Council Updates, Zero Waste Master Plan 2.0 Update, and More

Zero Waste Master Plan 2.0
The City Manager’s agenda this week includes the final draft of the Zero Waste Master Plan (ZWMP) 2.0 Update that the Council will vote to adopt. As the cover memo indicates, much work has been done to reach this point. Back in 2023 I began working with City staff to discuss the process of updating the ZWMP, which was originally developed in 2019. Since then, I have held three Health and Environment Committee meetings, met with staff numerous times, and worked to include input from stakeholders around across the spectrum including residents, advocates, business leaders, and neighboring communities. All of those efforts have led to a final draft that represents a big step forward for Cambridge in terms of planning for waste reduction. The Recycling Advisory Committee worked closely with City staff throughout the process to build in community input and advise on best practices. The Climate Committee also had significant input into the process, recognizing that waste reduction and recycling diversion are not only a public health necessity, but also a meaningful step towards emissions reduction. That feedback and engagement have strengthened the plan and the identified strategies.

Throughout all of our planning documents I have advocated for a stronger reliance on SMART goals, ensuring that we have measurables to keep us accountable. The report outlines the successes of the first ZWMP, which led to a 30% residential trash reduction in 2020 and a 36% residential trash reduction in 2024. This is great progress, but more work and additional strategies are required to meet our 2050 goal of 80% reduction. The ZWMP 2.0 provides an update on ZWMP 1.0 strategies, establishes an interim residential waste reduction goal for 2030 (50%), identifies additional strategies that will be needed in order to meet our waste reduction goals. The ZWMP 2.0 also expands our goals of waste reduction to addressing commercial waste, which was not part of the ZWMP 1.0 strategies (mostly because of the large unknown). We will begin to address that large unknown by requiring annual Zero Waste Plans for large residential and commercial buildings (buildings that utilize private trash hauling) and also require food waste diversion for residential and commercial buildings. The ZWMP 2.0 contains a suite of strategies and associated goals and the City will continue to measure the effectiveness of the 18 strategies and adapt to changes in the zero waste landscape as they arise. And looking forward, the City will re-evaluate strategies and the 2050 Zero Waste goal in 2030 with a ZWMP 3.0, which will be informed by a fuller understanding of the City’s commercial and institutional sectors, and will establish goals for those sectors.

There are a lot of great top-lines in this plan that I am proud of and that we will need to continue to push for. I want to also recognize that this ZWMP 2.0 represents a lot of compromise with City staff who need to also take into account the realities of vendor capabilities, small business feasibility, and trust-building with the community. I worked closely with City staff over the last two years to make sure this update was as aggressive as possible on waste reduction and plastics reduction. Thank you to all of you who have pushed us here (Cambridge folks and neighbors alike). Included in this draft plan are several important recommended ordinance changes which we will have to work to pass including: 1) mandatory food waste diversion, 2) requirement for large property owners to submit zero waste plans, 3) updating the Bring Your Own Bag ordinance in line with California changes, 4) updates to the polystyrene ordinance, 5) “Skip The Stuff” ordinance, and 6) recycling and single use cutlery standards for restaurants. The ordinance changes will be great and are in line with neighboring communities, but of course they are just one part of the ZWMP 2.0, which also sets goals for waste reduction per household. However, commercial waste accounts for significantly more than residential waste in Cambridge, so the commercial and large residential zero waste plans will be a huge step in identifying waste totals and in reduction. Another small, but meaningful change that I pushed for was the renaming the “curbside compost” program to correctly identify it as a food waste diversion program – which will now happen over time. Doing more to identify and highlight the waste stream cycle for Cambridge so that we can understand and be responsive to changing science and consumer responsibility standards. These are just a few top-line items and I encourage you to read through the whole document, as it is very accessible and tells a meaningful story about how the City thinks about waste. A lot of work still needs to be done in the coming weeks, months, and years after we adopt the ZWMP 2.0 to pass the recommended ordinance changes over time, and public support helps make our case, so please get involved now if you have any suggestions, questions, or comments.

Welcoming City Ordinance
Councillor Toner exercised his charter right on this policy order from last week, so we will be discussing it again this Monday night. Below is what I wrote last week:
     The Trump administration has made demonizing and attacking immigrants a priority. The Welcoming City Ordinance was adopted by Cambridge in 2020 in order to protect residents from undue persecution and ensure that the City of Cambridge does not assist in enforcing federal immigration law. Further, it ensures that all personas are treated equally by the City, without consideration of immigration status. This ordinance was adopted prior to recent and increasingly aggressive federal actions, and we need to consider ways of strengthening the ordinance to ensure the continued safety and protection of all Cambridge residents. I am cosponsoring a policy order this week along with Councillors Sobrinho-Wheeler and Siddiqui that asks for ordinance language that would strengthen our ability to protect residents and avoid inadvertently assisting ICE agents with dangerous or unlawful enforcement efforts. Additionally, please be aware that the City publishes extensive information on the Know Your Rights page and offers training to help residents and service providers better protect themselves and their neighbors and ensure that Cambridge remains a welcoming and supportive community for all residents. I want to note that the City does follow federal law, despite false claims by the federal government about our sanctuary city status as being in violation of federal law. What we don’t do is have our local officials do the job of the federal government. That fact often gets lost in the discussion. We believe, with strong police support, that such a policy keeps our community safer.

Linear Park Access on Westley Ave
Councillor Toner exercised his charter right on this policy order from last week, so we will be discussing it again this Monday night. I originally wrote about the policy order in my newsletter last week. I will also just add a few points that have come to me after talking about this with residents over the last week. Opening the gate (which was originally closed due to issues with crime and littering over 25 years ago) is an opportunity to make the park more accessible to the hundreds of residents in the area and more easily navigable for children in the area. The issues with crime in that area are no longer a concern and that is borne out by the accessible entrances across the northern side of the park. I don’t agree with the argument that asks folks to just walk around to another entrance. Just imagine if the city had decided not to rehab the Yerxa underpass because Sherman Street was close enough – that would be a loss for the neighborhood. Access points and connections like this are small but impactful for connectivity, building a network of routes that is more tightly knit than the car-scale street grid and makes it more convenient and pleasant to get around the city on foot. We already have enough railroads and high-speed state roads that effectively act as barriers dividing the city, with safe crossings that are few and far between; so why let this park that the City DOES have control over also be a barrier? I know folks have issues with the complete redesign of the park – I do too – I think the scope should have been more narrowly limited to drainage fixes and improved maintenance for a much lower cost – but that didn’t happen, despite my pushing for it. The redesign project is going forward, so we should take this opportunity to make the park more readily accessible to all the residents who want to use it, instead of preserving a public street as a private cul-de-sac for a few residents. One additional reason is better access to the water supply cabinet that will be located just off Westley Ave for maintenance purposes. Better maintenance and irrigation were two of the reasons cited for redesigning the park in the first place. If we’re committing to a full redesign, it should be more accessible for maintenance as well as for residents of the area. People on Reed Street, Montgomery St deserve clear access to the park in the same way that residents to the north have access. School children traveling from Whittemore street through Linear Park to the Peabody School would be safer using Westley rather than Cedar Street as well. Many neighbors have spoken up about how important this connection is, and I wholeheartedly agree. It’s a simple yet meaningful improvement that will make Linear Park more usable and welcoming for everyone.