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PROTESTS
Some Michigan residents aren’t happy to be getting T.O. trash, and they plan to be waiting for our city councillors at their first meeting after the election.
“There are plenty of Canadian imports I really enjoy, but garbage is not one of them,” said an Elvis impersonator speaking on behalf of trash opponent the Ecology Center in Ann Arbor recently. “If Toronto sends us their trash, we’ll mark it “Return to sender’ and send it right back!”
The group’s message and their requests for meetings with city councillors and staff have been ignored, they say, but resentment has risen in Michigan since residents heard of the plan to truck Toronto waste to Carleton Farms, a Sumpter Township landfill.
“There’s a remarkable amount of outrage about it,” says Mike Garfield, the centre’s director, who thinks Toronto should get serious about diverting waste before hauling it down the 401.
“What we’re waking up to in Michigan is that our state was given over to landfill companies.”
Because of its low tipping fees and excess capacity, Michigan has become one of the top three waste importers among U.S. states.
And some people think its current administration — which in 1994 arbitrarily allowed the Sumpter landfill to expand its capacity sevenfold over the county’s objections — is too closely tied to the waste industry, says James Clift, policy director of the Michigan Environmental Council.
