Hennepin County revised its recycling ordinance on November 27, 2018.

New requirements

• Businesses that generate large quantities of food waste must implement food recycling by January 1, 2020.
• Cities must offer curbside organics recycling service to residents by January 1, 2022.
• Multifamily properties must offer adequate recycling service, provide education to tenants and label recycling containers properly.
• Businesses must have adequate recycling services and label recycling containers properly.

About the ordinance

The Hennepin County Solid Waste Management Fee: Ordinance 15 was established in 1994 to fund environmental programs that protect human and environmental health. These programs include waste prevention, recycling and organics recycling, environmental education, and environmental protection programs.

The ordinance requires waste haulers to charge a fee on trash service and remit this fee to the county. The fee is not applied to recycling or organics recycling services.

Percentage rate for solid waste management fee

Effective April 1, 2019, the percentage rate of the Solid Waste Management Fee for all mixed waste services provided in Hennepin County:

• Residential rate: 15.5%
• Nonresidential rate change: 21.5%

Rate questions

For questions about how this rate is applied, please contact your waste hauler or Hennepin County staff:

• Randy Kiser: randy.kiser@hennepin.us or 612-348-5889
• Chris Stubbs: christopher.stubbs@hennepin.us or 612-348-7813
• Enrique Vinas: enrique.vinas@hennepin.us or 612-348-4919.

2018 recycling progress report

The 2018 Recycling Progress Report (PDF) summarizes the county's progress toward meeting our goals of recycling 75 percent of waste and sending no waste to landfills by 2030.

Amount of waste generated and recycling rate

In 2018, county residents and businesses discarded about 1.45 million tons of solid waste, which includes everything put into recycling, organics recycling, and trash. That is a 1 percent increase over 2017, or about 16,000 tons more. 

Of all the waste generated, 80 percent was diverted from landfills. The county’s recycling rate, which includes both conventional recycling and organics recycling, was 49 percent. The remaining waste was managed as trash, with 31 percent going to waste-to-energy facilities and 20 percent to landfills.

2018 successes

The report highlights the following successes in 2018.

Revised recycling ordinance

The county revised its recycling ordinance to require some businesses to recycle food waste, require cities to offer organics recycling service to residents, and add requirements to improve conventional recycling at businesses and multifamily properties.

Supported the expansion of organics recycling

The county helped establish and promote new organics recycling drop-off sites in Bloomington, Hopkins, and Richfield. The county also started accepting organics recycling at the drop-off facility in Bloomington. Staff also supported neighborhood groups in Minneapolis and St. Louis Park to conduct outreach about organics recycling.

Explored options for anaerobic digestion of organic materials

To ensure the system is in place to manage the increase in organics diverted from the trash, the county is working to improve and expand organics management infrastructure in multiple ways. This includes exploring anaerobic digestion to provide necessary future capacity to process organic material. 

Encouraged residents to recycle the right stuff

The county responded to concerns about the state of recycling by creating messaging and educational materials focused on recycling the right stuff. Promotions highlighted top items that don’t belong in recycling bins at home and provided information on how to recycle or dispose of them properly.

Delivered free compost to schools

In collaboration with Specialized Environmental Technologies, the county distributed free compost to 40 schools to help them close the loop on organics recycling. Compost was used for vegetable gardens, a greenhouse, a rain garden, potted plants, and a tree planting.

Opened new medicine drop boxes

The county opened new medicine drop boxes and promoted the availability of more than 30 drop boxes now available at Hennepin County facilities, police departments, healthcare facilities, and independent pharmacies.

About the plan

The Hennepin County Solid Waste Management Master Plan for 2018 - 2023 identifies strategies the county will pursue to reach the goals of recycling 75 percent of waste and sending zero waste to landfills by 2030. State statute requires metro counties to prepare master plans every six years that identify strategies to meet the recycling goals and objectives in the state’s Metropolitan Area Solid Waste Management Policy Plan.

The plan was adopted by the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners on November 28, 2017.

See the Hennepin County Solid Waste Management Master Plan for 2018 - 2023 (PDF) to learn about the proposed strategies and next steps.

