Carleton resident Lisa Lawson said she can't understand why Canada doesn't find its own landfills.

She can't understand it, especially when Canadian garbage trucks sporadically flood her road.

"They should keep their trash in their own country," Lawson, 39, said.

Some Michigan legislators agree with Lawson and introduced new bills Monday designed to curb out-of-state trash. But Michigan landfill companies such as Republic Services Inc. said the legislation attacks free-trade rights.

"This is about more than trash," said Will Flower, spokesman for Republic Services. The company accepts 4,000 tons of waste from Toronto every day. "Solid waste management is a free-trade issue.

"You can't be in favor of free trade and be in favor of this."

Garbage acts

In 1978, Michigan enacted the Solid Waste Management Act, which required all counties to have separate waste plans and created extra landfill space across the state. Canada later moved in the opposite direction, making it harder to create landfills with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, created in 1992.

The sides of the issue are diverse, but to Lawson the issue is simple: With extra trucks come extra traffic, extra danger of accidents, and the extra garbage smell, she said.

But the trash trade goes both ways, Flower said. Although Michigan accepts municipal waste from Canadian cities, Canada receives 627,763 tons of hazardous waste from Michigan each year.

Each form of waste must have its own facility, said Steve Sliver, a specialist in Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality's hazardous waste program.

However, Sliver said the amounts of waste are not comparable.

In the 2003 Report of Solid Waste Landfilled in Michigan, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality reported about 3,144,300 tons of solid waste was imported from Canada in 2003. This is about 15 percent of the total amount of solid waste that enters Michigan landfills, and about 10 percent of imported waste enters Michigan from other states.

Michigan decision

On Feb. 8, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Brighton, reintroduced a 2003 bill that would give the state power to control out-of-state household trash in its landfills. Individually, states do not have the power to control interstate or international commerce, and it is time for the states to have that authority, Rogers said.

"Ontario doesn't want to make new landfills," he said. "They ought to find space for their own trash."

The amount of landfill space in Michigan, once extremely plentiful in the state, has been depleted to a decade's worth of space, he said.

"That means - coming to a neighborhood near you - they could be putting a landfill site," Rogers said.

But Tom Horton, Michigan spokesman for Waste Management of Michigan Inc., said Michigan's landfills have more than enough room. He estimated more than 50 years of landfill space remain when future recycling programs and potential landfill space are taken into account. Waste Management of Michigan owns the Pine Tree Acres landfill in Macomb County.

"The amount of material from Canada is not going to deplete our landfills," Horton said. "The landfill space we have will never be depleted."

Landfill burden

But Michigan Democratic legislators introduced a series of bills that would require every company, even Canadian companies, to pay a $7.50 dumping charge per ton of waste. The bills also suggest that cities and states that dump prohibited items be banned from landfills for one year, and that the state increase the regulations' enforcement. The dumping charge, which is currently closer to about 21 cents per ton, would be the highest in the nation if the change was made.

"We're attacking the economics of waste because, for too long, our state's been the cheapest place in the region to dump," said House Minority Leader Rep. Dianne Byrum, D-Onondaga.

These fees could severely burden local communities and business, Horton said.

"Seventy-five percent of all the waste that is disposed of in Michigan landfills is from Michigan residents," Horton said. "That is who is going to pay 75 percent of this fee."

Canadian intention

Toronto became the largest contributor of Canadian trash to Michigan, after deciding in 2001 to export 100 percent of its municipal waste to Michigan, starting in 2003. The city does not have any landfills it could utilize, said Kevin Vibert, an analyst for Toronto's Waste Diversion program.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act shows the aggressive approach Ontario has taken when dealing with its trash, said Mark Rabbior, spokesman for the Ontario Ministry of the Environment.

"The idea is to attack waste at its source," he said.

The act received criticism for making the creation of landfills a long process, and the Canadian ministry is looking into how to make the process more efficient, Rabbior said.

"There will always be waste," Vibert said. "We're doing very well."

Importing trash is a major environmental concern for Michigan because landfills leak, and with more traffic from trucks, comes more pollution, said James Clift, policy advisor for the Michigan Environmental Council.

"The proposed dumping charges would be a wise move," Clift said. "Clearly, it would be much better to reduce trash coming into the state and put energy towards diverting waste into recyclable material."

Horton said the regulations are sufficient for protecting Michigan's environment and economy.

But the fees could bring a helpful limit to out-of-state trash, said John Craig, chief of enforcement at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.

"If you are trying to preserve the landfill capacity you have by diverting waste, and that landfill space that you're preserving is taken up by other waste, why go to the trouble of saving all that space for it to be taken up?"