ENVR Michigan - top of the trash heap.

[kiawahman]

The Most Wasteful States in America in 2024

As our world strives for a greener future in 2024, the need to minimize our environmental footprint is more pressing than ever before. With landfills growing and recyclables often mishandled, lowering our collective waste production is one of the most crucial priorities to address climate...

heysunday.com

Michigan's 10M residents dump 68.72 tons of waste per capita every year, for a staggering total of 685,000,000+ tons. Incredible, as the average nationwide per capita is 35.73 tons, roughly half.

We ourselves seldom produce more than 1/2 a garbage can of trash weekly, some weeks I don't bother taking it to the street for pickup, unlike our neighbors who have two overflowing cans at the curb every week, and sometimes more on the ground in bags. Thats's a lot of trash to be buried in landfills, which are filling up fast.

But no fear, Michigan drivers seem to have come up with a brilliant solution as to where to dump all that trash... simply throw it out the window while driving, easy-peasy. I have to admit we never thought of that simplistic solution, but those huge culverts on either side of our 122,040 miles of roads are just begging to be put to use for more than deer and raccoon cemeteries. We should be good to go for another 100 years.

I for one, am embarrassed at the amount of trash alongside our roads and highways in Michigan. No other state I travel through comes anywhere close to looking more like open pit landfill. For all the money Michigan spends to promote tourism you'd think that money could be put to better use.

Did I mention that Dems run this 'landfill'?

 

[Meemur]

What happened to all of the prisoners who were tasked with picking up trash? I used to see them out on I-94 and I-96 during my commutes.

 

[Firebird]

What happened to all of the prisoners who were tasked with picking up trash? I used to see them out on I-94 and I-96 during my commutes.

That's no longer PC

 

[bw]

Michigan drivers seem to have come up with a brilliant solution as to where to dump all that trash... simply throw it out the window while driving,

Long-standing tradition in Louisiana. When my wife and I moved to Washington the first thing we noticed was the clean ditches.

 

[energy_wave]

Michigan has the .10 cent per can refund fee. I remember it being so bad during the Reagan recession in the early 90's, my brother and I would regularly pick cans from the side of the road. tossing them into the truck bed to buy $60.00 worth of groceries.

 

[Signwatcher]

Never had ditches on a property before I moved to my current location. However, my maternal grandparents lived in Bay City, MI and had ditches.

There was never any trash in them, but it was the '60s, when people still gave a damn about such things.

By the time I was in High School, everything had changed. When we went to the Shakespeare Festival in Canada I was pleasantly surprised by the clean roadsides. Quite the contrast to Michigan in the late '70s.

Sadly, I had to pull a lot of trash out of the ditches last fall and it wasn't easy for me, having hip issues and being 64 at the time.

Fast forward to today, I noticed that the ditches on both sides are quite littered and sadly, I don't think I can handle cleaning it up now.

There's water in one ditch regularly and only God knows what lurks in the weeds. Learned about that last fall when I crossed the street and didn't see WHAT made the weeds move, but they certainly did move.

 

[summerthyme]

Ok, I sorry, but this MUST fit the category of "99% of statistics are made up on the spot"!!!

68.72 tons equals 376# PER PERSON, PER DAY! There is NO way a family of three has almost 8,000# of trash EVERY WEEK!

Must be the new math...

Summerthyme

 

[bw]

68.72 tons equals 376# PER PERSON, PER DAY! There is NO way a family of three has almost 8,000# of trash EVERY WEEK!

I suspect they're including all industrial trash and averaging across the population.

 

[hiwall]

In Arizona people sign up to pick up trash on sections of the highways. Those people are given blue plastic trash bags. They then walk one or two mile sections picking trash and filling the blue bags which they leave on the edge of the highway. County workers come the next day to pick up the bags of trash.
Seems to work fairly well. They do it every six months.

 

[energy_wave]

Ok, I sorry, but this MUST fit the category of "99% of statistics are made up on the spot"!!!

