Report: Michigan trashes $500M+ worth of materials in landfills each year
- Tons of waste are dumped in Michigan’s landfills each year, mostly food, paper and plastic
- It’s estimated that municipal waste is valued between $500 and $676 million
- Michigan is expected to dispose of between $6.2 billion and $8.3 billion in marketable material by 2035
Tons of material, from vape pens and food to returnable pop bottles and lithium batteries are thrown away each year in Michigan, and it’s not cheap.
There’s treasure in that trash.
A report from researchers at the Michigan Sustainable Business Forum estimates the market value of Michigan’s municipal solid waste at between $500 million and $676 million a year.
Grand Valley State University provided data analysis and the Michigan Department of Great Lakes, Environment, and Energy helped fund the project.
Related:
- Michigan is No. 1 for trash, but Whitmer wants higher fees to curb imports
- Michigan bottle returns fall after COVID, prompting get-tough push on grocers
- Michiganders passed up $108 million in bottle deposits amid COVID closures
According to the report, the waste would have an estimated economic impact of $609 million to $825 million each year — and create up to 4,500 new jobs — if it was recycled.
“Our findings suggest that over the next 10 years … we're gonna throw away approximately $8 billion worth of material if we don't take some steps to pull that material out of the waste stream,” said Dan Schoonmaker, executive director of the West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum.
Most of the state’s municipal solid waste consisted of paper, food and organic material, according to the report. Each year, Michiganders put between 1.5 million and 2 million tons of food into municipal solid waste streams.
The report found that the food waste would be worth up to $36 million if it was used as feedstock for compost in Michigan.
Paper also has an economic value of over $160 million and organic material was valued at over $46 million.
“When we're talking about organic material that means that we should be making investments in how we get the material that is valuable out of the waste stream,” he said. “We have a lot of things that we're throwing away that are worth money and … that value also translates to environmental impacts and benefits.”
The report also found that about a third of material currently being disposed of could be recycled or composted in most metropolitan communities without great difficulty.
“There's a lot of assumptions made about what is and is not recyclable in your curbside bin but there's a lot of material that is recyclable but is not really accepted in the curbside bin,” said Kerrin O'Brien, executive director for the Michigan Recycling Coalition.
The Michigan Sustainable Business Forum did a similar study in 2016. When compared to this year’s analysis, there were three times more bottles that could have been returned for a deposit refund than there were in 2016.
“We recognize that not all residents have ready access to recycling opportunities and we want … residents to believe in this system,” O’Brien said.
“Our deposit law is a very effective way of getting that material back into manufacturing and our recycling system does the same thing.”
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