By Andi Anderson
Darwin Baas, director of Kent County’s Department of Public Works in Michigan, is working to reshape how the state handles its waste. At the nearly full South Kent Landfill, Baas sees a system focused on cheap disposal rather than sustainability.
Despite efforts to capture methane and generate energy, Kent County still sends most of its 600,000 tons of waste to landfills each year. Baas wants to change this by promoting material recovery, composting, and business innovation. His plans include a Sustainable Business Park to process organic waste and recyclables.
Michigan’s landfills, mostly privately owned, favor burying waste because it’s cost-effective. Baas argues this economic structure discourages long-term investment in recovery. Public-private partnerships, he says, are needed to fund better solutions.
Methane from food and yard waste is a major issue. It traps 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide and is one of Michigan’s largest greenhouse gas sources. New state rules now require landfills to monitor methane leaks and fix them quickly, but adoption of advanced tools like drones is slow due to costs.
Environmental advocates believe reforms must go further, urging real-time monitoring, flare controls, and wider adoption of leak detection technologies.
Food waste, the heaviest part of Michigan’s waste stream, is expensive to divert. Baas promotes single-stream processing—sorting waste after collection—as a realistic solution. Composting, experts say, is one of the easiest and most effective tools to fight climate change, yet it lacks funding and public support.
Kent County plans to build recovery systems instead of new landfills, but Baas says policy and funding must align. “Unless we change the system, food waste will keep going to the landfill,” he warns.
His leadership offers a model for other communities seeking sustainable waste solutions.
Photo Credit: ethanol-plant-to-landfills
Categories: Michigan, Energy