More than a dozen municipalities in Hampshire County will split $80,000 in state money to bolster successful recycling programs in their communities.
The state grants, part of $2.3 million awarded last week throughout Massachusetts through the Sustainable Materials Recovery Program, will enable community’s to reinvest in recycling programs for things such as new recycling bins or carts, public education and outreach campaigns, collection of hard-to-recycle items and the establishment of recycling programs in schools, municipal buildings and other public spaces.
“It’s a fabulous program,” said Veronique Blanchard, South Hadley’s solid waste coordinator. “It’s very, very generous.”
South Hadley received $16,500 from the Recycling Dividends Program, which allows municipalities to save the money to be used toward future purchases.
“Now that there is a nice bank of money that we have, we can sit down and come up with a really cool program,” Blanchard said.
Using previous grant money, Blanchard said the town has been able to purchase outdoor recycling containers and a new “mercury shed,” which is where residents can dispose of mercury products. Blanchard said it was “really huge” that they were able to use the grant to purchase the shed.
The county’s biggest communities — Northampton and Amherst — are set to receive $10,200 and $6,650, respectively. Granby, Belchertown and Southampton were also awarded grants.
In Westhampton, the $5,250 grant will join previous grant funds being saved for future projects.
“Things seem to be running pretty smoothly at the transfer station right now. We’re not in need really, of anything,” said David Blakesley, Westhampton highway superintendent. “My thinking is somewhere down the line, we’re going to need a new compactor or a new roll-off or containers that are fairly large expenditures.”
With the saved grant money, the highway department could avoid asking for additional funds from the town, Blakesley said.
Westhampton is one of 10 members of the Hilltown Resource Management Cooperative, all of which received Recycling Dividends Program grants totaling $42,000. The other communities in the cooperative are Ashfield, Chesterfield, Cummington, Goshen, Huntington, Middlefield, Plainfield, Williamsburg and Worthington.
Blakesley credits the group’s administrator Kathleen Casey with securing the grant.
“It really helps all the towns that are a part of the group,” Blakesley said.
The grants are very important for the Hilltown communities as many of them don’t have the population base to support a lot of different recycling and trash collection programs, according to Casey.
“This provides an added resource for them,” Casey said. “It’s also great incentive and reward for their effort.”
Additionally, the Hilltown cooperative received a $1,000 “Small-Scale Initiatives Grant,” which are population-based grants aimed to help communities purchase critical recycling materials and outreach tools needed to sustain existing recycling programs or to facilitate new, low-cost initiatives.
Emily Cutts can be reached at ecutts@gazettenet.com.