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Hello again, friends!

I'm Jason Edens, your host of Lakeland Currents.

Thanks for joining the conversation today and thanks for your ongoing support of Lakeland Public Broadcasting Tthe average Minnesotan generates about five (5) pounds of garbage every single day.

That amounts to nearly a ton of help us better understand how we manage our solid waste in our region, are my two guests today, Eric Loge is CEO of Waste Partners, Inc., a solid waste management company based in Pine River and Mr. John Ringle is the Director of the Environmental Services Division at Cass County.

Eric and John, welcome to the program and thanks for making time for our conversation.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you.

Well, first of all, Eric, let's just pretend that I leave my garbage at the curb and your company comes to pick it up.

If you had a tracker on it, where does it go?

Can you explain to us sort of the life cycle of a piece of garbage in our region?

Well, of course, it depends on where you live.

So, Crow Wing County trash goes to the Crow Wing County landfill, and Cass County trash goes to the Cass County Transfer Station.

Some people haul their own to a couple satellite locations that Cass County has as well, but yeah, Crow Wing County goes to the landfill here in Crow Wing County and Cass's goes to the transfer station, which then goes to Elk River, Minnesota to a large landfill down there.

Okay, and John, what role does the county play in terms of managing solid waste?

Well, Cass County basically contracts with private enterprises to both collect the solid waste and bring it to the transfer station, and then from the transfer station - to load it and then to haul it to the landfill area in Elk River.

But the county isn't actually picking up the garbage, right, so your role in the county is to ensure that it's done properly or how would, how would you describe your role?

That's correct, we contract with the private haulers.

The private haulers actually work for themselves, and they get their own customers.

They pick up the solid waste garbage from their customers and bring it to the transfer station.

It gets weighed and then we bill out that hauler on a monthly basis for the amount of material he brings into our transfer station.

So a hauler, in this case, would be Waste Partners, correct?

Correct, we're one of them, yep.

Are most waste haulers private entities in the state of Minnesota.

Yeah, private or public.

There's a lot of publicly traded corporations that do it as well, Waste Management being the world's largest, and Waste Partners being the world's smallest.

Kind of a difference in them, so yeah, we're a privately owned company - myself and my two sons.

Are there..

There are municipalities that also pick up and haul solid waste, as well, but Cass County doesn't do that, we leave it up to the private hauler.

Well, just out of curiosity, can you give us an example of a municipality that does that as a public service?

Bemidji.

Oh, interesting, so that's taxpayer-funded, then?

Correct.

Well, it's actually funded through an assessment on an individual's property tax.

I see.

Well, Eric, I'm curious, as a hauler, how do you insure, or do you ensure, that people aren't putting stuff they shouldn't into their household garbage?

For example, how do you know there's not motor oil in a bag?

Yeah, so some of that we depend on a, what last 50 years, of that not being allowed to go in there.

The other thing is is that you know there's websites that the county puts out, our company has a website as well, a lot of that training goes in.

The most common things that you see in the garbage anymore that shouldn't go in there would be electronics, and potentially, yard waste isn't really supposed to go in the landfill either.

But you will get those things once in a while, our our drivers see it, we notify the customer.

Many times we take a tag and leave the material sitting next to the can with the tag on it, stating what they can do with it.

The county has some great options already that they do with that kind of material, allowing it to come for free.

We can, somebody that disposes of material illegally, we can turn that over.

If we catch the person, we can turn that over to our sheriff's department, and those people will actually get cited.

Oh, interesting.

So you periodically work with law enforcement to enforce proper solid waste management?

We do, absolutely, They love that.

(chuckle) Interesting.

Well, that kind of raises this question about the role of education.

How is the county educating the citizenry to ensure that people are managing their solid waste properly?

Are there any educational programs that you have?

We don't have anybody directly doing this, but through news releases, through information that we hand out, through information on the recycling containers, our website -- are all sources of information for citizens to find out how to dispose of their material properly.

Okay, so you mentioned that there's a landfill in Elk River, I think you said Morrison County, I heard you say Crow Wing County - how many landfills, approximately, are there in the State of Minnesota right now, open, active?

