INFLATION SQUEEZING YOUR BUDGET? CHECK THE TRASH.

The Minnesota Jobs Coalition (MJC) today rang the bell on a hidden cost hitting families in Minnesota as inflation soars.

With inflation at 40-year highs, Minnesota families and businesses need all the help they can get to make ends meet.  The last thing anyone wants to do is throw money in the trash but thanks to Minnesota’s antiquated ‘waste hierarchy,’ trash-burning incinerators are treated as renewable energy and making costs skyrocket.  Locally, county governments have provided millions of dollars in subsidies and enacted ‘restrictions on disposal,’ driving costs up significantly.

Minnesota is an outlier in the Midwest and in the United States.  The average “tip fee” for trash taken to incinerators is $83.20/ton – about 35 percent higher than the “tip fee” for landfills.  Two metro area incinerators have even higher tip fees – $90/ton at the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC) and $87/ton (increasing to $103/ton next year) at the Ramsey/Washington Recycling & Energy Center.

These exorbitant tip fees are outpacing the rate of inflation and forcing Minnesotans to pay more for trash collection. The status quo is unacceptable and hitting hard working Minnesotans when they can least afford it.

Check the facts for information regarding the rising cost of trash collection in Minnesota.