The city of Morris, like any other city in the united states has a problem with it’s waste. Morris closed its municipal solid waste (MSW) landfill back in 1996. Since then, all of the trash from the entire city is shipped out to other disposal locations.
Currently, trash in Stevens county goes to one of two locations. The first is a landfill in Gwinner, North Dakota. About 2 hours and 115 miles from Morris, two 60 ft. trucks haul thousands of tons of trash every day to Gwinner to be buried in their landfill. For two trucks, that’s 460 miles per day, 2,760 miles per week, and 143,520 miles each year. And that only accounts for about ½ of Stevens county’s trash. The majority of this trash is from residential and other addresses outside of the city of Morris proper.
The other half, mostly trash from within the city of Morris, is brought to a waste to energy facility in Alexandria. At this facility trash is burned for its energy. This is used to produce steam that feeds a turbine to produce power. The excess steam is then used to heat the 3M campus, Alexandria Technical college, and other buildings within the vicinity of the plant. However, the waste to energy facility has much stricter requirements on the quality of the waste it accepts. Because the waste is burned, waste with a high water content, like that which includes a lot of organic waste, is often turned away. This is why Pope Douglas decided to launch their composting program in the first place, it serves a dual purpose; to make garbage being burned less wet and to recycle vital nutrients and carbon into a usable product. This is also why we have launched a similar composting program here in Stevens county. If you are interested in starting organics recycling at your business or home you can find more information at: www.co.stevens.mn.us/1127/Organics
Over the last Month we had 2 waste experts visit Morris to learn about how we deal with waste and to learn more about our other sustainability efforts.
The first of these was the Pulitzer prize winning author Ed Humes. Humes won the Pulitzer prize for his reporting in the early 90s on youth incarceration in orange county. His other passion is waste, garbage, and the solutions to a culture designed for consumption. Humes wrote a book called Garbology, which examines the problem of garbage in the united states. However, this book merely examined the problem and didn’t offer solutions. This was the reason for his visit to Morris. He is in the process of writing his next book and wanted to learn about Morris and the Morris Model. He also gave a speech at UMN Morris that discussed some of the other communities he has visited to learn about solutions to waste and pollution.
The next visitor was Jenna Jambeck who was invited to UMN Morris as the Distinguished Visiting Professor in Liberal Arts. Although she is visiting Morris from Georgia, she grew up in MN as was interested in learning more about how Morris advances sustainability as a rural community. Jambeck, also a MacArthur Scholar helped to create the current understanding of how plastic waste ends up in ocean and other bodies of water. Her research examines plastic waste at the source, the stores where we purchase products in our daily lives. She also studies what types of plastic waste are escaping established waste streams and ending up in the environment.
Although garbage isn’t the most glamorous thing about sustainability, it underpins the definition. Being more conscious about how we dispose of our waste can be better for both consumers and disposal companies.
My position with the City of Morris is funded through a grant from the ENRTF. To learn more, head to https://www.legacy.mn.gov/environment-natural-resources-trust-fund
Morris Model 