Good question, good question.

I would say there's probably fifty (50), approximately fifty (50).

Not construction and demolition landfills, now, but solid waste landfills.

Okay, so why is it that my trash from Backus, Minnesota goes all the way down to Elk River?

How is that arranged, for example?

It's the most fiscally responsible way that we can handle your waste on a financial basis right now.

We don't have the ability to get a better deal from a better company that owns a landfill than to take it to the waste management facility in Elk River.

So it's strictly a financial decision.

It's also that the State of Minnesota doesn't allow any more landfills.

So, if Cass County wanted to build the landfill, they wouldn't be allowed to.

Is that right?

They have a hierarchy of disposal.

The State of Minnesota starts at, you know, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - that's their first 3 options that they want the general public to know and understand.

Then they start with composting, I think from there it goes to incineration, is their choice, and then landfilling, as a last resort.

That can be debated all day long as far as the people who really determine whether incineration is a better choice than landfilling, and there's many states that have made different choices.

It's just that Minnesota has made that choice, so there's a moratorium on new landfills within the State of Minnesota - has been for 35 years, I believe.

Interesting.

So, of these approximately 50 open landfills, is there any risk of them filling?

Oh, yeah.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, I think there's a big risk.

And is that 5 years, 10 years, 25 years, a century?

I believe that Burnsville, their big conversation right now, they're trying to get additional, what they call capacity, but it's also, it's really a height restriction, right, because it's a mountain.

If you ever go down, I think it's county, or it's highway 55 or 52, one of the two going past there, it's just a mountain, and I think the Elk River one is kind of the same thing, they're trying to get more capacity because there's still a need for landfilling.

There's not enough incineration plants in the State of Minnesota to handle the volume that the state is putting out.

It's also one of the more expensive propositions to go through, is the incineration, so incineration technology probably starts in that $80 to $100 a ton in cost, as far as when we dump, and land filling, like for a large landfill, a regional landfill like an Elk River or Burnsville, those are in the $30 a ton, and then, of course, the communities, the host communities, add their taxes and things to it and things of that nature and that's why the county ends up with an $80 tip fee, $80 a ton to dispose of solid waste in Cass county.

So, it's approximately half as much to landfill our waste, as opposed to incinerating our waste, is that what I'm hearing?

I would say that would be, as a general rule.

It really depends on the situation, right, so in Cass County they have to haul it also, not only do they have to get it to a landfill, which might be cheaper, but they have to get it there - they have to build the facilities and all the costs that go along with that, they have to hire me to to run the facility for them, and load it and transport it.

That's our biggest cost, is transportation right now, transportation.

Interesting.

So, does the county pay for hauling it to Elk River?

Is that your scope of work, or your scope of work?

The county does pay for it through the tip fees that we charge the haulers.

I see, who ultimately charge their customers, so it's part of the customers, it's part of the bill of doing business.

There is a saw, what we call a solid waste assessment, or solid waste management fee, put on property owners in Cass County.

It's $66 a year that property owners in Cass County pay to manage solid waste in the county.

That includes recycling, some site management, different sorts of things, the solid waste perspective, HHW - Household Hazardous Waste.

Yeah.

Who is driving this stuff down to Elk River, is that the private contractor or is that the county employee?

Evan and Tyler Mcallister.

Yeah, again, we have this contracted out to a private contractor.

I see, so that's a third party, that's not your company, and that's not the county, it's yet another contractor that's a part of this cash process.

Cass County owns the trailers that the material is hauled in.

Okay.

And the machinery to load those trailers, and the buildings, and our contracted hauler - the hitch is on his tractor, and on Elk River.

Interesting.

Now the landfills throughout the State of Minnesota, are they privately owned, or are they publicly owned?

Both.

Oh, so there are both?

Yeah.

There are different types of landfills, some are privately held and some are part of the public, part of the municipality, as you say?

Correct.

Crow Wing County owns their own landfill.

The county owns it?

Yep.

Elk River's is owned by Waste Management.

So, no more landfills can be built in Minnesota, but could Cass County, for example, create a waste- to-energy facility, could Cass County create an incinerator, even though you can't have a landfill?