68.72 tons equals 376# PER PERSON, PER DAY! There is NO way a family of three has almost 8,000# of trash EVERY WEEK!

Must be the new math...

Summerthyme

They must have used racist math.

 

[Taco Salad]

Ok, I sorry, but this MUST fit the category of "99% of statistics are made up on the spot"!!!

68.72 tons equals 376# PER PERSON, PER DAY! There is NO way a family of three has almost 8,000# of trash EVERY WEEK!

Must be the new math...

Summerthyme

They're probably going by the total buried in the landfills which would include all of the trash that we for some reason import from Canada, like they don't have enough room to bury their own. I think we should sell them some loaders and dozers and tell them to bugger off.

 

[Knighttemplar]

Lots of that trash comes from canada for cash.

 

[jed turtle]

In auburn, maine, there is a “waste to energy” trash plant where all the towns in the region bring in their trucks full of trash which gets burned to create steam (using Natural gas to ensure temps high enough to burn off Pollutants) and the heat produced goes to a manufacturing plant right next door which uses the heat for several heat Processes. Been there since the seventies. We’ve closed most of the landfills after that went in, and the old land fills were capped to prevent rainwater from leaching contaminants into the water table, AND the methane gases from decaying trash are piped off to generators to supply electricity to the grid.

 

[Carl2]

In the 1960's I would often see chain gangs of convicts maintaining the roadsides. This provided a visual lesson for criminals: crimes have consequences.

 

[DFENZ]

Ok, I sorry, but this MUST fit the category of "99% of statistics are made up on the spot"!!!

68.72 tons equals 376# PER PERSON, PER DAY! There is NO way a family of three has almost 8,000# of trash EVERY WEEK!

Must be the new math...

Summerthyme

You beat me to it - but you're too kind. Seriously, these bullshitters just pulling numbers and stats out of their ass, spewing their own garbage desperately need throat punched. And they're everywhere.

From the article in the OP:

According to the EPA, America’s collective municipal solid waste (MSW) output was 292.4 million tons in 2018, with paper and paperboard contributing 23.05% (67,390,000 tons)—the most of all categories...

That would be less than a total of 1 ton per U.S. citizen per year, which is still too much, but at least believable.

 

[CaryC]

In the 1960's I would often see chain gangs of convicts maintaining the roadsides. This provided a visual lesson for criminals: crimes have consequences.

They still have them in MS.

However instead of state, it's county criminals. Came by last week. In their green and white stripped suits. And it is only for non-violent.

 

[summerthyme]

You beat me to it - but you're too kind. Seriously, these bullshitters just pulling numbers and stats out of their ass, spewing their own garbage desperately need throat punched. And they're everywhere.

From the article in the OP:

That would be less than a total of 1 ton per U.S. citizen per year, which is still too much, but at least believable.

Exactly!

On our farm, we either shredded (for reuse as animal bedding) or burned paper waste. Because we grew most of our own food, we had almost no cans or other food packaging waste. (canning jars are the perfect "recycling"!) All organic waste was either fed to animals or composted.

We had to buy a ticket for the "dump" (a transfer station which then hauled the stuff to the county landfill) to get rid of the stuff that couldn't be composted or burned... it averaged about 1 garbage bag *per month*.

I never had much patience with the over educated greenies who would try to lecture me about our "carbon footprint "!

Summerthyme

 

[Bad Hand]

When the California developers first came to the valley they brought all their illegal aliens with them. Then our once clean roadside became a trash dump they threw everything in the ditches including diapers. Heavy fines and deporting out an end to that.

 

[CaryC]

Exactly!

On our farm, we either shredded (for reuse as animal bedding) or burned paper waste. Because we grew most of our own food, we had almost no cans or other food packaging waste. (canning jars are the perfect "recycling"!) All organic waste was either fed to animals or composted.

We had to buy a ticket for the "dump" (a transfer station which then hauled the stuff to the county landfill) to get rid of the stuff that couldn't be composted or burned... it averaged about 1 garbage bag *per month*.

