Bill to allow yard waste into landfills under debate in Lansing

MICHIGAN (NEWSCHANNEL 3) – With fall in the air, many are busy clearing all those fallen leaves from their yards and taking extra care to see that those leaves wind up in the right place, at the right time, and in the right containers.

Care is required because in Michigan, organic waste like leaves or grass clippings cannot be thrown into landfills along with other garbage. That yard waste will go to composting and recycling businesses. However, that may soon change as lawmakers consider a bill that would let all the refuse go to the same place.

Hearings on the bill have sparked a big debate. Backers say it's about renewable energy, but opponents say it's about compost and the businesses that depend on it.

“Yard waste is our inventory,” said Sara Knight of IB Composting in Zeeland. “Without yard waste there is no finished product.”

Sara Knight and mother Bernie Berens run IB Composting in Zeeland, it's been a family business for 20 years. They sell to landscapers, and residents, but they also give a lot away.

“We've got little old ladies that come, 'I want to grow a tomato plant,' we give them that five gallon pail,” said Berens.

Knight and Berens say the bill would shut down an industry that's just gaining steam.

“People are more interested in organic material, organic products,” said Knight.

The Michigan Environmental Council says the bill will result in more greenhouse gases, and more landfills.

“We have to remove regulatory barriers,” said Doug Roberts of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce.

The Michigan Chamber of Commerce has joined Waste Management and DTE Energy in supporting the bill, saying that it will help Michigan get to its goal of ten percent renewable energy by 2015.

“We have to be able to add more to the landfills to get more out,” said Roberts.

Other supporters of the bill say recycling has opened up landfill space and that there is a profit in capturing more methane gas, and a cost savings in renewable energy.

Knight says that currently, yard waste turned into compost generates at least $2.7 million.

“$2.7 million in taxable dollars,” said Knight. “this money does not belong laying in a landfill.”

Debate on the bill is far from over, hearings will continue on Tuesday November 10^th in Lansing.