Waste, if it’s not composted, reused or recycled, needs to accumulate somewhere. At the moment, Hennepin County either puts garbage in a landfill or burns it for energy. However, the garbage burner, Hennepin Energy Recovery Center won’t operate forever. Last fall, the Board of Hennepin County Commissioners unanimously asked staff to figure out how the county could close HERC between 2028 and 2040. In February, the board approved a resolution to continue operations through December of 2033 — though provisions could allow for an earlier shutdown.
What does HERC do?
In 2022, the county reported about 1.27 million tons of waste generated. Of the waste, 42% was recycled or composted. The remaining waste either goes to a landfill or is burned.
Approximately 365,000 tons of waste each year goes to be burned at HERC, 505 N 6th Ave, Minneapolis. Cities that use HERC include Bloomington, Champlin, Deephaven, Excelsior, Hopkins, Loretto, Maple Plain, Medina, Minnetonka Beach, Osseo, Robbinsdale, Richfield, St. Bonifacius, St. Louis Park, Tonka Bay, Wayzata and Minneapolis.
The burning process results in steam, ash and scrap metal.
The county sells the steam generated by HERC. One use of the steam is to heat Target Field. Recovered metal — 17,000 tons in 2022 — is also collected and sold. The county pays SKB Environmental to put 80,000 tons of non-hazardous ash each year into a landfill.
There is another byproduct of the burning: toxic air emissions. Activists believe HERC is very harmful for those who live near it, causing increased rates of asthma and other health problems.
Angie Timmons, strategic initiatives manager, who recently spoke with Golden Valley’s chapter of the League of Women Voters, said it’s tough to prove.
“Now we do hear from residents concern about the smokestack smoke coming from the stacks, the steam plume, concerns about ash leaving the plant, and these residents do believe that HERC is a key factor in health disparities that exist,” Timmons said. “But what we found is that establishing causation between a specific point source and health impacts is extremely difficult.”
According to the Hennepin County Air Toxics and Criteria Emissions report from 2014 put together by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, when all of Hennepin County’s air emissions are stuck on a pie chart, HERC emits approximately 0.2% of those emissions. Vehicles like cars, trucks and buses create 45.8% of air pollutants. Off-road vehicles such as airport, train and construction equipment make up 26%.
The county reported air emissions of hydrogen chloride, hydrocarbons, cadmium, lead, etc, below the limit established by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
Nazir Khan of the Minnesota Environmental Justice Table said a concern from activists is the type of emissions from HERC.
“A lot of what’s burned at HERC are plastics,” Khan said. “These release dioxins and furans, which are some of the most toxic compounds known to human beings.”
Khan asked if Timmons had any data on the cumulative impact of HERC in the specific location. Timmons did not have data on that.
Timmons added she agreed plastic was a problem.
“The process at HERC is not inherently what’s causing this,” Timmons said. “It’s what’s in the waste. So if we can get plastics out of our trash ... that can reduce pollution.”
What would closure look like?
To stop burning all the trash at HERC, the trash would need to stop being generated. This means implementing Hennepin County’s Zero Waste Plan. The county defines zero waste as “preventing 90% or more of all discarded materials from being landfilled or incinerated.” The state-mandated goal is only 75%.
Along with Angie Timmons, Supervising Environmentalist Carolyn Collopy spoke with the League of Women Voters to promote recycling and buying recyclable materials.
“Meeting our state recycling goal means we’re gonna have to reclaim the materials that are currently being trashed that have better options currently, and then we’re also going to need to work to find solutions for the materials that currently don’t have viable options,” Collopy explained.
“Currently, in this system, products are produced as cheaply as possible, regardless of whether they can be repaired or recycled,” Collopy continued, “and once we’re done with them, the current system has made it really easy to discard all the stuff each week at our curb or in the dumpsters behind our buildings. This is a system where some are profiting immensely, while others are burdened. The national waste industry is making big profits from landfills.”
