Thanks to your advocacy, the Baltimore City Council and Mayor Scott agreed to amend the Fiscal Year 2026 budget to invest in composting! It's a step in the right direction, but much more investment is needed. Tell Mayor Scott and the City Council to prioritize Zero Waste budgeting and planning today!
When Mayor Scott's proposed Fiscal Year 2026 budget was released, we were severely disappointed. The budget proposal adopted a revenue-raising tool demanded in the South Baltimore Community Land Trust's Civil Rights Act Title VI complaint against the City over its lack of Zero Waste investment: increasing the tipping fee that large waste haulers pay at the landfill, unchanged since 1993. But despite that $8.4 million in new solid waste revenue, Mayor Scott had planned no meaningful corresponding investment in Zero Waste, prioritizing spending elsewhere instead. At public hearings, we learned that the Department of Public Works had actually requested that this budget proposal include $4.3 million to start composting our yard waste instead of burning it at the incinerator - but Mayor Scott's administration had said no.
With emails, calls, and testimony at public hearings, we worked together to demand a budget amendment to invest in Zero Waste - and the City Council and Mayor Scott listened. Last week, among other amendments, the City Council voted to move $750,000 into the solid waste budget to begin the investments needed to launch yard waste composting next year. And this week on Monday, Mayor Scott signed this amended budget into law.
This is a big step in the right direction, and many thanks go to the City Council members who worked to make sure this would be a priority. But we know it's not enough. We must keep working to make sure that the yard waste composting program is fully funded in next year's budget for a prompt launch, that more funding goes to more Zero Waste programs beyond that, and that capital investments in Zero Waste infrastructure that have been reduced, delayed, and zeroed out over the past several years are prioritized again. (For more details, read our comments with SBCLT.)
Take action today to lay the groundwork for more progress! Send an email to the Mayor and City Council thanking them for this budget amendment and letting them know we need much, much more.
