LANSING - State Representative Dudley Spade (D-Tipton) today praised the U.S. Senate for taking steps to immediately slow the influx of Canadian garbage into Michigan landfills and end the shipments completely within four years. The deal, brokered with the Ontario government, will immediately reduce the amount of imported garbage by 20 percent and will reduce the amount coming in by an additional 20 percent each year for the next four years, halting the flow of foreign trash by 2010. The agreement was reached after the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a measure to impose heavy taxes on trash trucks coming in from outside the country.
"Our state is not a dumping ground, and that's the message the U.S. Senate sent to the waste industry today," Spade said. "This also shows that in order to stop trash companies from filling Michigan with out-of-state garbage, we must attack the trash importers where it hurts most, the wallet. Our citizens deserve this victory, but the fight isn't over, especially in Lenawee County. We must focus our efforts on ending the flow of out-of-state trash into our community and other areas throughout Michigan."
Today, the U.S. Senate announced that it signed an agreement with the government of Ontario, which has promised to stop sending its garbage to Michigan. Six municipalities, including Toronto, signed the agreement. In 2005, Canada dumped more than 3.6 million tons of trash in Michigan, according to the Department of Environmental Quality. That amount is more than 50 percent of the 6.2 million tons of total imported trash from both Canada and other states.
Ontario signed the agreement after the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a plan that would charge each Canadian trash truck $420 at the border. With more than 400 Canadian trash trucks rumbling into Michigan each day, Canadian garbage haulers stand to pay more than $160,000 a day to dump in Michigan. Under the agreement, Canada will stop trash shipments in four years, beginning next year.
In Michigan, Spade has fought for more than a year to pass a state-level plan that attacks the economics of the trash trade, requires more rigid trash inspections, and bans landfill expansions.
"Many said that we would never be able to stop the flow of Canadian trash, yet we have," Spade said. "And I will continue to fight until we stop the other three million tons of out-of-state garbage from clogging our landfills and jeopardizing Michigan's environment."