There are four goals in the Zero Waste Plan:
The first aim is to “create a materials management system that reduces the racial disparities and advances equity.”
The second aim is to expand current programming.
“We have a lot of great programs to help businesses, schools, residents hit zero waste,” Collopy said. “But we need to do a lot more to get those programs out into the community, and get more people using them.”
The third aim is focused on policy and legislation.
Martha Micks, president of the League of Women Voters in Golden Valley, asked if the county was pushing to ban certain kinds of plastic or packaging.
“(It) used to be, if you bought a meat it was wrapped up in butcher paper, butcher paper in twine. And now we’ve got everything just all sealed in plastic and other kinds of Styrofoam — things that can’t be recycled,” Micks said.
Collopy spoke about HF3577, a bill in the state House known as the “Packaging Waste and Cost Reduction Act.”
“That’s legislation that would put the onus back on the manufacturers of packaging so that they’re covering the cost, and also to give them an incentive to design packaging that is more conducive to our system of collection and recycling and hopefully also move them towards more reusable materials,” Collopy said.
The fourth aim of the Zero Waste Plan is to move from a linear economy to a circular one. In a linear economy, raw materials are pushed into production. Then they are used and ultimately turned into waste. In a circular economy, raw materials go to make new things, are used, reused, remade, recycled and used to make things again.
The county estimates the four aims would take the amount recycled up to 80%.
“The last 10% to get us to 90% is going to require new technologies and advancements that haven’t yet been realized,” Collopy said. “They just don’t exist yet.”
The plan requires a lot of work from the state legislature, the county, cities, residents and businesses.
For HERC, closure will only be realistically possible once enough of the Zero Waste Plan has been implemented.
The county will continue with regular HERC operations for the time being. A resolution adopted in February explains agreements contain provisions allowing for the county’s early termination of the contracts if the State Legislature or county board determines the facility can close before December 31, 2033. If certain conditions aren’t met, HERC could remain in operation for longer.
Some activists argue the closure timeline is not moving quickly enough. The “People’s HERC Transition Plan,” created by Zero Waste USA for the Minnesota Environmental Justice Table, advocates for shutting down HERC by December 2025 and replacing it with its own Zero Waste system.
Comments from cities
Cities were invited to give input on HERC closure. Generally, they asked for more information, more engagement and more time. Overwhelmingly cities were supportive of reducing waste but worried HERC would be closed too quickly without adequate planning.
“The timeline for reaching an 85% recycling rate by 2028 – 2040 is unrealistic,” according to a statement from the city of Bloomington.
The city of Crystal’s statement said “While acknowledging and supporting the goals of environmental stewardship, waste reduction, and proper waste management, the City of Crystal opposes the proposed closure of the HERC in the proposed timeframe. As a concerned local government that believes in and advocates for sustainable waste management practices, the city believes that the closure of this facility would have detrimental effects on both the environment and our local community.”
Eden Prairie wrote that the city “is supportive of a responsible timeline to close the HERC. However, we urge Hennepin County to better understand and plan for the significant complexities of doing so and set the timeframe for closure based on needed benchmarks being met first that avoid the significant environmental and financial consequences for constituents of an early closure.”
“The documents, at this time, do not outline a clear replacement plan for the HERC,” according to a statement from Hopkins.
Robbinsdale asked for “clarity on next steps” and “clarity on projected expenditures and revenue.”
“Rather than choosing an aspirational date in the future, the HERC closure timeline should be contingent on meeting conditions to avoid serious environmental and financial consequences,” St. Louis Park suggested.
Wayzata asked for “additional time to understand the impacts of the HERC closure with County Officials, the Wayzata community and its elected officials, as well as our waste hauler in order, to provide a more detailed response.”
For more information about HERC and to read city responses in full, go to hennepin.us/solidwasteplanning. To learn how to dispose of various items in Hennepin County without dumping them in the trash, go to hennepin.us/green-disposal-guide.
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