Delaware County takes aim at achieving ‘zero waste’

Can Delaware County ever produce zero waste?

While the Delaware County Council acknowledges in a new “Zero Waste Plan” that it is pursuing an “aspirational goal,” like zero accidents at a job site, the county said striving for that target is imperative because current practices may be harming the health of residents and the environment they live in.

For example, due in part to legacy infrastructure projects and an oversaturation of industrial facilities, the American Lung Association’s 2024 “State of the Air” report gave Delaware County a failing grade for annual particle pollution. And one of the largest contributors to poor air quality is Reworld, the nation’s largest incinerator that is located in the City of Chester, the county’s report said.

The county’s nearly 70-page “Zero Waste” plan, unveiled in September, was created with input from residents and a variety of organizations such as Swarthmore College, the Chester NAACP, PennEnvironment and even the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office. The county also held listening sessions and workshops as far back as 2022 to develop the plan, which incorporates 17 key initiatives aimed at moving the county to a more sustainable waste-management system.

Those 17 initiatives include establishing bans, fees, or take-back requirements for single-use products like plastic bags; creating “Waste Watchers” programs in county facilities, municipalities and businesses to address contamination in recycling and composting streams; expanding surplus edible food recovery from grocery stores and restaurants to food pantries and soup kitchens, and more.

The county’s plan concludes with a quote from Anne Marie Bonneau, author of the “Zero Waste Chef” book: “We don’t need a handful of people doing Zero Waste perfectly, but we need millions of people doing it imperfectly.”