Background
In addition to its role as a manager of solid waste for the residents, businesses and institutions of Ulster County, the UCRRA is responsible for planning to meet the community’s future solid waste needs. In an era of rising cost and increasing concern with the environmental and social impacts of waste, it is more important than ever to seek new and innovative ways to reduce, reuse and recycle in order to minimize the amount of waste generated by our community.
Throughout the US and across the globe, a growing movement is underway to rethink the systems of production and consumption that ultimately drive our current waste crisis. That movement explores a shift from a linear mode of resource extraction, material production, consumption, and disposal to one where circularity is embedded into value streams and supply chains.
Circularity & Waste
In late 2023, NYS took a substantial step towards this circular economy framework for reducing waste when it released the state’s latest 10-year solid waste management plan, titled “Building the Circular Economy Through Sustainable Materials Management.” The plan calls for a transition from investments in waste disposal toward circular economy investments:
“A circular economy carefully divests from disposal and instead supports processes, activities, and systems that make effective use of materials and prevent environmental degradation and economic loss by keeping valuable materials circulating in the economy.” (NYS SWMP, 1)
As the UCRRA continues to chart its own course toward a zero-waste future, we believe that the circular economy concept will play a critical role. Afterall, the key to dramatic reductions in the amount of waste sent to landfills is not just operational changes in the way UCRRA manages waste, but a sustained, societal shift in the way producers and consumers behave to generate that waste in the first place.
The Circular Economy Strategic Plan
In July 2025, the UCRRA engaged Sustainable Hudson Valley and Circularly PBC to assist with the development of a circular economy strategy for Ulster County. The goal of the project was to develop a roadmap for the advancement of circularity in our local economy as a way to reduce the amount of waste generated and handled by the Agency, with a primary focus on identifying and expanding markets for materials present in today’s waste stream. The project builds off of the Agency’s ongoing efforts to establish the Reuse Innovation Center, which is identified in the plan as a “catalytic project” on the path to greater circularity.
Click here to view the 2026 Circular Economy Strategic Plan
The final Circular Economy Strategic Plan was released in April 2026, and was formally adopted by the UCRRA’s Board of Directors at their April 22nd meeting. Implementation of the plan will involve coordination between the Agency, as reflected in its own Local Solid Waste Management Plan and its biennial updates, and other actors in the public and private sectors.