<B>Chelsea Center Awards Grants</B>

Four Massachusetts cities are partnering with the Chelsea Center for Recycling and Economic Development, Chelsea, Mass., in economic development through recycling strategies. Funds come from the Clean Environment Fund, comprised of unredeemed bottle deposits.

 Springfield, Mass., will use funds from the center to develop a baseline study for the development of a recycling-based eco-industrial park. The project will identify material flows and sector information to be used for recycling-based business retention and attraction and establishing business to business materials networks. The plan will help reinvigorate vacant industrial lots around the city.

The City of Lowell and the University of Massachusetts at Lowell are partnering to explore urban food waste composting to alleviate restaurant waste disposal costs.

The Miles River Community Development Corp., with assistance from the Mass Natural Resource Corp. and the Forest and Wood Products Institute at Mt. Wachusett Community College, will develop business plans for a forest product wood recycling center in the North Quabbin area. The facility would be a centralized processing and manufacturing facility.

The Center for Ecological Technology, Northern Berkshire, will work with community partners to develop a financial feasibility and operating plan for a business that uses post-consumer pallets as feedstock.