Greetings: My name is Susan Young.....many of you know me as the Trash Lady. I apologize for not responding to this thread sooner.
1. ALL of the garbage collected from Minneapolis residents that have City service...whether garbage is collected by City Employees or by the City Contractor (MRI), is taken to the HERC facility downtown. NO garbage collected as part of your City Solid Waste and Recycling program is landfilled. The HERC facility is a "mass burn, waste to energy facility": garbage is mass-burned (not sorted), the organic fraction is incinerated with the recovered heat used for generation of electricity and process heating, the metals fraction is recycled, and the remaining ash is landfilled. Less than 5 percent, by volume, of the waste taken to the HERC facility ends up in a landfill, and that waste ash is non-putressible (there's nothing left in it that will "rot" or decompose). 2. Minneapolis requires that our customers "bag" their wastes for several reasons. The most important reasons are to maintain a Clean City, and to protect public health. Unbagged waste, especially on windy days, has a tendency to try to escape the garbage trucks while it's being dumped into the truck. Crews are to clean up garbage that is spilled, but stray Kleenex, plastic wrappers and other light fractions have a tendency to fly up if caught by the wind. I have outstanding employees...but few of them have a 6 foot vertical leap to grab those items. Unbagged waste creates a public health and safety concern, because unbagged wastes are MUCH more attractive to squirrels, raccoons and other undesirable vectors of disease. Bagged wastes are not only less smelly and are more difficult for opportunistic critters to forage in, they also leave less residue on the sides of the carts....and therefore the carts themselves don't accumulate an animal-attracting smelly coating. There is an Operations issue, also, that argues for bagged garbage. Bagged garbage doesn't slime and ooze onto the heads of trash folks when they tip the carts in the summer, and it doesn't freeze to the sides of carts in the winter. Neither ooze in the summer, nor cart chippings down the neck in the winter, are desirable work place amenities! Plastic bags are best for containing garbage...paper bags tend to become saturated with garbage juice and act like unbagged garbage! Besides, we'd like you to use your paper bags for your recyclables!!!! Nationally, the "paper or plastics" issue depends on how your garbage is handled after it's taken from you, and where in the country you live. If your garbage is processed in some sort of waste-to-energy format, both types of bags result in BTU's that are recovered. If your waste is landfilled or ocean dumped, the conventional wisdom is that containing garbage in paper is marginally better. In Minneapolis, paper bags that are used for recycling are, themselves, recycled...and contribute revenue to the Solid Waste and Recycling Enterprise Fund. 3. The contract that was negotiated a while back was ONLY for the processing and marketing of the City's recyclables. The increased revenue that SW & R is receiving from that contract is one of the primary reasons that there was not a SW & R rate increase in 2004, and why there will not be a SW & R rate increase in 2005. That contract did NOT include any hauling services. The hauling of garbage, recyclables, appliances, etc, is being done by the same entities as have been doing it for the past 30+ years. Half of the City receives service from City employees, the other half receives service from a consortium of haulers d.b.a. Minneapolis Refuse, Inc. (MRI). 4. Re: the "Other Issues:" SW & R uses biofuels as much as possible, and ultra low sulfur fuels as much as possible. I continuously monitor changes in engines, in fuels and in truck technology to abide by the Minneapolis Green Purchasing requirements, and to remain cost-effective. City of Minneapolis employees are Union employees; MRI employees may be Union or not, depending on the practices of the individual haulers. The "corporate composition" of the MRI hauler consortium ranges from 3rd and 4th generation local firms, through Waste Management and BFI. 5. The taxes on plastic bags that Ireland has enacted, and that some California communities are considering, have much LESS to do with "garbage" issues, and much MORE to do with LITTER!!!! Those gosh darn bags float, fly and drift everywhere, despite all efforts to corral them. Places that value Clean Landscapes because they value tourism, such as Ireland, have seen tremendous strides in litter free environments after taxing plastic grocery or retail-purchase bags. However, my anti-litter rant has been heard on this List before, and I'll spare the List such "trashy" repetition! If I've missed any of the issues raised, or if anyone has further questions re: waste (which are NEVER wasted questions!), please feel free to contact me off-list by e-mail, or at 673-2433. Susan Young Minneapolis Solid Waste and Recycling (Who lives in an ex-urb, but whose daughter is receiving an excellent education in a Minneapolis Public School!) REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 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