If it were up to U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, Canadian garbage would be kept out of Michigan’s dump sites.
“Their dirty diapers and Canadian bacon scraps are, literally, being brought from their tables to our landfills,” the Brighton Republican said. “They have more square acres of land per person than any other country. There’s something wrong with this picture.”
Michigan imports more than 2 million cubic yards of Canadian solid waste each year.
Solid waste imports have accounted for between 12 and 13.5 percent of Michigan’s total annual municipal trash disposed into the state’s landfills since 1996, according to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.
However, most of that trash - 53 to 63 percent - has been imported from other states. And most of the out-of-state waste has been brought from Michigan’s neighbors: Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana.
In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Michigan law that permitted its counties to ban waste from other states and countries.
Rogers said he hopes the congressional bill he introduced in May will give the states the right to close their borders to foreign trash.
“There were a lot of questions over free trade and how much power the states had to ban outside garbage from their landfills in 1992,” Rogers said. “Hopefully, this bill can clear those concerns up. We won’t be able to keep garbage from other states from coming in. We’re just going to take it one step at a time.”
Rogers’ bill is now in front of a House committee on environment and hazardous materials, and hearings are expected to begin by midsummer on the merits of the measure.
Joan Peck, chief of the solid waste program at Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality, said Rogers’ legislation could help preserve Michigan’s landfills for the future.
“We have spent years planning ways to properly dispose of our waste, but it’s hard for us keep to those plans because we can’t control what is being brought in,” Peck said.
Peck’s department requires Michigan counties to update landfill management plans every five years to ensure the sites are used and maintained to their most efficient capacities.
But Canadian officials said they need the U.S. market to meet the demands of their country, where heated debates are stalling new landfills from being created as others are set to close.
Rogers’ proposed law has already sparked dialogue to be opened between Gov. John Engler, President Bush and Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman.
Toronto sends about 30 truckloads of garbage to a landfill southwest of Detroit each weekday.
Rogers’ bill would not prevent recyclable materials from being imported. It would only ban foreign municipal trash from state borders.
Despite the early controversies being fueled by the Rogers bill, Canadian officials like Betty Disero, chairwoman of Toronto’s city works committee, seem unfazed by the measure.
“There are threats of bills and threats of bans, but there’s nothing (coming) forward yet that we’ve had to say ‘OK, we’re in big trouble,’” she said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
