(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Welcome to Almanac North.

I'm Maarja Hewitt.

Tonight we are joined by Heidi Ringhofer of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to discuss the state's programs to mitigate waste and promote recycling.

Later, Emma Pardini visits us to share how the Western Lake Superior Sanitation District, or WLSSD, manages the waste generated in our area and gives us a look at what happens to the things we throw out.

Then Marlise Riffel and Keith Steva of the Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability fill us in on their organization and the efforts they're making to reduce e-waste and promote a more sustainable future on the Iron Range.

That's what's in store on "Almanac North."

The Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation announced 34 grants from the Community Opportunity Fund, including two five-year grants and 32 one-year grants under its new guidelines.

Grants from this fund will allocate $1.4 million to address critical needs and support solutions to systemic challenges across the Northland.

Grants are divided into four categories, opportunity, resilience, belonging, and transformation.

The 32 one-year grants average $40,000, a significant increase in the number of large grants in the region.

The two transformation grants provide up to $100,000 each year for the next five years.

the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board, or NRB, will meet in person for their April board meeting.

They will consider several proposed rulemaking documents at proposed land sale and donations.

The meeting will begin at 8:30 AM on Wednesday, April 10th at the State Natural Resources Building in Madison.

The public is encouraged to watch the meeting live on the DNR YouTube channel.

During the April meeting, several items the board will be considering include the Deer Management Assistance Program, the Minocqua Chain Walleye Harvest Regulations, and the Wisconsin Sharp-Tailed Grouse Management Plan for 2024.

The complete April NRB meeting agenda is available on the DNR website.

In addition to being encouraged to watch the upcoming meeting, there are opportunities for the public to testify and to submit written comments about the issues that come before the NRB.

Remote testimony from the public via Zoom may be accepted.

The deadline to register for public appearance requests to submit written comments is 11:00 AM on Wednesday, April 3rd.

More information regarding public participation at board meetings is available on the Wisconsin DNR website.

Now, for our conversation here in the studio, I'm joined by Heidi Ringhofer, director of Solid Waste Services at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

Thank you so much for joining us tonight, Heidi.

- Thank you for having me.

It's a joy to be here.

- It's great to have you, and let's start with a quick overview of Minnesota's current waste management plan and specifically Northern Minnesota.

- Well Minnesota really does a great job of recycling and managing their waste.

But here in Northern Minnesota, after recycling, organics, reduction, all of our waste is landfilled.

Some of it goes to Superior, some of it goes to St. Louis County, and then there's a couple other landfills that take waste, what we consider the eight-county Northeast Region or the Arrowhead Region.

- So what are some of the challenges that the state faces in terms of garbage disposal and recycling?

- Well, the biggest thing is we continue to increase the amount of garbage that we produced.

'21 to '22, we increased it by 3.7%.

But the flip side of that and the good news is that we also increased our recycling rate to 45.2%, which is an all-time high.

We also have a really aggressive reuse program of about 32,000 pounds, tons, excuse me.

And Minnesota has a strong presence in waste to energy, and a large portion of that waste is recovered for energy, which is really good.

That's higher up on our hierarchy, which reuse is at the top.

- Okay.

So you mentioned recycling rate.

We saw an increase for that.

How effective is our recycling in Minnesota?

- Well, to put it on a percentage, 45.2% of our waste is recycled, which is really good, just about 50%.

And about 55% of our waste still goes to the landfill after organics, reuse, and recycling.

We have one of the highest rates in the nation, and we always think we can do better, but when we put the whole picture nationwide, Minnesota does a really great job.

- And what initiatives are in place to encourage upcycling, and maybe you could explain what is upcycling.

- Well, upcycling could mean a lot of different things to people, but it could be reusing, taking something and redoing it, upcycling it, making it into maybe a new table or an outdoor table.

You can go on any website and see that there's projects that you can reuse or give it to somebody else.

That's considered upcycling or source reduction.

- And so do you have any initiatives in place to kind of encourage that in Northern Minnesota?

- Oh, tons of them.

Tons of them.

The state looks at please reuse because it's at the top of the hierarchy.

We put a lot of funding into reuse.

Reusing TVs, fixing them electronics instead of just throwing it away and getting the better model, the newer model, that takes natural resources.

So we encourage people to reuse it or keep using it or repair it.

A very excellent program that's been around for about 20 years is the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District's reuse program that's located up on Rice Lake Road.

Things that we're destined for the landfill can be pulled out and the public can come up and get them for nothing.

The other thing that's happening a lot is there's a lot of fix-it clinics and repair clinics popping up around the state or clothing swaps.

- Oh, okay.

So you mentioned the hierarchy and reuse is at the top.

