While it’s cause for great celebration that Massachusetts is planning to reduce waste, it’s also a reminder that the Department of Environmental Protection has yet to produce the solid waste master plan — the comprehensive, 10-year waste plan required by law (“Commercial food waste to be banned,” Page A1, May 4). We can’t help feeling like we’re at the celebration, blindfolded, with a tail in our hands but no donkey on the wall.
From 2008 to 2010, there were public hearings, thousands of comments, and testimony submitted by hundreds of citizens. On July 2, 2010, the Department of Environmental Protection issued a draft plan. Since then, we’ve been trying to get the agency to release the final plan.
Without a master plan, there’s no leadership or sense of direction, and there are no rules to play by. By issuing a new policy, no matter how good, without this master plan, the Department of Environmental Protection is making a donkey out of all of us.
Janet Domenitz
Executive director
MASSPIRG