We might not like importing trash, but we'd have a serious situation on our hands if we didn't. Not long ago, the Department of Environmental Quality received two or three complaints a month about imported waste. Toronto recently signed a five-year contract to increase the flow of trash to the two landfills by as much as 1.3 million extra tons a year. We're a business like everyone else. Canada dumps a total of 4.2 million cubic yards throughout Michigan.
Environmentalists fear the worst is coming.
The nation's largest landfill, Fresh Kills on Staten Island, N.Y., recently accepted its last load of trash. And all landfills, no matter how well they're built, ultimately will leak into ground waters. In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court stopped Michigan's efforts to curb the flow of Canadian trash, ruling that only Congress can regulate interstate rubbish. While hardly household names, waste companies wield substantial political clout. Michigan's bottle bill keeps as much as 98 percent of returnables out of dumps, Surfus said.