Detroit Solid Waste Incinerator to be Detonated June 11

[Lowell]

The skeletal remains of the controversial Detroit Solid Waste Incinerator [aka the InSTINKerator] are scheduled to be detonated on the morning of June 11. It seem just like yesterday I was protesting against its construction. Good riddance.

Allegedly all toxic materials have been removed, but I'd keep my windows shut for a few days, and until after the first rainfall, if I was nearby. Picture of site during detonation prep courtesy of Nicolas Boileau.

[Danny]

Yay! good riddance to that stink factory.

[Richard]

Detroit taxpayers have spent over $1.2 billion on debt payments from the construction and upgrading of the world’s largest trash incinerator, according to the nonprofit Zero Waste Detroit. As a result, residents have had to pay high trash disposal fees of over $150 per ton. The city could have saved over $55 million in just one year if it had never built the incinerator.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trash...b05c37bb767c15

That was back in 2017,I could not find where how much debt is still owed on it by the taxpayers even though it will no longer exist.

Imagine if that same $55 million a year was applied to Belle isle or a transit system or heck even free passes to a brothel so at least the taxpayers would have enjoyed getting screwed.

The company that built it projected making $1.5 billion per year in revenue based on the ability to collect salvage materials outside of the trash,whoever approved it back then should have seen it for what it was,no different then a sports arena where the taxpayers foot the bill while a select few reap the profits.

Even when it was first built they knew it was the most expensive way to generate power but instead they doubled down and said - let’s build the largest one in the world.

Sweet and sour victory demolishing it if future generations of Detroit taxpayers still have to finish paying it off.

I wonder what impact it had on the 10 million cubic yards of trash moved over the border from Canada per year,I guess Michigan still has lots of land to bury it there,what smelled worse,the incinerator or the diesel smoke from trucks lumbering by?

It goes deeper,trash is considered a commodity between the 2 countries,so the state charges Canada for bringing the trash to Michigan,but the city taxpayers are/were being taxed for the incinerator and the construction of it while the state was collecting the revenue it was generating in that case.

I do not know,but it would be interesting to find out along with how much of a debt the taxpayers are still on the hook for.

After demolition it could very well be the most expensive real estate in the city.

It kinda matters because if it was costing costing city taxpayers $55 million per year,you would think that it’s demolition would result in a savings of $55 million per year which could result in an overall tax reduction city wide.

But we do not know how much debt is left to pay and how much the city residents will be saddled with the $2.5 billion debt and the yearly operating costs on the new bridge and if that offsets any gains from the incinerator demolition and results in an overall tax reduction for the city taxpayers.

If one lives on a chicken or pig farm that smell is the smell of money,in this case the residents were paying $55 million per year for the privilege of smelling that,to bad you could not bottle it and market it because it surly was the smell of money to somebody.

[Hypestyles]

... so will this property be comprehensively cleaned up so that a public park can finally be erected? trees and ponds to replace the smog? Give city residents, especially in that immediate area, something to look forward to?

[Richard]

^ I would not hold your breath waiting for that.

The current demolitions come from the federal funds,they may be limited in scope as to what they can be used for after the demolition aspect and under the new debt agreement there is going to be a “clawback” of federal funds received.

So like the Packard and other demolitions you may just end up with a pretty vacant lot for a long time,my guess and sense the mayor told businesses that he will find them large tracts of land in the city one way or another,the city may find it more useful as a commercial aspect and just write that immediate area off as a residential concern.

The free money was there to knock out some high priced demolitions that the city would not have been able to afford to do otherwise,so demolishing for the sake of demolition without an after plan does not apply.

You can figure that part out later.

Refer to the thread “ The city receives X amount of money,how do we spend it” or something like that.

The elephant in the room is the recent debt limit clawback,which is an unknown of how much at this point.

If it is spent already,then it just gets added to your tab with interest and you owe Uncle Sam.

[MikeM]

Who is going to burn Detroit's trash now?

[Gistok]

... so will this property be comprehensively cleaned up so that a public park can finally be erected? trees and ponds to replace the smog? Give city residents, especially in that immediate area, something to look forward to?

