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Yesterday morning, we gathered with Baltimore City residents, advocates, Council members, state delegates, and Mayor Young for the final signing of legislation we've been working for over the past six months: the Comprehensive Bag Reduction Act! This city legislation bans plastic checkout bags in Baltimore, and puts a 5-cent fee on paper and other bags to make up the extra cost of purchasing these bags on stores, and encourage the use of reusable bags. In the past several years, plastic bags have become increasingly difficult to recycle - for example, MOMS Organic Market stopped accepting

This year, we will be advocating for:

No more subsidies for trash incinerators. Since 2011, trash incinerators have benefited from Maryland's Renewable Portfolio Standard, which subsidizes renewable energy sources and was designed to move us to a lower carbon energy mix. Unfortunately, trash incinerators are carbon-intensive and pollute our neighborhoods. It's past time to correct this wrong and stop subsidizing this dirty energy source! Organics diversion out of landfills and incinerators. Organic waste, like food scraps and other similar materials, are a great source of compost and carbon

If your home is in a rural area in Maryland, your sinks, toilets, showers, dishwasher, and washing machine probably empty into a septic tank. How does a septic tank work? Watery waste, or effluent, is most of the waste, where anaerobic bacteria begin to break it down. The sludge, or inorganic solids which are the leftovers of bacteria digesting organic effluent, falls to the bottom of the tank. Scum which is mostly fats, grease, and oil floats to the top of the tank. A filter is present, which prevents most solids from going to the eventual draining, or leach field. The leach field releases