I never had much patience with the over educated greenness who would try to lecture me about our "carbon footprint "!

Summerthyme

You mean you actually had people lecture you on your carbon footprint?

What some gonads, did you recycle them in the pig pen?

Boy hey I'd like to have been a fly on the wall in that exchange.

LOL just poking at you. If anyone does that to me, some serious bad eyes will soon appear.

 

[summerthyme]

You mean you actually had people lecture you on your carbon footprint?

What some gonads, did you recycle them in the pig pen?

Boy hey I'd like to have been a fly on the wall in that exchange.

LOL just poking at you. If anyone does that to me, some serious bad eyes will soon appear.

Yeah... my Mom and Dad belonged to the Unitarian Universalist Social Club (it's a REAL stretch to call it a church!) Most of the members were various Ph.Ds and "intellectuals" from various colleges, and they were some of the most clueless people I've ever met.

Our conversations (I'm sure they went home wide eyed about having met a "real, live farmer"!! LOL!) generally left them with their jaws dropped open, shaking their heads as they tried to wrap their minds around a "job" that required 15 hour days, 365 days a year!

Almost all of them asked, "but what about Christmas? Surely you don't have to work and milk on Christmas Day?!"

I was tempted to tell them, "of course not! We hire Santa's workshop elves to work that day!"

Summerthyme

 

[Meemur]

There's greenie - weenies around here, but not as many as where I used to live.

We have to find a balance: electric cars don't make sense here, but things like better managing our rainwater run-off so that we don't pollute the small streams is do-able.

But, yeah, I tell anyone lecturing me about my carbon footprint to go pound sand. I promise that it's less than Al Gore's with his multiple hot tubs.

Re trash: We don't have a lot of it around here. It's mostly teens tossing stuff from cars. The high school and similar groups often do Arbor Day clean ups of the ditches.

 

[CaryC]

Yeah... my Mom and Dad belonged to the Unitarian Universalist Social Club (it's a REAL stretch to call it a church!) Most of the members were various Ph.Ds and "intellectuals" from various colleges, and they were some of the most clueless people I've ever met.

Our conversations (I'm sure they went home wide eyed about having met a "real, live farmer"!! LOL!) generally left them with their jaws dropped open, shaking their heads as they tried to wrap their minds around a "job" that required 15 hour days, 365 days a year!

Almost all of them asked, "but what about Christmas? Surely you don't have to work and milk on Christmas Day?!"

I was tempted to tell them, "of course not! We hire Santa's workshop elves to work that day!"

Summerthyme

Ya ever want to put together a Rear Guard sign me up. I don't want to stand between ya but can have your back.

I gave one of my boys a chore to do. Feed the dogs out in the kennel. Come home from work: You feed the dogs. Nope. You do know they eat everyday just like you do, don't you. Yep. So.......go feed the dogs. Duh not rocket science.

That does apply to almost every animal on the planet, doesn't it.

 

[zeker]

Lots of that trash comes from canada for cash.

yep. I recall reading that Toronto's garbage was being hauled to michigan.

 

[Signwatcher]

It's not just regular garbage. I discovered when I lived in Canton, MI, that radioactive waste was being trucked into the area just a few miles (2-3, IIRC) of us.

The company in charge had prior issues with their protective system (supposedly able to safely contain the poison) and there had been a breech in the retaining system so very bad things were leeching into the surrounding area underground.

Was VERY happy to move from there. However, PFAS and air pollution from nearby industries are present here.

At this point in Earth's history, I'm totally trusting God to keep His children.

 

[Squib]

 

[Reasonable Rascal]

Ok, I sorry, but this MUST fit the category of "99% of statistics are made up on the spot"!!!

68.72 tons equals 376# PER PERSON, PER DAY! There is NO way a family of three has almost 8,000# of trash EVERY WEEK!

Must be the new math...

Summerthyme

Its Liberal math. They want more funds.

RR