get to the source. One of the origins of microplastic

pollution in Lake Champlain is the polystyrene material

used in ﬂoatation systems for docks. It breaks down

into millions of small particles that wash up on

beaches, ﬂoat in the water, and harm ﬁsh, marine

birds, and other creatures. “Polystyrene has horrible

chemicals in it that can affect human and animal

health,” said Silverman, at the Conservation Law

Foundation, which is advocating for policy that

reduces the polystyrene ﬂoatation system problem.

CLF has also collaborated with nonproﬁts such as

the Connecticut River Conservancy to promote

alternatives, including sealed air.

Plastic debris of all kinds is sloshing around in Lake

Champlain, Silverman added. “It’s everywhere. All

of our trash on land really does end up in the water

and we see that result in the Lake.” The scale of the

problem is daunting, but she’s convinced Vermont

can make a difference, with new approaches that

reduce unnecessary packaging and waste at the

manufacturing level, and with smart personal

decisions. “Individuals have purchasing power and we

have choices about what products we buy,” Silverman

said. The trash problem is not insurmountable, she

added. “We can ﬁx it.”

might not ﬁnd public support, while others might

advance. Either way, donations can help support a rich

marketplace of ideas and the public debate needed

to make progress and analyze the effectiveness of

existing laws. On that note, it’s encouraging to see that

Vermont’s law requiring composting of food scraps

has been fully implemented and that Vermonters are

keeping an estimated 70,000 tons of food and yard

waste out of landﬁlls. More progress: Vermont in 2020

banned grocery stores and other retailers from offering

single-use plastic bags at check-out, legislation that the

Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG) helped

champion. It’s encouraging to see that consumers have

largely accepted the change, said Paul Burns, executive

director of Montpelier-based VPIRG.

“When that law passed in Vermont it was the most

comprehensive restriction on single-use plastics in the

country,” Burns said. “And you know what? The sky

didn’t fall. People made that transition remarkably well.”

VPIRG is working on additional proposals, including

legislation to expand and modernize Vermont’s

bottle bill, which is an example of a law that requires

manufacturers to take some responsibility for products

they produce. This concept, known as extended

producer responsibility, is increasingly being seen by

environmental groups as the path to reduce waste

and waste pollution. The burden for change cannot be

placed simply on individual shoppers or consumers,

Burns said. “We have to change the way that

manufacturers think about it as well.’’

Consumers also need to understand that some

materials are inherently problematic. Plastic equals toxic

in many ways, from fossil fuels used to create it, to the

additives it can contain, to the difﬁculty of recycling it

without creating new environmental problems, Burns

said. “Plastics are an environmental threat and we do

ourselves a favor by reducing the use of plastic as much

as possible.”

Meanwhile, other groups, such as the Conservation

Law Foundation (CLF), are also working on policies

Actionable Insight To Inform Your Giving

Dock foam in Malletts Bay, Lake Champlain.

Photo: Julie Silverman/Vermont Conservation Law Foundation

5 | vermontcf.org/insighthub

Partnering with businesses and government

Philanthropy can play a critical role when a concept

needs a little help to get launched.

That was the case when the composting requirements

that are part of Vermont’s universal recycling law were

phasing in. The rules required the state’s municipal solid

waste districts and transfer stations, which receive trash

and recyclables, to start accepting food scraps, too, and

create the infrastructure to do so. There was push back

in certain parts of the state, with some local ofﬁcials

saying the law was an unfunded mandate, recalls Josh

Kelly, the solid waste program manager at the Vermont

Department of Environmental Conservation.

Ultimately state ofﬁcials were able to harness philan-

thropic resources to cover some of the infrastructure

expenses through a grant program created by the

High Meadows Fund, now called the Daybreak Fund

for Climate and Community Resilience, which is a

component fund of the Vermont Community Foundation.

The grants helped waste districts get set up for com-

posting and in the process built more support for the

law, according to Kelly. “It was a critical moment. Were

it not for that surge in philanthropic dollars there would

have been towns that were noncompliant,” Kelly said.

“It just really kind of put it over the hump.”

Charitable individuals can also help by providing

seed money, low-interest loans, and other ﬁnancial

support to private sector businesses that repurpose

materials that might otherwise end up in landﬁlls.

By jumping into what is known as the mission

investment movement, philanthropy can help support

entrepreneurial efforts that create jobs and generate

environmental returns. One example can be found

in Essex Junction. The start-up company Glavel is

turning recycled glass into foam glass gravel, a green

building material that can be used in construction and

road projects. It’s one of many innovative ventures

supported by the Vermont Mission Investment Pool at

the Community Foundation.

Glavel’s work is especially timely now, because the

market for recycled glass has mostly disappeared,

Kelly said. “It’s a major drag on the recycling system.”

He’d love to see philanthropy and entrepreneurs

collaborate more around waste reduction and reuse.

For example, Vermont needs more recyclers of

mattresses, which are bulky and don’t compact well,

making them problematic in landﬁlls. There’s one

mattress recycler in Burlington, but the state needs

more, Kelly said.

Actionable Insight To Inform Your Giving

eeper reading:

Vermont 2021 Waste Disposal and Diversion Report,

Agency of Natural Resources

“Loopholes, Injustice and the ‘Advanced Recycling

Myth’”

Reach out to us at [email protected] or call

(802) 388-3355 opt. 5 to be connected with a

philanthropic advisor.

If you found this information useful, find similar

content at vermontcf.org/insighthub.

The heart of the Community Foundation’s work is

closing the opportunity gap—the divide that leaves

too many Vermonters struggling to get ahead, no

matter how hard they work. Learn more about the

Community Foundation’s philanthropic advising

services or opening a donor advised fund at

vermontcf.org.

Philanthropy can play a critical

role when a concept needs a little

help to get launched.