Yes, we could.

We could.

Would they?

I don't think at this time, it's fiscally in the budget to do something like that.

Also, when you do have an incinerator, you still have to get rid of the ash somewhere.

So you do have some byproduct that's treated as solid, about 10 percent.

10 percent of the total volume becomes ash that still needs to be dealt with, and does that go to a standard landfill or does that go.. Its called monofill.

Monofill?

Yeah, it's usually a landfill built specifically for that purpose.

You can get that, you can get that cited.

It's like Potlatch, when it was in business here, had a monofill out at the Crow Wing County landfill just for their potash they had in the process of them making paper.

So, there are monofill landfills, or monofills, in Minnesota, is that right?

Yep.

And it's my understanding that there's a waste-to-energy incinerator in Perham, Minnesota, just a little bit outside of our region here.

Is that effective at dealing with solid waste?

It is, but it does not reduce the actual cost of handling the material.

There's also one in Fosston that we've occasionally will.. when we're down and can't go, or when Elk River is down and we can't go to Elk River, we will haul it up to Fosston.

What do you mean by "down"?

"too windy"?

Too Windy.

Oh.

you can't tip here - for a weather event right now.

You have to go through annual repair work.

Okay, interesting.

Well, you also mentioned Demolition waste.

First of all, what is that, Eric?

Construction Debris that's been from the tear-down of a home, so basically anything associated with the contents of a home, with the contents removed.

It doesn't include couches, and things of that nature, but sinks, toilets, shingles, drywall.

All of that goes to a dedicated landfill, is that correct?

It can go to a landfill, and it's supposed to go to a demolition landfill.

They are two separate things.

An MSW Landfill is built on a specific engineering process called Subtitle D. No one really cares.

But MSW is municipal solid waste?

Sorry, okay, yep.

Municipal Solid Waste goes to a... it has to be approved, Subtitle D landfill.

If you remember, back in the 80's, they actually closed all the landfills in the State of Minnesota that weren't built to a specific standard and so many, well, Crow Wing County, of course, was taking material, and they ended up, opening up, a, or having all of us private haulers haul it to another landfill until they could get theirs built to the specifications the state requires.

I see.

It's honestly made a really safe means of holding trash.

So it used to be, they always used to worry about the leachate going through.

Leachate is the water, rain water, that goes through garbage and then goes into the soil.

Well, it really can't happen anymore, it's like two feet of clay, 60 ml liner, another two feet of clay, rocks, with a collection system.

Yeah, with a collection system.

Because otherwise, that leachate is going into groundwater.

Correct.

Potentially, right.

So, that's not happening anywhere in Minnesota any longer.

It shouldn't be, no.

They had some superfund sites, Again, we're getting into all sorts of things, Superfund sites that were landfills that were just capped, and said, "Well, we're going to watch it for a few years and hopefully nothing happens here, we don't have to do it".

A lot of that's actually now been going back in, they're mining it back up, and remediating the properties that they're on.

That doesn't sound cheap.

No.

So, of these 50 landfills that you've mentioned, that's not including demolition landfills.

Correct.

So if we include those, does that double the number of landfills?

Oh, way more, easily.

Yeah.

Okay, Yeah.

Interesting, way more demo.

Yeah.

yeah.

Well, you two sort of work on the, let's say, demand side, of solid waste.

What's being done on the supply side, for lack of a better term, like how do we minimize packaging, or does the county do anything to discourage the generation of solid waste?

Well, interestingly, I think thrift stores have done a big job of reducing the amount of solid waste that we see.

There are a lot of recyclable products that used to get thrown away that end up in a thrift store, or reused.

Sure, so that's sort of a way to reuse stuff is to have thrift stores.

Interesting, but in terms of consumer education, there's really nothing about excess packaging or anything along those lines, any conversations happening?

There is, but I think it's mostly metro-driven more so than northern Minnesota.

Okay.

We see some some school...yeah and we have product stewardship paid.

For instance, when you buy a can of paint, you pay a tax on that.

That actually goes to the, reclaim that comes back for that purpose.

