Baltimore City needs to invest in Zero Waste now - but Mayor Scott's proposed Fiscal Year 2026 budget doesn't. The City Council has the power to amend the budget until June 26. Take action today: tell the City Council (and Mayor Scott) to fund Zero Waste solutions!
When Mayor Scott took office, he promised that his administration would “reduce chronic health disparities across racial and ethnic groups by decommissioning the use of waste incineration within the next decade” in his 2021 First Term Action Plan. The City government had just adopted the Less Waste Better Baltimore Plan in 2020, which outlined investments the City could make over a 20-year timespan to move toward Zero Waste - noting that if the City invested more money more quickly, it could achieve those goals sooner.
But now, five years later, the City is investing less money, not more. This year's capital budget plan has decreased planning for investment in Zero Waste infrastructure compared to last year or the year before. In the operating budget, specific Zero Waste programs that DPW requested funding for, like starting to collect and compost yard waste separately from our trash, went unfunded by the administration. The City Council can and should amend the budget to fund these programs, and more. (For more details, read our testimony on the budget here.)
The budget has one-half of one solution: increasing the tipping fee that large haulers dumping trash at the Quarantine Road landfill, a fee that hasn't been increased or even adjusted for inflation since 1993. (This fee increase will not apply to small haulers or individual residents.) The South Baltimore Community Land Trust asked for this policy change in their Civil Rights Act Title VI complaint against Baltimore City last year - but for the new revenue to be invested in Zero Waste solutions, worker safety, and community reinvestment that addresses the harms of our current waste system. This budget proposal raises the revenue, but diverts much of it away from these priorities.
Tell Mayor Scott and your City Council representatives to amend the budget proposal and invest in Zero Waste!
