Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Incineration vs. Recycling

Currently, the city of Detroit incinerates all of its trash at a plant at Russell Street and Ferry Avenue. The city's lease on the facility is set to expire in the summer of 2009. That means Detroit has the opportunity to implement a new trash policy. The Metrotimes discusses the opportunity for healthier, greener trash disposal.

Meanwhile, the Free Press notes the progress already being made to increase recycling.

3 comments:

flannelbabe said...

I love how utterly devoid of information the Metrotimes article was. Either the plan is really vague right now, or the interviewer/writer was pretty incompetent.

Still, the Freep article was encouraging in terms of recycling. I wonder how much money the city would loose without burning paper and plastic? any ideas?

-Ellen Chamberlin

Cooper said...

I'm sure it's a dreadful read, but I found a 301-page report from July on the city's website that lists the costs of operating the incinerator and evaluates the alternatives available.

It's called the "Strategic Planning & Solid Waste Disposal Alternatives Report" and was prepared by the Greater Detroit Resource Recovery Authority (GDRRA).

Hopefully I'll find a summary somewhere or a more in-depth article, but here's the link if you want the data the city's looking at:

http://www.ci.detroit.mi.us/greaterresource/download.asp

Cooper said...

One more link for you. The Metrotimes did a cover story on the incinerator in 2002. I haven't read it yet, but it looks quite informative:

http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=3053