Product stewardship for mattresses i think is something that is being looked at right now product stewardship for different items is something that I think is going to be something that we all hear about in the future.

Product Stewardship - can you define that?

Well, you're paying a little bit extra for an item to take care of it in its end stages.

Sort of like a car battery, right?

there's a premium, $5.00 refund when you bring that battery back.

Interesting.

Well, let's talk about recycling.

The first question I have is "does stuff in Cass County get recycled"?

If I bring my recyclables to the transfer station in Cass County, does it get recycled?

The question is, was it recyclable when you brought it ?

So, yes, all the recycled materials that come - get dropped off in Cass County, if they're recyclable, are recycled.

But when someone brings a garden hose, and throws it in the "wish cycling" side of things, no, that doesn't get recycled.

Worse yet, when you get things, we've had an instance here a couple years ago where a guy was goose hunting and threw 15 geese, dead geese, and that contaminates a load.

When you start picturing what happens after a couple of warm days, and what happens - the materials inside there, that's just going to get scooped up probably and thrown away.

But if it's recyclable, and it gets put in there, it goes to a material recovery facility and it's sorted out and recycled.

And if it's a really bad load, you'll actually get a notification of a downgrade, and it'll cost us more money for that particular portion of the load because it's contaminated or can't be used.

Who makes that decision?

The facility people at the facility.

At the recycling facility, which is called the Materials Recovery Facility, (or MRF).

Correct.

Where do my recyclables go if I bring recyclables to Cass County, where do they end up?

They go to the waste management MRF down in northern Minneapolis, North Minneapolis.

Interesting.

So, the nearest MRF, or recycling facility, is in the twin cities for Cass County material?

Yes, it is.

Do you make money on that?

When you consider the actual collection of the material, and the hauling of the material, and the handling of the material once it gets to the MRF, no, we don't.

But the actual material does have some value in recyclable commodities.

So it's a "no net gain" for the county?

It's a little bit of a loss, but again, it's paid for by that assessment on your property taxes for solid waste management.

Do haulers, like your company, Eric, are they responsible for collecting the recyclables on behalf of the county?

Yeah, so the 38 different locations that Cass County has throughout the county, our company is the one that collects those, and as you probably noticed a few years ago, it switched from a single-stream recycling where everything went into the one container, to a dual-stream, and actually, we do three (3) different products at most drop locations, and that's "rigids", which is cans, glass, and plastic, and then there's "paper", newspaper, magazines, mixed mail, and then "cardboard".

and those two items, the mixed paper and the cardboard, get taken to the county facility and baled there directly, and marketed from there.

We aren't transporting that to a MRF, we're only bringing our "rigids" to the MRF.

We save a lot of money not hauling paper.

Yeah.

Yep.

So, I'm sorry, where does the paper end up then?

By not hauling the paper, you're doing what, exactly?

We have a company that will come up and get the baled paper, and give us a rebate for that baled paper.

Is that the most lucrative commodity among the reception?

The cardboard is.

The cardboard is, and of course, there's been ups and downs of that, too.

Two(2) years ago, it cost more to bale it than it was to ... haul it.

It was basically, a zero, because what we were paid for the baled cardboard, was what it cost to actually bale it.

Now, it's back up into the more like $150 a ton, somewhere right in there, so the county is getting some money back for that material.

Money back, but it still doesn't cover the cost of actually collecting in volatility.

So that market volatility, though, makes it really hard to plan for a county-wide recycling program, I would think.

Is that correct?

It does, yep, it does.

But we've been lucky that we've been able to do this without having to raise our solid waste management fee over the last 20 years.

It's my understanding that something happened internationally that has affected American recycling markets, if you will.

A couple years ago, didn't China stop accepting U.S. recyclables, Eric?

Yeah, in 2018, China, what's called "the green fence", I believe is what they referred to it as.

China did give the U.S. five(5) years notice that they were going to quit taking it, and basically, what happens is, our materials all go to a recovery facility that a company that is in the business of sorting that material - they take out everything of value and then they have this pile of material that's left over and they would pay a recycling facility in China to take it and finish the job, so to speak, and I think there's been a lot of information on the internet and such on what was actually happening to a lot of that material and China itself didn't want that reputation, so they said they're no longer doing it.

