The Southeastern Massachusetts Resource Recovery Facility (commonly known as SEMASS) is a waste-to-energy and recycling facility located in

Rochester, Massachusetts Rochester is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 5,717 at the 2020 census. History Rochester was settled in 1679 on the lands called "Sippican" by the local Wampanoags, along the coast of Buzzards Bay. ...

. It is currently owned by

Covanta Energy Covanta Holding Corporation is a private energy-from-waste and industrial waste management services company headquartered in Morristown, New Jersey. Most of its revenue comes from operating power plants that burn trash as fuel. Covanta charges a ...

. The

United States Environmental Protection Agency The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it be ...

's mandated closure of unlined

landfill A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste ...

s in the early 1980s, after which many Cape Cod communities signed agreements to send their municipal waste to SEMASS.Evaluation of Future Disposal Alternatives for Municipal Solid Waste
Cape Cod Commission, April 2010 . Retrieved 26 May 2013. Two facilities to transfer trash from trucks to railroad hopper cars, the

Upper Cape Regional Transfer Station The Upper Cape Regional Transfer Station (UCRTS) is a municipal waste transfer facility located within Joint Base Cape Cod. The facility is within the town limits of Falmouth, but on state-owned land at the southern end of the military base, and i ...

and the Yarmouth-Barnstable Regional Transfer Station were constructed to consolidate trash receipts and minimize the number of garbage trucks making round trips between their respective towns and SEMASS. The goal was to conserve fuel, lower transportation costs, reduce vehicle exhaust pollution, and mitigate traffic congestion on and near the two bridges spanning the

Cape Cod Canal The Cape Cod Canal is an artificial waterway in the U.S. state of Massachusetts connecting Cape Cod Bay in the north to Buzzards Bay in the south, and is part of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. The approximately canal traverses the neck o ...

Massachusetts Coastal Railroad The Massachusetts Coastal Railroad is a Railroad classes, Class III railroad serving south-eastern Massachusetts. The railroad maintains track from Hyannis to Framingham, with the railroad operating its own trains on the 97 miles of lines betwe ...

, is the rail service provider for the facility. The towns served by the station had 30-year disposal contracts with SEMASS that expired between 2015 and 2016. By 2013 the per-ton rates paid by the towns were all well below market rates. Six towns, Brewster, Chatham, Eastham, Sandwich, Truro, and Yarmouth, renewed with SEMASS, but a competitor, ABC Disposal Service of New Bedford, signed up seven other towns, Barnstable, Dennis, Harwich, Mashpee, Orleans, Provincetown, and Wellfleet, with a promise to build a new recycling and disposal plant. As of 2016 the plant has not been built, the waste is being sent to landfills and ABC has filed for bankruptcy. As of November 2019 ABC has approached Mashpee looking for a substantial increase in their tipping fees claiming the failure to reach an agreement may force the company out of business. ABC has still not completed the promised waste to brickette facility that they sold many town on.https://www.capenews.net/mashpee/news/contractor-says-town-needs-to-pay-more-for-waste-disposal/article_b78196d8-de95-54b4-9cce-8b87558be5ca.html>

References

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External links

Official website
Waste power stations in the United States Rochester, Massachusetts