A Brief History: Advocating for Recycling and Sustainable Materials Management in Michigan
The Michigan Recycling Coalition has advocated for greater State level investment in sustainable materials management in Michigan. This position was solidified through the MRC's report entitled 2011 State of Recycling in Michigan: A Way Forward and resulted in the passage of Enrolled House Bill 4991 or Public Act 588, approved by the 99th Legislature in late December, which created the Renew Michigan Fund and calls for the state treasurer to deposit $69 million into the fund annually. $15 million for recycling, $9 million for industry oversight, $45 million for contaminated site clean-up. The Coalition continues to lead the state towards productive recycling and composting of waste materials as a committed stakeholder appointed to the Governor's Recycling Council and the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy's Solid Waste and Recycling Advisers (SWRA), a group comprised of stakeholders from the Governor's Recycling Council (GRC) and the Solid Waste and Sustainability Advisory Panel (SWSAP). The combined recommendations of these groups informed the development of the proposed changes to Part 115, Michigan solid waste law.
For more information about the progress on rewriting Part 115:
A Brief History
For almost 40 years, Michigan solid waste policy has been focused on assuring disposal capacity for waste. Those policies have been successful. We have a landfill disposal capacity, and it's inexpensive. But now, we know that the waste we pay to throw away has value on the market. If we can collect, sort, aggregate, and get paper, plastic, metal, and glass back into the market, we can recover more than half of the waste stream to feed industry and create well over $435 million in economic value for Michigan.
Current Michigan solid waste policy, however, does not acknowledge the inherent value of these materials, nor does it account for the contribution the recycling industry makes to economic development or the development of Michigan markets for these materials the way we do with other commodities, and it costs us.
Annually, Michiganders collectively spend $1 billion to collect and manage Michigan's municipal solid waste. Applying policy to shift the current spend to move materials from the dead end of disposal to the more productive recycling, or circular economy makes sense.
These stories were written by our members to highlight the variability of opportunities and issues managing end-of-life materials across Michigan.
Reports
Residential Recycling in Michigan: Communities with more than 10,000 people, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality
Improving Recycling Performance in Michigan: Best Practices, Options, and Potential Costs, Public Sector Consultants for the Associated Food and Petroleum Dealers 2013
Expanding Recycling in Michigan: An Update, Public Sector Consultants for the Michigan Recycling Partnership 2009
Expanding Recycling in Michigan, Public Sector Consultants for the Michigan Recycling Partnership 2006
Recommendations for Improving and Expanding Recycling in Michigan, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality
Michigan Recycling Measurement Project: Collection and Diversion, Michigan Recycling Coalition, 2001
Michigan Recycling Measurement Project, Economic Impacts, Michigan Recycling Coalition 2001
Michigan Bottle Bill: A Final Report to the Michigan Great Lakes Protection Fund, Stutz and Gilbert 2000