As the city of Holyoke emerged from the worst years of the COVID pandemic, the honorable Mayor Joshua Garcia launched this initiative with a goal of improving solid waste management in the city. Waste management, like so many aspects of daily life, was upended during the worst years of the pandemic. Many households chose to order goods on-line out of concerns for the health and safety of their families, producing significantly greater volume of paper and packaging for city staff to process. While the city is established as dual stream—sorting paper from plastics/glass when recycling, during the pandemic sorting by residents was not enforced.
Holyoke Waste Management Study
- Completed Projects
- Community Development
- Holyoke
Overview
- Joshua Garcia – Mayor
And the members of the Holyoke Waste Management Study Group
- Joe Kietner – Board of Public Works and Green Holyoke Mayoral Advisory Group
- Meagan Magrath-Smith – member of Green Holyoke Mayor’s Advisory Council Group and Chair of the Holyoke Community Preservation Act Committee
- Israel Rivera – City Councilor At-Large
- Dave Bartley – Ward 3 City Councilor
- Linda Pratt – member of Public Health/Public Safety Mayoral Advisory Group
- Jordan Hart – Executive Director, Greater Holyoke Chamber
- Jaime Cotto – member of Public Health/Public Safety Mayoral Advisory Group
- Amie Chrzanowski – Acting Department of Public Works Superintendent
- Michael Moriarty – Executive Director, OneHolyoke, Community Development Corporation
- Stephen Fay – Mayor’s Aide
- Mary L. Monahan – Chair, Holyoke Board of Public Works
- Sean Gonsalves – Board of Health Director
- Carl Eger – Holyoke Taxpayer Association Inc
- Mike Sullivan – Chairm, Mayors Committee on Infrastructure and Economic Development
- Matthew Mainville – Executive Director Holyoke Housing Authority
Coming out of the pandemic the city needed to decide whether to return to dual stream and facilitate sorting by residents or to stay with a de facto single-stream approach. Discussions with key stakeholders illuminated additional issues related to waste management and recycling.
The scope of the study expanded as the Mayor and his team clarified that waste management in Holyoke is a two-pronged issue:
- solid waste and recycling collection provided by city staff who work at the department of public works and the volunteers who serve on the board of public works managing solid waste and recycling pickup and disposal
- behavior of individuals who litter and illegally dump and/or fail to properly dispose of their own solid waste and recycling materials combined with the challenges of solid waste and recycling collections at Holyoke’s multi-family buildings.
The oversight group met six times in late 2022 to February 2023 with the purpose of identifying a set of measurable and achievable actions the city and its collaborators and partners will undertake to improve solid waste management and materials recycling and to reduce littering and illegal dumping to keep Holyoke beautiful.
The meetings were well attended and included lively discussions and debates. Outside of regular meetings members engaged with Pioneer Valley Planning Commission (PVPC) staff in interviews, tours, meetings, conversations and sharing of numerous resources to help the project staff understand the issues of waste management, littering and illegal dumping in the context of the city’s past efforts and challenges, available funding, access to resources, regulatory environment, and the appetite for change. We see this report as a 1–2-year prioritization process, with the ‘additional recommendations’ needing to be analyzed and considered for action by the city, including the mayor’s office, city council, city departments and staff, and the business and residential community in the coming 3-5 years.
Holyoke Waste Management Report
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