Now, it's just kind of switched to Southeast Asia - is where a lot of that material is going now.

So, a lot of our recyclables actually cross the Pacific and end up in a MRF, or a recycling facility, or a landfill, in Southeast Asia.

Even on open land, sometimes, over there.

Yeah, and just burned on open piles.

Yes, there's plenty of news on that on the internet.

However, however, Jason, right now our plastic recycling has gotten to the point that a ton of milk jug plastic, HDPE (high density polyethylene) is worth more per ton than a ton of aluminum.

Is that right?

Yeah.

How, how is that possible?

What is, what is it being used for if it's so lucrative?

You're probably sitting on a chair that's made of recycled plastic.

Okay, so you see picnic tables, you see all sorts of plastic lumber, that sort of thing.

Interesting, so there's definitely a market then for plastics right now, more so than aluminum, more so than glass.

I wouldn't say "more so", but glass, unfortunately, we haven't found a good recyclable use for glass.

What do you think about the bottle exchange program that some states have in place?

Would that be good for Minnesota, in your opinion, as solid waste professionals?

I would think, "no", and primarily the reason for it, Anchor Glass is the only company in the State of Minnesota that takes glass for recycling purposes, and it's gone bankrupt, maybe 7 - 10 times in the last 30 years.

When you consider what glass is made of, silicon sand, it's a pretty infinite product, and very cheap, in comparison to...

So the whole process with glass, you melt it down and it creates these large sheets and then they cut it into their sizing.

Well, one piece of ceramic the size of a quarter and you're... as a company, if I was hauling my glass there, you'd be eliminated from ever bringing a glass there again if you had a piece of ceramic in your material that you brought a semi load there, if it's the size of a quarter, you'll never be allowed there again.

Again, the ceramic is a much higher melting point, they've got these diamond-edge blades that they use for cutting that glass, and it's a very expensive proposition.

Plus, they get a imperfection in the glass.

Sure.

That's why I think it's so hard to use it.

Most of the glass that's being used is crushed, and used for either landfill cover, or there are some counties that are trying to incorporate it into a road material.

Again, it can be very difficult, because the glass doesn't lose its sharpness.

Sure.

So glass is more of a "re-use", let's find a different application for it rather than actually recycling the glass is that what I'm understanding?

If we had beer bottles in bottles that could be refilled and reused, then it might make sense to recycle glass.

Most of the glass that we see can't be re-used.

Well, we have very little time left, but I want to ask about household hazardous waste, or HHW, are most citizens in our region - Cass County, Crow Wing County, Beltrami County.

Do you feel that most citizens are properly disposing of household hazardous waste?

I think so.

Cass County is a member of a Joint Powers Agreement with nine(9) northwestern counties (Northwest Minnesota Household Hazardous Waste Consortium) and we work together.

We have a site in Bagley, our Collection Agency Collection Site, and they have workers that go around to each of the counties and pick up the household hazardous waste collected at the transfer station.

This crew will collect the household hazardous waste - paint, fluorescent light bulbs, solvents, things that you normally shouldn't put into the garbage, and it's working great, I think.

And where does it go from there, how is it ultimately disposed of, briefly?

Well, one real quick thing that they do with paint is they put it all in the same vat, and it's called "industrial beige."

It's a color you'll see a lot of, county buildings will be painted with that color.

It turns into a beige color.

The HUD homes, I think, in the Brainerd Lakes area here, are all painted in that color, where they're actually re-using some of that.

You've got a re-use center - if somebody wants to come and reuse the product, we can allow them to take that product, if it's usable.

Fantastic.

Some of the paint actually is getting made into concrete, some of the unsalvageable paint gets crushed and made into concrete, latex paint.

Well, John and Eric, I want to thank you very much for the service that you provide for our communities and thank you so much for spending time with us today.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you for joining me once again.

You can continue the conversation on twitter.

Tweet me at currentspbs.

I'm Jason Edens, your host of Lakeland Currents.

Be kind and be well, we'll see you next week.