What is the hierarchy and what does it look like?

- Well, the state of Minnesota has what's called the Waste Management Act, and it says kind of in a nutshell that as the state and counties and governments, we need to institute this hierarchy, which is on the screen right now.

And you can see that reuse, reduction, recycling, and then organics, and a few other things, and landfilling at the bottom.

That's the last thing that we wanna do.

So we've been working over the last 40 years to try to move waste up the hierarchy to focus on that reuse and reduction, and, better yet, don't generate the waste.

That's really what it's about.

- So what are the environmental consequences of improper waste disposal?

- Well, we can look at improper waste disposal in many different ways.

When I think of improper disposal, I think of somebody rolling down their window or pressing the button and chucking it out the window.

That's improper.

That causes a big problem.

It's unsightly.

Improper disposal can also mean that you're managing your waste on your property.

Burning it, bury it in a hole, that is really detrimental to the environment, and it's about 50,000 tons a year that we estimate get disposed of or burned on site.

And then there's just improper management of toxic materials.

People just dump oil or chemicals.

That's really improper disposal because toxic things are really detrimental to the environment.

- And I think of, too, even this week with all the snow and the snow days, my household produced so much more waste because we are all home and we're cooking meals at home.

When I bring the garbage out, I was like, "Gosh, my garbage is full."

And then I try to be a good recycler, but I even think I probably don't manage my recycling as well as I could.

And I do what I can, but I'm sure that's a thing as well for people.

- Well, it's teaching people to not wish cycle we call it.

Just because it's plastic or it's something, throw it in your recycling bin.

It's a huge problem.

You really need to look locally at what your program or what your area recycles, and then, even more specifically, go to your hauler 'cause some haulers have different programs and make sure that you're really following what those directions are, clean and making sure that they fit the number program, or it's really aluminum can.

Clean the food out of 'em.

People need to look at their food waste, how much they're throwing away.

We throw a lot of food away in America, a lot, and it's really a waste of natural resources.

- Are there any new policies or legislation being considered to improve waste management in the state?

- Oh yes, thankfully.

There actually is a Bottle Deposit Bill in the legislature at this time.

We're also looking at an extended producer responsibility legislation, which basically means that packaging and some of the waste that are toxic would go back to the manufacturer and they would have to be responsible for managing that material.

So often we just get something, we buy it, and there's hazardous materials, and there's lots of packaging.

Well, either the local unit of government has to deal with it or the consumer has to deal with it.

Well, if it wasn't there to start with, we wouldn't have to deal with it.

- Well, some good legislation to keep our eye on.

- Yes, absolutely.

- Heidi, thank you so much for joining us.

- You're welcome.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - Next up, I'd like to welcome Emma Pardini an environmental program coordinator from the Western Lakes Superior Sanitary District, or WLSSD.

Emma, welcome.

Thank you so much for joining us.

- Thanks so much for having me.

- So can you give us an overview of WLSSD and its role in management for waste in the Duluth area?

- Yeah, so WLSSD, or Western Lake Superior Sanitary District, is a special purpose unit of government that was made by the state of Minnesota as the wastewater and solid waste authority for the region of communities that are by the St. Louis River Estuary.

And basically what that means is that we're in charge of making rules about all the stuff you don't want anymore, whether that goes down a drain or you're tossing it into a bin.

And then we make sure that services are available and accessible to folks to get all those wastes to the right place.

- So this is household waste, hazardous waste, all the different kinds of waste that you deal with?.

- We actively manage all of the waste that goes to the landfill.

So your hauler picks up trash from your house.

They'll drop that trash off at our transfer station where it's checked to make sure there are no hazardous or other unallowed materials in there on its way to the landfill so that we have some oversight on that process.

All of your organic waste that you're dropping off at any of our food scrap drop sites around the community comes to get composted with the yard waste that you've dropped off at our yard waste compost site.

We sell that compost back to the community and we collect hazardous waste from households and businesses.

And we operate the materials recovery center off of Rice Lake Road where you can bring all kinds of bulky waste from mattresses and tires to just your big electronics.

And some of those products are set aside in a free reuse area to go back into our community.

- We frequent there often when we're doing our spring cleaning so I know that plays well.

When I think WLSSD, I think everybody passes on 35, like the big buildings, but you have many other satellite locations, the Rice Lake location, and then you said you have a few drop off sites too.

- Yeah, there are food scrap drop off sites throughout the community.

There are several in Duluth and around the surrounding towns.

Our newest one is in Proctor.

Essentially, if you were to see them moving by, what you just see is a big dumpster.

You get up a little closer, there're specifically four food waste for residents to have a convenient place to drop off any food that they didn't want anymore, including a lot of stuff that wouldn't be appropriate in your own home compost, like dairy, and bones, and things like that, that our compost site can process because we're operating at such a big scale.

