Committee adopts interim amendment and advances comprehensive solid waste plan amid incinerator transition and budget concerns

The Montgomery County Council Transportation and Environment Committee reviewed a draft 10-year Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Plan March 24 and unanimously adopted a committee amendment that requires the county, as it studies alternatives, to “concurrently explore feasible waste diversion and disposal alternatives while advancing efforts toward the closure of the resource recovery facility.”

The plan — required by Maryland law to be submitted to the Maryland Department of the Environment — lays out data, facilities descriptions and a chapter of programmatic actions aimed at an "aiming for 0 waste" goal. Committee members and Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) staff discussed sequencing, budget consequences and pilot programs while stressing the plan is an interim document that will be amended to reflect any material policy decisions made later.

DEP staff explained the plan’s structure: technical data chapters already received a technical approval from the Maryland Department of the Environment; chapter 4 lists county facilities; chapter 5 proposes actions including expanded recycling, commercial and residential food-scrap programs, a "save-as-you-throw" pilot, edible food recovery, material recovery facility upgrades and an organics processing facility. DEP said the county has $27,000,000 in CIP funding approved for a processing facility but the site selection and permitting work remain under negotiation.

A major point of debate was the county’s future of the Resource Recovery Facility (RRF), commonly called the incinerator. The draft plan includes language pointing toward a transition away from the RRF; committee members pressed staff on how the comprehensive municipal solid-waste (MSW) alternatives analysis — due to the committee in the coming days — will affect budget and operational choices. DEP staff and council staff repeatedly emphasized that any material change (for example, decommissioning the RRF or selecting an alternative system) would require an amendment to the county solid waste plan and subsequent council action.

Members expressed concern about timing: the plan must be submitted to MDE by April under the three-year cycle, while the council must also resolve FY26 fees and budget items (solid-waste fee increases in the executive’s proposed FY26 budget were noted as related to plan investments). Committee members said they want a clearer table in the final packet showing each "aiming for 0 waste" initiative, its planning status, funding (capital and operating), start dates and investments already made.

DEP outlined current food-waste efforts: three residential curbside pilot sites (collection currently sent to Prince George’s County for processing), a commercial food-scraps partnership, and a plan to combine yard trim and food scraps collection to use existing yard-trim truck routes until a local processing facility is online. DEP said the lack of local processing capacity limits expansion of curbside food-scrap programs and increases hauling distances and costs.

Council members pressed DEP on site selection and community concerns; DEP said Sugarloaf-area property is a preferred site for an organics processing facility because utilities and infrastructure are already present and the county is negotiating with the local Sugarloaf community group. Committee members also discussed subdistricts A and B: Montgomery County currently uses a contracted-collection subdistrict (A) and a market-driven subdistrict (B), and consolidation or transition between those regimes raises trade-offs for small haulers, HOAs and residents who subscribe to multiple pickups per week. Staff suggested a post-budget committee briefing with updated analyses and possible Office of Legislative Oversight (OLO) updates to inform council decisions.

On operational continuity, staff recounted the 2016 RRF fire and said contingency measures then included diverting loads to regional transfer stations and out-of-state landfills; staff cautioned that some historic accepting facilities are now full and that current contingency routing would likely rely more on transfer stations and sending waste to landfills in Pennsylvania or Virginia.

Chair Glass introduced the amendment to section 5.3.4 of the draft plan to make clear that the county will explore alternatives concurrently with closure planning; the amendment passed without objection. Committee members asked DEP to return to the council with a table of initiatives, clearer budget breakdowns split between capital and operating, and more detail on fee impacts tied to FY26. DEP staff said they will incorporate comments from WSSC Water, the Planning Department and others into the final draft prior to full council action.

"This plan will not preclude the council from making any FY26 operational budget decisions during the budget review period," said Willie Weiner, chief of DEP’s division of solid waste and recycling, underscoring that the plan is an interim snapshot and will be amended to reflect later decisions.

The committee advanced the draft plan and the adopted amendment to the full council for consideration; staff committed to follow-up briefings and to provide the MSW alternatives analysis to committee members.