Baltimore oversight hearing finds progress on zero‑waste plans but funding and landfill timelines create urgency

The Baltimore City Council Public Health and Environment Committee held a legislative oversight hearing on the city’s 0 waste efforts, hearing presentations from the Office of Sustainability and the Department of Public Works and pressing city staff for timelines, budgets and clearer resident communications.

City sustainability staff and DPW officials told the committee they have advanced several zero‑waste initiatives — including distribution of free recycling carts, expansion of food‑scrap drop‑offs and design work for a three‑phase compost and transfer project at Bowleys Lane — even as residential diversion fell from about 18% in 2017 to about 16% in 2024 because overall disposed tonnage has risen.

Committee members said the numbers and schedules make the work urgent: the city’s current Quarantine Road landfill has roughly four years of capacity at current disposal rates, DPW said, and a planned expansion would add roughly 3.5 million cubic yards (an estimated 10–14 years of capacity depending on tonnage) at a current budgeted cost of about $100 million. Council members pressed officials for a public, line‑by‑line timeline of actions tied to Less Waste, Better Baltimore so the council and residents can track progress and budget needs through the next several years.

Office of Sustainability director Ava Richardson summarized the city’s planning framework, saying the administration is tracking progress in the 2019 Sustainability Plan, the Climate Action Plan and the Less Waste, Better Baltimore master plan. Richardson noted programs and past wins: the 2021 Comprehensive Bag Reduction Act, Camp Small’s wood reuse work, more than $800,000 invested in…