- Okay.

So what are some current challenges for WLSSD in managing garbage and recycling in the region?

- Yeah, When we think about challenges that WLSSD has to contend with, I think about challenges both in the world of volume and volatility.

So on one hand when we're thinking about challenges of volume, when you look at where all of our trash is going to the Moccasin Mike Landfill over in Superior, that landfill's gonna be full in just about two years.

- Oh wow.

- This isn't a surprise to folks who are managing solid waste in our region and surrounding regions, but it is one of those dates that we're not going to move the needle very far on.

So as there's a whole group of folks, these solid waste officers in this Northeast Region of Minnesota working really hard to plan out where our trash will go after that landfill is full in Superior, our job as a community and as my role with WSSD, we have to keep working on ways to reduce the amount of waste that we're producing.

Because no matter what, in a couple of years, our trash is gonna have to travel further than it does right now.

That's a bigger carbon footprint and a bigger expense to transport our trash.

So the more we can pull out, the better.

- So what percentage of waste collected by WLSSD is successfully recycled or composted?

- Oh, when we look at sort of the overall waste web of our community... And I'll point out the WSSD region extends from about Black Bear Casino up to Knife River, and so all the communities in there.

So of all the waste that's generated by folks in those communities, about half of it goes to the landfill, about 45% of it can get recycled, whether that's in your household recycling or through scrap metal recycling or a mattress recycling up at the materials recovery center.

And about 5% of it is composted down at our yard waste compost site.

- Can you share some examples of upcycling projects and initiatives supported by WLSSD?

- Yeah, one of my favorite parts of my job is helping to connect a waste, like an oddball waste from a business for example, to somebody who can use it.

Great example recently is we've been collaborating with the folks over at... Atlas Games is a board game publication company that operates out of Proctor, and they have a little prototyping workshop called Replay, and they see lots of plastics go through in all the game pieces and the packaging of game pieces.

And just because they wanna see their waste footprint reduce, they've been working on collecting oddball waste from the community, plastics that otherwise might have gone to the landfill, like some tubes that held material at Epicurean or scrap acrylic from Northern Acrylics in town.

- What impact do disposable products and packaging have on waste management systems in our region?

- Yeah, thinking about the number of things that we have that are made to be disposable, the biggest impacts that they have on our waste management systems is just the amount of stuff that they are.

It's just a lot of material and a lot of it isn't the kind of material that belongs in your household recycling.

One that I think a lot of is film plastic.

If you think about any stretchy plastic, whether that's a plastic shopping bag, or bubble wrap, or like pallet wrap, this is material that a lot of stuff is packaged in now, that's relatively new.

We haven't seen a lot of this material 20, 50 years ago, the way we do in all of our Amazon mailers these days.

It adds up in the landfill.

It doesn't belong in your household recycling bin 'cause it can get tangled up in all the sorting machinery that handles all of your recyclables, but it is really recyclable material.

So WSSD has a couple of drop sites where you can bring those stretchy film plastics.

One at Household Hazardous Waste in Lincoln Park and one at the Materials Recovery Center off of Rice Lake Road, and there's other drop sites that have other lists of plastic film they accept at other businesses around town.

If that stuff is separated ahead of time and doesn't have to go through sorting machinery, it's really recyclable.

- Lots of great information here, Emma.

thank you so much for coming on and sharing all this insight.

- Thank you so much.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) - We are back Marlise Riffel and Keith Steva of the Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability.

Thank you so much for joining us.

- Thank you.

- Welcome to the studio.

So can we just start with an overview of the partnership for sustainability and what your objectives are?

- Sure.

We are a non-profit on the Iron Range, and we incorporated as a 501c3 in 2011.

We started by providing Earth Fest as a sustainability fair every spring.

We've done that about 15 times now, except during COVID.

And our goal, our mission is to facilitate collaboration towards a sustainable and thriving Iron Range.

So we like to work with others in partnership, whether they're private businesses or other nonprofits.

And we've published two kind of major studies over the life of our existence.

One on local foods in 2018 and last year on e-waste recycling and its potential for Minnesota.

- So you're educating and also providing help in terms of getting there too, adding that sustainability.

- Advocating and educating.

- And can you discuss any innovative projects you have going on and what currently is the focus?

- Sure, as Minnesotans, were often asked the question, do you have a hidden drawer in your house where you hide your old electronics?

- Yes we do.

- That you have boxes and boxes of electronics that you don't know what to do with.

Minnesota has a law that was written in 2007 to handle electronic waste, or what we call e-waste.

That law is found to be not working very well any longer.

