Would love to hear how heat pumps do in this! Looking into getting some myself.

I know this is a sentiment a lot of people on Reddit have, but MassDEP didn’t just “drop the ban.” It was under development for quite a while. This article from the Massachusetts Municipal Association is from Oct 2020, when the band were first being considered: https://www.mma.org/massdep-proposes-changes-to-waste-ban-regulations/

And the municipalities aren’t alone in trying to figure this out. Besides RecyclingWorks, MassDEP has resources available to help municipalities: https://www.mass.gov/guides/mattress-recycling#-waste-ban-compliance-assistance-for-municipalities-

Not saying it’s easy, but it’s disingenuous to say MassDEP is just issuing demands then leaving everyone out to dry. We still live in a participatory democracy, albeit one that can be a little rough around the edges…

Thanks for the insight! Would you say it’s largely improved over the past 20 years? Still trending upwards? I hope there are more businesses opening than closing these days.

I’m interested to hear about the controversies. Seems like every town has some.

So you live close to downtown? We’d like to live someplace walkable, so I’d want to be sure my partner feels safe walking around alone at night. Nice to hear you feel it’s safe.

Nice to hear! Are you very far from the downtown? We’re thinking of going somewhere within walking distance to downtown.

A lot of love for easthampton here! It’s a bit far for our commute right now but perhaps in the future. It’s nice to hear Greenfield is on the up though, it does seem like there’s room for growth but there’s a nice base of little shops and entertainment.

Thanks for the insight! We also have dreams of being able to walk into town. Would you feel safe walking around alone at night?

This is very insightful, I’ll definitely check out that Anthony bourdain episode. Why’s the library and fire station controversial?

I don’t think we need a “this or that” approach here. Every time the government proposes to do something to fix a problem, people tend to jump to “well what about this other thing!”

In this bill, Baker is proposing some measures to help with this immediate need for the sudden influx of migrants. Doing nothing would put more strain on our already stressed system. But that doesn’t mean we can’t ALSO do more for the homeless, right? Just because the government is trying to address one problem, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ALSO push them to solve others.

Exactly this. Yes we need to prioritize renewables to achieve our climate goals and ween ourselves off of fossil fuels, but it’s be disingenuous to say building more pipelines wouldn’t make an impact on energy prices.