UPDATE (April 8, 2024): This article has been updated to provide the correct phone number for the HRRA.

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Housatonic Resources Recovery Authority (HRRA) Executive Director Jennifer Heaton-Jones talked to Newtown residents about recycling, waste reduction, and the state’s ongoing waste crisis in her “Trash Talk” presentation on Wednesday, March 13, at Newtown Senior Center.

The HRRA also coordinated this presentation with First Selectman Jeff Capeci’s “Java with Jeff” visit to the senior center, an event where he meets with senior residents to get to know each other over coffee and conversation. Capeci attended the presentation and also joined Heaton-Jones for a Q&A session afterwards, where residents could directly ask them questions about waste and recycling.

Public Works Director Fred Hurley and Public Works Administrator Arlene Miles were also in attendance to help answer questions.

Each table had HRRA-themed pens and notepads along with recycling guide pamphlets. Attendees could also help themselves to pastries, bagels, coffee, and orange juice. Capeci even brought in his homemade rye sourdough bread for everyone to enjoy.

The HRRA is the regional governmental waste management and recycling authority that came together in the late 80s to leverage community members and create solutions for solid waste management. This “Trash Talk” presentation is a part of their public education outreach and is designed to address residents’ issues and concerns.

While Heaton-Jones knows that the topic of solid waste and recycling can be confusing and complex, she hoped to “straighten out” that confusion and present it in a way that everyone could understand.

“Every single human being, no matter who you are, what color your skin is, how old you are, rich or poor, makes waste,” Heaton-Jones said during the presentation. “So when we think about that, every individual human being has a responsibility to figure out how we’re going to solve this problem.”

The HRRA considers Connecticut to be undergoing a waste crisis. According to Heaton-Jones, this is because Connecticut residents annually produce 3.5 million tons of municipal solid waste when the state only has capacity for 2.7 million tons of it.

Connecticut used to have full capacity back in the late 80s when, considering ways to deal with solid waste, it closed landfills and established six waste-to-energy plants throughout the state. Two of the six waste-to-energy facilities have since closed, creating an 800,000 ton shortfall for capacity.

Heaton-Jones said that it currently takes about 125,000 trucks to move most of the 3.5 million tons of waste to these facilities, and it takes around 29,000 more trucks to move the rest out-of-state due to lack of capacity. This is only partially why she and HRRA are determined to find ways to reduce waste production in Connecticut.

Another reason can be found in the results of a recent statewide survey on what people throw away, specifically on household residential trash and not commercial trash. The survey showed that 90% of the waste that people throw out every day, such as paper, organics, plastic, and more can either be reused, repurposed, or composted.

The recycling guide pamphlets showed what should be “in and out” of everyone’s recycling bin. Items that can be recycled include paper and cardboard (newspaper, magazines, mixed paper, flattened boxes, and food and beverage cartons), glass (bottles and jars), metal (food and beverage cans, aluminum foil and foil containers), and plastic (jugs, tubs and lids). All items should also be emptied, cleaned, and rinsed before recycling.

Items that cannot be recycled include plastic bags or plastic wrap, food or liquids, clothing or linens, tanglers (hoses, wires, chains, or electronics), and combustibles (propane tanks, batteries, and non-food grade aerosol cans such as spray paint and pesticides).

While people might think that zero waste means totally eliminating all waste, Heaton-Jones reiterated that people will always make waste. She stressed that what really matters is that people should know that they have options in reducing and repurposing waste.

“There’s always gonna be the core of the apple, the banana peel, the package after you eat crackers,” Heaton-Jones said. “It’s not as though you can live a complete zero material life. What [zero waste] means is that 90% of it can be repurposed, reused, or recycled … We can donate our textiles to Goodwill or we can find that organics can be composted. It’s breaking that pie chart [of what gets thrown away] down into several categories rather than one. That’s how zero waste happens.”

Heaton-Jones went on to discuss local solutions that the HRRA is working on in Newtown and throughout the region. In late September, HRRA and the Public Works Department kicked off a waste reduction initiative in town. The program came to fruition thanks to support from environmental services organization WasteZero and a grant from the CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP).

This volunteer program challenges residents to reduce their weekly household waste output to fit in two standard-sized orange bags. The trash would then be collected at the Newtown transfer station. HRRA designated orange bags for garbage and green buckets for organics.

And in the 21 weeks since starting the program in September to the end of January, Heaton-Jones said that the town reduced its solid waste at the transfer station by 184 tons. Newtown also has the best participation for the program in the region with over 1,200 participants.

“That’s pretty impressive. And that’s from residents taking the challenge,” Heaton-Jones said.

Heaton-Jones went on to give kudos to Miles, Hurley, and the rest of their team for “being a local champion” with their public outreach. HRRA hopes to continue encouraging residents to join the program if they can and “take the challenge” to solve the waste crisis.

Capeci was happy to be in attendance and answer residents’ questions alongside Heaton-Jones. He said that when he visited the senior center in January for the last “Java with Jeff” that the residents really wanted a presentation like this. This led to Capeci asking Heaton-Jones to come to the senior center and talk to the residents about it.

Capeci also helped put together a recycling committee. The town previously had one two years ago, but he recreated it when coming into office.

“Recycling, municipal waste, all these things are big issues. They impact Newtown,” Capeci said. “It’s just part of the things that we have to do. You can see the whole system has evolved over several years. We’re recycling a lot more stuff than we used to and it’s something that’s not going away.”

For more information, visit hrra.org, email info@hrra.org, or call 203-775-4539.

Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.