Strategies included in the plan

The master plan includes the following strategies  to help meet our goals of increasing recycling, preventing waste, and sending zero waste to landfills:

• Focus on organics recycling, which is the greatest opportunity to reduce our trash, by proposing requirements for cities and certain businesses, increasing local capacity to manage organics, and working to prevent food waste.
• Build momentum for waste prevention and reuse by better understanding consumption habits and promoting waste prevention actions.
• Continue to serve residents where they are, including with single-family and multifamily residences and at work, school and on-the-go.
• Expand drop-off disposal options for certain materials.
• Divert construction and demolition waste.
• Support the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's environmental justice policy, which aligns with the county's disparity reduction efforts.

The strategies were development based on feedback gathered through public engagement efforts from March through October 2017. See the summary of formal comments (PDF).

Supporting materials

The following supporting materials provide more context and in-depth information for the plan:

• Summary of existing waste management system (PDF)
• Summary of existing waste management system in Hennepin County (PDF)
• 2016 waste sort report (PDF)
• Hennepin County 2016 recycling progress report (PDF)
• Solid waste management master plan public engagement findings report (PDF)
• Hennepin County 2017 Solid Waste Management Operating Manual (PDF)
• Summary of Hennepin County solid waste ordinances (PDF)
• Hennepin County residential recycling funding policy (PDF)
• City waste hauling contract rates (PDF)

Residential waste sort study

Hennepin County conducted a waste sort in 2016 to learn more about what residents are throwing away and what opportunities we are missing to recycle more.

The study involved sorting residential trash from Minneapolis into new categories to get better, more specific information about what could be recycled now but is not, and what opportunities need to be developed to increase recycling in the future. 

Key findings

• Recycling organic materials is the biggest opportunity to reduce our trash. 
• Residents are doing a pretty good job of recycling, but there are still opportunities to improve. We could be recycling more paper and cardboard, and people are confused about plastics. 
• There are opportunities to improve recycling of materials that are not accepted in curbside recycling programs, including clothing, plastic bags and film, electronics, mattresses, and scrap metal. 
• ‬‬Reducing the amount of waste generated is the first place is the most impactful waste management practice, and there is considerable potential to improve waste prevention.

Learn more

• Factsheet: Increasing recycling and reducing waste – what can you do? (PDF)
• Waste sort results video
• Executive summary: Sorting out our waste problem (PDF)
• Hennepin County Waste Sort Study 2016 (PDF)
• Hennepin County Waste Sort Study Methodology (PDF)

Multifamily waste study

Hennepin County conducted a waste study in 2017 to assess how well apartment and condo buildings were recycling. The study looked at the recycling diversion rate, contamination levels in the recycling, and the composition of what was being discarded as trash. 

Key findings

• Apartment buildings have low recycling rates and high contamination rates
• There are significant opportunities to divert more materials from the trash
• Service levels are not adequate

Learn more

Read the full multifamily waste study report (PDF).

Construction and demolition waste study

Hennepin County commissioned a study in 2015 to assess the capacity for diverting construction and demolition waste through recycling and reuse of materials. These materials include wood, concrete, cardboard, metals, asphalt shingles, sheetrock, vinyl siding, textiles, carpet, brick and more. 

The study found that more than 810,000 tons of construction and demolition materials were generated 2013, and 30 percent of those materials were recycled.

Key findings 

• The cost of construction and demolition landfill disposal needs to be higher to incentivize higher diversion rates.
• There is ample facility capacity in the metro area to collect and process more construction and demolition waste.
• Diversion of high value and/or readily reusable residential building materials, including cabinets, fixtures and old growth wood, is generally not optimized, and a significant amount of these materials are being landfilled.
• There is a lack of awareness about retail outlets for reused building materials. Physical space to store and sell these materials is one of several barriers to growth of this market.
• Deconstruction, a technique that carefully dismantles a building to salvage materials for reuse, can divert up to 90% of the waste material generated from building removal. The practice is used on larger commercial projects, but few contractors currently provide this service for residential properties.  

Learn more

See the construction and demolition diversion capacity study (PDF).