In the upper peninsula of Michigan, there are not as many opportunities for communities to be able to sustain a recycling program. For Marquette County Solid Waste Authority (MCSWA), their recycling program is standing strong. MCSWA offers dual stream recycling to many municipalities, schools/universities, and civic groups. This authority is made up of 23 constituents, and 17 of those are currently participating in dual stream recycling.
MCSWA also holds many collection events to focus on proper disposal of household hazardous waste, electronics, and tires. These collection events are open to all Marquette residents, and free of charge. In addition to these, a household hazardous waste collection is dedicated specifically for businesses. Of these events, they have some great successes with their tire collections. This is because of the large amounts of rural communities and illegal tire dumping.
Being in a rural area, like Marquette is, has taught them that they must create programs specific to the needs in that area. They need to know what they can realistically recycle. This is why they have success with the events they focus on. Their area also has the added issue of transportation and weather conditions to take into account. Most Michiganders don’t have to worry about 300 inches of snow each season, but MCSWA finds a way to work around these obstacles.
When it comes to organics, MCSWA does take in food waste. They wish to grow organics and composting but have some added challenges based on their location. Like the cost of source separated organics at the curb and the pick up. Transportation again comes up as a challenge here because they would need enough businesses or residents to participate in order to justify another route to go out and pick up the organics separately. They do not deal with private haulers, so they would have to bring parties together and commit. These organics are something that MCSWA is working on and they know just how important it is to get this compost out of our landfills.
Looking towards the future, MCSWA has a goal for an extension of the landfill and changing over to single stream recycling. They experience challenges in volume and justifying a Materials Recycle Facility. They work very hard to allow Marquette County residents to have access to recycling, but they need to expand that regionally. MCSWA can tell that people are interested, so they just need to put the infrastructure in place and grow recycling. They hope that once they switch over to single stream recycling, they can get the state’s support and receive grants to help.
MCSWA knows changes need to be made, and they are very excited with the help the potential new legislation will provide. With a focus more on materials management and not on disposal, they can change the education and get people to focus on what exactly they are trying to accomplish.