So we've been starting to look into e-waste in Minnesota.

And what we found out is that, according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, only 20% of electronic e-waste is captured.

The rest of it goes into landfills in the state of Minnesota.

And that, of course, has a lot of toxic materials.

For example, of the lead that's introduced in landfills, 70% of the lead comes from the e-waste.

And so if you live in the metropolitan area, you can go to recyclers there and pay to have them take your old electronics.

If you live in Northern Minnesota, you just take it to the dump, and it goes into the dump with the rest of the trash stream.

So how much e-waste is there?

Well, each person in Minnesota creates about 46 pounds of e-waste per year.

For Minnesota, that's 266 million pounds of e-waste.

Remember, only 20% of that's going to be recycled.

What is it worth?

The study that we did a few years ago, two years ago, we found out that that was worth $3.2 billion of precious metals.

So of that, now, 80% of that's going into the waste pits, forever lost and creating pollution.

The other thing that we're missing out on is jobs.

If we were to process e-waste, we could create over 3,000 new jobs in Minnesota.

Now, technology is rapidly evolving in processing of e-waste.

A lot of people think of e-waste as using the huge smelters, which are very environmentally damaging.

We do not propose any kind of smelters be made or built in the United States because they're the past technology.

The new technologies use sustainable, environmentally sensitive ways of extracting the metals.

So what we're working on is a process that extracts and purifies for commercial reuse of these metals to recover more of that $3.2 billion worth and create thousands of jobs for Minnesota.

So it saves the environment.

It reduces the county's cost to process this.

For example, landfills don't become full of trash and have to open new landfills.

It lowers taxes and it creates jobs.

And so that's the reason we're interested in e-waste.

- Yeah, a lot of good information in that research that you've provided.

I can't get over the fact that I produce, well, the average Minnesotan produces like a child weight amount of e-waste, 46 pounds a year.

And I'm one of those people who has old smartphones, a computer for my college days in a closet.

So I'm sure many people are like that.

Today, what would I do with that in Minnesota, in Northern Minnesota?

- Well, in Northern Minnesota, you can take to our landfill a laptop, a desktop, a monitor, or a television under 19 inches.

That's it.

I mean, you can take other things to the landfill, but they put them in the trash.

They do sort out those things and send them to an R2 certified recycler, I presume in the Twin Cities.

If you're in the Twin Cities, you can take just about anything to a e-waste recycling facility like Repowered, for example, which is in St. Paul, but you pay per piece, and it's sometimes 10 to $20 per piece.

So it's a disincentive for people to clean out the drawer that you have take and take in.

- There's a few barriers.

- Yeah, because you're gonna have to pay plus you have to haul it there.

So we're looking for a much different system.

And right now, the Minnesota legislature is considering two bills, one bill in the Senate and House, that would radically ramp up collection of e-waste for recycling.

- So how do you guys educate and engage the public with your sustainability efforts?

And what has the response from the community been?

- Partly like this, sitting here talking to you.

We give presentations.

- We go to Harvest Fest, for example, in Duluth here.

We go to public forums and various places.

We have little displays that we put up.

We answer questions.

Marlise and another person from our group did a TED Talk in Virginia, crowd of several hundred people.

- [Maarja] Oh wow.

- So we use opportunities to meet with the public, and we always ask the question, do you have that drawer full of electronics?

And that always starts a conversation.

Everyone says yes.

- I'm going through my house right now thinking about where they all are.

- Well, some people have storage units, have attics and basements.

So yeah, we hear from a lot of people, "I don't know what to do with it."

And it's true.

Right now in Minnesota, there aren't good options.

- Well, thank you so much, Marlise and Keith, for joining us tonight.

This was a great conversation.

- Good, thanks for asking.

- Thank you.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) - Before we go, here's a look at what you might be up to this weekend.

Come on over to the zoo for a spring celebration for the whole family, Saturday from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM, the Lake Superior Zoo is hosting its spring extravaganza.

Some activities include a fun bunny photo op, egg hunt with prizes, games and activities, arts and crafts, food trucks, and much more.

Members attend free and tickets are available lszoo.org.

Also Saturday at 10, the Jack Link's Aquatic and Activity Center is hosting an Easter egg hunt at their location in Minong.

The annual tradition includes photos with the Easter Bunny as well as an exciting egg hunt.

And Sunday at noon, there is the annual free Easter dinner at Paul's Pour House Bar and Grill in Solon Springs.

Ham, mashed potatoes, and gravy will be served.

They encourage you to bring along any extra sides you'd like to share.

Well, that's very cool to have a free holiday meal available to anyone.

I'm Maarja Hewitt.

Thank you for joining us on "Almanac North."

I'll see you all next time.

Good night.

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