Good idea... but that is a heavy industrial area with the Dequindre Yard train tracks running right thru it. Doesn't look very promising as parkland. Maybe a future site for new industrial, or?

The only residential is South Poletown to the east... which is 85% razed.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3696...!1e3?entry=ttu

[Pam]

Incinerator history:

Detroit Incinerator's smokestack to be imploded, closing book on site's controversial history [[fox2detroit.com)

[Richard]

Good idea... but that is a heavy industrial area with the Dequindre Yard train tracks running right thru it. Doesn't look very promising as parkland. Maybe a future site for new industrial, or?

The only residential is South Poletown to the east... which is 85% razed.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3696...!1e3?entry=ttu

South Pole town is future city zoned medium/heavy industrial,the good thing is the property values for the remaining residents have increased because of the zoning where as they had little value before.

[Zacha341]

I heard a loud bang then a hard swoosh almost like thunder [stack hitting the ground] about six am or so, maybe later... was that it? [the implosion]

[Rocket]

, residents have had to pay high trash disposal fees of over $150 per ton. The city could have saved over $55 million in just one year if it had never built the incinerator.

There's a swath of the environmentalist that think that's a great trade though.

A powerful stench, unsightliness, and extra hundreds of millions of dollars spent, all in order to not have to bury 55 million tons of waste, and instead turn it into energy to heat the city's buildings, thereby saving however many tens of millions of cubic feet of natural gas.

[Zacha341]

Yep! Just as the sun was coming up - the big stack was imploded.



BOOM!

[Richard]

There's a swath of the environmentalist that think that's a great trade though.

A powerful stench, unsightliness, and extra hundreds of millions of dollars spent, all in order to not have to bury 55 million tons of waste, and instead turn it into energy to heat the city's buildings, thereby saving however many tens of millions of cubic feet of natural gas.

If done right it makes sense,but there are projects designed to tug at the heart strings so a few can make a bunch of money fast.

The environmentalists are hypocritical because they play just as much of a role in a throwaway society as everybody else.

The discarded packaging materials generated from the increased online sales is projected to increase the amount of CO by 30% by 2030.

So it is not really saving the planet,it is about shuffling the pieces around in the board so it looks like you are while a few capitalize on it.

2019 Amazon alone used enough packaging air bags to circle the world,22.44 million pounds of plastic waste ended up in our water ecosystem from Amazon alone and that was before everybody got into the online shopping craze they are into.

3 billion trees are pulped every year to produce 241 million tons of shipping cartons, cardboard mailers, void-fill wrappers, and other paper-based packaging, according to forest conservation group Canopy

We spend billions looking at how to dispose of waste generated but we do nothing about reducing the generating of it in the first place.

In Detroits case it is not the concept of waste to energy incineration that failed it was how it was implemented,no different then slamming freeways through neighborhoods,somebody made that decision on who was going to pay the price for the greater good.

We have one,it’s on the border of the city/county line,90% of the citizens probably does not even know it exists,I can see the stack but never smell it.

But sense the push is to eliminate the use of natural gas they are becoming obsolete anyways and after they are gone - then people will say - what are we going to do with this trash now?

And somebody will step right up and say - for a few billion I will save the day for you.

Trash is considered a commodity,it’s like anything else those who profit from it want you to create more of it,so they can make more money,so they spend millions per year lobbying against anything that may disrupt that cash flow.

By design it does not have to make sense,play a role in saving the planet or even the ability to dispose of it efficiently in relation to the eco system,it just has to create maximum profit.

Us older folk remember when soda and most everything else came in glass bottles and the army of millions of children collecting them for recycling so they could buy candy.

Remember when paper bags at the grocery store were recycled,save the trees and switch to plastic,now you see the plastic lining the freeways and floating in the water ways.

The trees you saved either burnt to the ground or are now used to create the packaging materials used for online sales then buried in some land fill.

Why have the bottle companies switch back to glass that is recycled and provide jobs when you can come up with schemes that involves trillions in order to make people think they are saving the environment when they are really not.