* Warning: This is an unofficial, introductory copy of the bill.
The official copy considered by the City Council is the first reader copy.
Introductory*
City of Baltimore
Council Bill R
(Resolution)
Introduced by: Councilmember Henry
A Resolution Entitled
A Council Resolution concerning
title
Investigative Hearing - Municipal Composting
For the purpose of inviting the Director of the Department of Public Works, the Head of the Bureau of Solid Waste, the Director of the Office of Sustainability, the Coordinator of the Office of Sustainability, and the City Arborist to update the City Council on the City’s progress toward creating a municipal composting program, to provide a fiscal impact statement on creating the program, and to estimate a time line for Citywide implementation of municipal composting.
body
Recitals
Composting is the process of making vegetable matter (or manure) into compost, which is a mixture of decayed or decaying organic matter, such as food scraps and leaves, that can be used to fertilize soil. Composting can improve soil, protect wetlands, reduce waste, and create jobs for communities. Because of the many benefits of composting, in Article 23, _16-2 of the Baltimore City Code provides that the Baltimore City Commission on Sustainability shall prepare and implement a comprehensive recycling plan for recycling and composting in the City. The Office of Sustainability’s Commission on Sustainability has created several programs related to composting in the City, while the Department of Public Works does not seem to be active in creating a composting plan for the City. The Baltimore City Arborist helps lead the pruning of Baltimore over 125,000 trees, and could possibly assist in composting the leaves from pruned trees.
One program created by the Commission on Sustainability is the Waste to Wealth Initiative. The Initiative aims to capture compostable food waste that would otherwise be thrown away in the City and work with entrepreneurs to compost the waste and create high-quality soil for farmers and gardeners. For the Waste to Wealth Initiative, the Commission on Sustainability and its partners created the Baltimore Food and Waste Recovery Strategy. In the Strategy, the Commission sets 10 major goals and 69 short, medium, and long-term strategies about commercial and institutional food waste reduction and recovery, composting at home and in the community, creating scalable composting infrastructure, and composting in K-12 schools. The City Council would like to know how the goals in the Strategy are progressing, what achievement of those goals are expected to cost, and whether there is a time line in place for achieving those goals.
The City Council needs to know what else the Office of Sustainability is doing regarding a municipal composting plan and what, if anything, the Department of Public Works and the Baltimore City Arborist are doing regarding such a plan. The City Council is specifically interested in expected costs of upcoming or in-progress plans and the time lines associated with these plans.
Now, therefore, be it resolved by the City Council of Baltimore, That the City Council invites the Director of the Department of Public Works, the Head of the Bureau of Solid Waste, the Director of the Office of Sustainability, the Coordinator of the Office of Sustainability, and the City Arborist to update the City Council on the City’s progress toward creating a municipal composting program, providing a fiscal impact statement on creating the program, and estimating a time line for Citywide implementation of municipal composting.
And be it further resolved, That a copy of this Resolution be sent to the Director of the Department of Public Works, the Head of the Bureau of Solid Waste, the Director of the Office of Sustainability, the Coordinator of the Office of Sustainability, the City Arborist, and the Mayor’s Legislative Liaison to the City Council.