As the buzz grows about organizing alleys for a single hauler, more blocks are faced with a collective decision about which hauler to choose, and many are rightfully concerned about what happens to their trash after it leaves the curb. Garbage in Saint Paul is either landfilled or burned. The larger, corporate haulers mostly use landfills, and the smaller operations are contracted to take their trash to the Newport Resource Recovery Facility. (Resource Recovery, Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF), and waste-to-energy are all fancy names for good old fashioned trash burning with more or less sorting and emissions controls thrown in.)
St Anthony Park has learned plenty about the problems with garbage incineration. When the Rock-Tenn paper recycling plant needed a new energy source and RDF was considered, neighbors organized all over Saint Paul and Minneapolis to find a safer solution. In the process, we learned that burning waste spews pollution into the air and creates toxic ash that has to be… landfilled. The Hennepin Energy Recovery Center, which is now in the process of attempting to expand their capacity by 20%, is responsible for over 50% of dioxins emitted statewide. That's a lot of cancer.
But landfills also produce the greenhouse gas methane, which may or may not be captured. And they inevitably leach a nasty stew of toxics into the groundwater.
Yes, someone could do a study and perhaps make a complicated call on whether Newport is better or worse than the Wisconsin and Iowa landfills that receive our Minnesota trash. But the fact is, they both suck. And that kind of calculation fails to address the greatest evil, which is a system that generates waste at all.
Is garbage a potentially never-ending source of fuel? Although garbage is classified as a renewable energy source by many states, most of the energy created through incineration is from plastics. Which are made from fossil fuels.
So what to do? In the long run, choosing a local hauler will support the local economy and siphon power from the big corporations like Waste Management and Allied Waste. They're the ones that have the money to lobby and maintain the current system on regional, state and federal levels. Even though the small haulers go to Newport, they present much less of a threat to a democratic revolution in the way we conceptualize, create and dispose of waste. Those companies could even be part of a local zero waste economy.
Individuals can drastically minimize their waste through careful reuse, purchasing, composting, and recycling. But the real solution, of course, is at the policy level. Eureka Recycling, the non-profit recycler for Saint Paul and many suburbs, has been leading the way on this issue locally. With a mission to reach a waste-free tomorrow by demonstrating that “waste is preventable, not inevitable” Eureka catalogued many proven policy tools being implemented all over the world, including extended producer responsibility, curbside composting pickup, unit-based pricing and municipal purchasing policies.
While the policy wheels chug and the zero waste grassroots movement builds, neighbors in Saint Paul can act now to take back their blocks from the five, six or seven different trucks a week charging through their alleys. Don’t get paralyzed by the dilemma of selecting a hauler and a final destination for your trash. Keeping your eye on the prize of zero waste, organize for a single hauler and help your block immediately realize the benefits of reduced air and noise pollution, less wear and tear on the alleys, and safer streets.