The Metro: Michigan landfills are heating up. Here’s what escapes

Michigan buries more trash per person than any state in the country. About 1 in 5 tons comes from somewhere else, most of it from Canada, because it’s cheap to dump trash here.

A landfill is sealed, and the waste inside keeps breaking down for decades making methane, liquid and heat.

That matters for the people who live nearby. Even on an ordinary day, landfills release benzene and other chemicals you can’t see. When the heat climbs, those emissions rise with it, and neighbors report headaches, nosebleeds and nausea.

One Michigan landfill in Arbor Hills, just west of Northville, has been running hot since 2019. Last year a well there reached 177 degrees, and the state approved running it hotter still. Now the operator, the Canadian waste company GFL Environmental, wants to add about 90 more acres — on the same side of the landfill where the heat has been concentrated.

A new report from the advocacy group Full Circle Future says that’s the pattern nationwide: when landfills get dangerously hot, companies ask permission to run hotter, and states say yes without asking what is causing it.

Katherine Blauvelt, who runs Full Circle Future, joined Robyn Vincent to explain what’s happening underground, what escapes into the air, and who is supposed to be watching.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

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Editor’s Note: After this conversation aired, Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy responded to questions from The Metro.

EGLE said it requires Arbor Hills to measure temperatures deep inside the waste, not just at the wellhead, any time a well passes 165 degrees. The agency also said it reviewed gas data back to 2020, found signs of a separate underground reaction elsewhere on the site, questioned GFL about it, and found no compliance problems. The elevated temperature event at Arbor Hills, EGLE said, “continues to be properly managed.”

When asked whether Michigan is considering rules like Ohio’s and California’s, which require finding the cause before approving higher temperatures, EGLE did not say.

The Metro also contacted GFL Environmental. A company representative said they could not answer The Metro’s questions by our deadline Wednesday morning.