The Incinerator (In Detroit, Michigan)

This is the Detroit Incinerator. The Greater Detroit Resource Recovery Facility burns an estimated 2800 tons of commercial and household waste each day. Which is down from about 4,000, I think, after a ruling that the facility could only run two furnaces at a time.

25 tons of hazardous waste is emitted from the smoke stack annually. (Pictured, the brown cement tower with the three little pipettes at the top.) On top of that, it also emits 1,800 tons of "regular/non-hazardous" pollutants including sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, mercury and lead, annually. That's 150 tons a month. 5 tons a day. 600,000 tons of CO(2) a year.

The facility creates enough steam to heat 200 businesses. And generates enough electricity to power 60,000 homes. This facility also makes money from metal recycling. Because the metal particles are taken out of the incinerators feed. If the Greater Detroit Resource Recovery Agency doesn't burn at least 780,000 tons of trash a year, they pay big fines. So they bring in independent contracts, who dump for $15 dollars a ton. That's ten times less than Detroit, which has to pay $150 dollars a ton. Presumably because of the "closer to half a billion" dollar debt Detroit gained when they sold the facility to independent operators.

Needless to say, everyone wants this thing to close down. That is, except the owners and operators and anyone employed by this thing. On June 1, 2008 they decided not to renew the lease. But no one knows that that means. The city may be trying to buy it back . . . . Who knows. What is a lease anyway? The city is in a contract, so they need to keep it running. And the mayor is really the only one with the authority to decide whether it keeps running or gets dismantled. It's June 25, 2008 now. So, who knows.

The city promised it'll start a pilot recycling program on curbside basis maybe next (fiscal) year.

Here are some pictures of a nearby school. In my next post, I'll show you the neighborhood surrounding the incinerator.

Because the levels of pollutants reported are so questionable (i.e. the facility can decide when to take levels.) This school and another community org. will be taking their own measurements soon.

Hopefully, it will help influence Detroit's decision on the matter.

I want to cite the Free Press article, "Decision on incinerator's future looms as other options weighed" written by Tina Lam and Zachary Gorchow. I got most of the info from the three-part video I found there. I'd like to extend special thanks to Mr. Gorchow for answering a few of the questions I had while I was doing this write-up.