Every year, the Maryland General Assembly considers upwards of 2,500 bills of which as many as 700 or more may become law. And all this happens during a 90-day session*! MRN advocates on behalf of the Maryland recycling community to ensure that legislative initiatives achieve their stated goals in a cost- and time-effective manner without creating unintended consequences that hobble our mission to promote a healthy, sustainable environment. If you’re not a member, please support our efforts by joining today. Click here to see membership options

For the 2019 Legislative year, MRN supported five bills, three of which were passed. Below is an update of the status of those bills.


Support with Recommendations: HB0109 / SB0285 Environment - Expanded Polystyrene Food Service Products - Status: Passed w/Amendments

We support the spirit of this legislation with two recommendations as follows:

1. That any authorized substitutes for polystyrene should be reusable, compostable or recyclable and, if compostable or recyclable that there is a feasible market for this material; and


2. That the state should expand the availability of composting facilities as needed to accommodate the increased demand generated by this requirement.

Support with Recommendations: HB0510 Composting - Food Waste - Acceptance for Final Disposal - Approved by the Governor - Chapter 366

We support the spirit of this legislation with the following recommendations/questions:

1. Add anaerobic digestion (“AD”) as an additional alternative for food waste processing.


2. Add a provision if the food waste or yard waste is contaminated and not acceptable at a compost or AD facility, that the material can be delivered to a refuse disposal system.


3. Reconcile the discrepancy in the 9-1724 provision, which is laid out for yard waste, but not food waste. The provision is that yard waste “may” rather than “shall” be taken to a compost facility. “May” would appear to open the option that the material could go to a refuse disposal system.


4. Is the issue around which this bill been designed to address, i.e. haulers taking compostable materials to a landfill rather than the appropriate composting or AD facility, already covered under Title 7, subtitle 1, section 7-104 – General Theft Provisions (f) Inference of intention or knowledge?


5. Should the entity or individual who purchased the service be responsible for ensuring the service is rendered as promised?

Support with Recommendations: SB0370 Environment - Recycling - Commercial Properties - Passed w/Amendments

We support the spirit of the legislation; however, we would like to meet with authors to address the practical problems in the bill as written and offer recommendations for a more effective commercial recycling bill. Specifically,

1. It is unnecessary and expensive to amend a county’s solid waste management plan to accommodate the specific requirements of the legislation regarding recycling by commercial entities. We recommend this provision be struck from the bill.


2. The definition and identification of “Commercial Properties that are occupied by one or more Commercial Entities with a total of at Least 200 Full–Time Employees” is unclear and open to misinterpretation. There is also some concern with potential ambiguity in the execution of the requirement in the specific text “each owner of a commercial property shall provide for recycling for the employees on the property…”

We suggest the law could be written to more effectively address commercial recycling but needs additional improvements to achieve that goal. We would be happy to meet with the authors to discuss this legislation further.

MD Recycling Laws “On the Books”

•    Maryland Recycling Act
•    Composting 2011


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