With incinerator's planned closure, what's the future of trash in Hennepin County?
MINNEAPOLIS — There are plans to close the garbage incinerator in downtown Minneapolis in the next few years. So what's next for trash in Hennepin County?
Hennepin County residents produce 1.3 million tons of waste every year. A third of that goes to recycling or compost. The rest, either the incinerator, or the landfill.
Hennepin County wants to close the incinerator, so what happens to this trash? It's gotta go somewhere. The somewhere right now is the landfill, unless you don't produce this much trash to begin with.
That's the big takeaway from a 97-page metro solid waste plan put together by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
Bottom line: They want people in Hennepin County to keep 75% of their trash away from the landfill or incinerator. Right now, that number is at just 35%.
So how do they do that? It starts with making it easier to compost food.
"Food waste accounts for at least 20% of what goes into a landfill or waste to energy facility," Kirk Koudelka with MPCA said. "So if we can eliminate that waste, we go a long ways to meeting our 75% goal."
Another big opportunity: Construction and demo waste.
"How do we reuse or repair items so we don't have to throw them away?" Koudelka said.
But the places and programs who do that are still few and far between, which is why the state is offering $22 million in grants to kickstart the investment.
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The MPCA has also approved expanding three landfills, knowing the transition will take time.
Of course, even if the infrastructure is there, there will still need to be buy-in from the public.
"Any time something becomes a little bit difficult, where you're gonna have an effort into it, it doesn't get done," Hennepin County resident Kim Mechura said.
"Crushing a box, flatten a box. That's all you have to do to put it in the recycle here. Lot of people don't even do that step," resident Bud Makepeace said.
Hennepin County is planning to close the downtown trash incinerator sometime between 2028 and 2040.