Sustainability Committee

Recycling and Solid Waste

Sustainability Committee

Beyond the Bin Municipal Waste Reduction | Email Us | Follow Us on Facebook
 

Town Wide Cleanup-Sunday April 21-9am-12p.  Come to our annual Earth Day Town Wide Cleanup at the North Andover Middle School.  The North Andover Sustainability Committee needs your help to clean up trash around the community!  Come get trash bags, gloves and grabbers from us and clean up your favorite part of town.  Bring the family and do something in your community and for our Planet this Earth Day.
 
The North Andover Sustainability Rain barrel Promotion is on now for Spring 2024-
Save Water and Save Money.  Order your rain barrel today from the Great American Rain barrel link here and harness this finite resource in your own backyard to water your plants and gardens all spring, summer and fall. Barrels are repurposed olive containers and hold 60-gallons of water. Start collecting rain this spring and notice what a difference it makes.
 
 

Green Schools Program-- Your kids are sorting their lunch at school when they are finished eating and learning the importance of reducing waste, soil regeneration and sustainability in their community and for their future. Student Green Teams lead their peers, learn about the importance of waste diversion and sustainability, foster school gardens and are in turn raising environmental awareness within our community. 

In 2018 we received a sustainable materials grant from the MADEP that enabled our district to begin lunchroom sorting to reduce their waste. Prior to Covid-19, 4 of our 8 schools were composting at lunch (diverting over 30,000 pounds of organics that year alone!).  

Though the program was put on hold at these schools due to the pandemic, we have been able to successfully begin the program again at all 8 schools!  So far this year, Sargent, Atkinson, Franklin, Thomson, Kittredge, NAMS, ABECC and the High School there have diverted over 50,000 pounds (25 TONS) of food scraps and other organic matter (lunch trays, napkins, brown lunch bags) from going to the trash, and instead are being picked up by our compost hauler Bootstrap Compost, and turned into nutrient-rich soil, that can be used again to plant crops. That is an average of 2,000 pounds per week!

In addition, we are saving upwards of 35 trash bags per day across the school cafeterias, lessening the amount of trash we have, and in turn trash bags we are using.  This is a significant amount of waste that would otherwise go into a landfill or over to the trash plant on Holt Road in North Andover to be incinerated, but instead is being sorted so that the organic matter we generate is instead going to local farms and being gradually turned into compost so more food can be grown.

Please click on the North Andover Green Schools sidebar for more information.

Interested in composting at home?  Do you want to reduce the amount of trash you have every week and also help rejuvenate your gardens and plants with nutrient rich soil?  Currently our Committee along with the DPW, are doing a promotion selling the Earth Machine compost bin for only $37.19. To purchase, please head down to the North Andover DPW with a personal check made out to the Town of North Andover and they will get you your compost bin to take home and start reducing waste and making black gold of your own! Please click on the "Earth Machine Compost Bins" side bar on the left for more information.

Want to compost but don't have the time?  Our hauler for the schools, Bootstrap Compost has weekly collection or drop off plans available on their website.  They collect in North Andover every week--you get a 5-gallon bucket that you fill up with food waste, they take it from your curb each week, and give you a clean new one to fill up again.  So easy and so impactful.

Our committee is dedicated to waste diversion, conserving our natural resources and soil regeneration, so if you have any questions about any of our initiatives or would like to be a part of them, please reach out to us!  nasustain@northandoverma.gov.

Trash & Recycling Schedule Information

Board Members

Name Title
Jim Stanford Member