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Nearly 20 years ago, as an outcry against jammed, leaking landfills echoed across the country, Detroit started down a novel path, building the nation's largest trash-to-energy incinerator amid fanfare and controversy.
Now, with Michigan landfill space so cheap and plentiful that other states and Canada dump trash here, the city is at a crossroads once more with the giant burner.
With the bonds that financed it nearly paid off, the city must decide this week whether to keep using the plant -- and possibly buying it from the private company that now operates it -- or switch to recycling and landfills.
City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, environmentalists and some citizen groups want the plant closed. They say it's expensive, puffs unhealthy fumes into poverty-stricken neighborhoods near the plant and stunts recycling efforts.
In a world where big cities such as Oakland, Calif., are recycling 60% of their waste, Detroit recycles just 8%, including yard waste and the metals it pulls from the incinerator with giant magnets. City officials promise that no matter the decision, they will start a pilot curbside recycling program next year.
A week before their deadline, city officials have not said what they'll do.
"We are probably going to take every second until the deadline to decide which way it will go," said Cathy Square, the city's chief operating officer and a member of the board overseeing the incinerator.
Purchase is appealing
Still, signs point toward the city renewing its lease with the plant's owners for four years.
Deputy Mayor Anthony Adams told the council Thursday that buying the incinerator also has appeal because it would give the city control over keeping the plant or closing it.
The city estimates that switching to landfilling likely is to cost $23 million more over the next 10 years than continuing with incineration, but there are big variables, such as how much money will be needed to upgrade the incinerator.
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