The Northfield Climate Action Plan (CAP) was adopted in 2019, and it established the target of becoming carbon-free by 2040. Solid Waste is one of six core areas of focus in the CAP; this focus included the directive to create and adopt a Zero Waste Plan (ZWP) within three years. 

Zero Waste is the materials management approach centered on reducing consumption, conserving resources, and increasing reuse and recovery of materials to minimize or eradicate the amount of waste being sent to landfills and incinerators.

Creating a ZWP aligns with Minnesota Statute 115A, known as the Minnesota Waste Management Act of 1980. A ZWP would also reflect statewide goals set by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) to reduce waste statewide.  

Thematically, this ZWP seeks to create the legal, operational, and cultural changes necessary for reducing waste and its associated greenhouse gas emissions. 

More specifically, this plan sets the targets of reducing waste going to the landfill by 90% from 2020 levels by 2030 and ensuring that all organic waste, from residential, commercial, institutional, industrial, and City government sources, is composted or processed for reuse by 2025, in accordance with the CAP goal.

Currently, Dick’s Sanitation Inc. (DSI) collects trash and recycling; Northfield Curbside Composting—a separate, new company—collects compost from 600 enrolled residents.  

According to the CAP, approximately 46% of Northfield’s waste was sent to landfills, 52% to recycling plants, 2% to resource recovery facilities (waste to energy), and <1% was composted in 2019. Of the landfilled waste, it is estimated that it is composed of 31% organics, 24.5% paper, 17.9% plastic, and 25.6% other materials.

Product Lifecycle

The conventional product lifecycle can be thought of as an open loop, consisting of five phases: product design, manufacturing, distribution, use, and disposal. But the zero-waste approach emphasizes a closed-loop approach. Closing the loop means that waste items can be reused or recycled, thereby becoming inputs for new or repaired products. 

This closed-loop approach decreases the amount of waste being landfilled and simultaneously lessens negative upstream effects, such as the number of raw materials being extracted. The extraction of raw materials harms the environment in many ways—including emissions, water pollution, and air pollution. Local governments must lead this transition to a closed-loop system.

On a community level, Northfield must: 

• Move towards eliminating wasteful purchases of goods and materials
• Grow its reuse and recycling economy 
• Buy local as a means to reduce raw material extraction
• Reduce transportation emissions

 Reduced Consumption

The shift towards reduced consumption and greater regulation of manufacturing has proven challenging on the public policy level, and in practice. Societally, “the waste management hierarchy has been operationalized to create incentives for pursuing recycling or composting over reducing the size, material, or toxicity of an item” according to the MPCA. 

 As a society, we have lost touch with the original intent behind the “3 R’s,” - reuse, reduce, recycle. We must renew our focus on the first two. The ZWP provides Northfield with a means to do exactly that.

Northfield has been a leader in environmental stewardship for many years and in 2018 announced “Climate Change Impacts” as one of its six strategic goals for 2018-2020. In surveying the community for the creation of the CAP, Northfielders demonstrated their concern for matters of sustainability: 

• 81% of survey respondents said that they thought about climate change at least once a week
• Of the 962 who said they were taking actions to reduce their climate impact, 91% reported trying to reduce waste.

 Becoming Carbon Free

The CAP estimated that, in 2017, 27,545 tons of waste were produced by Northfield, releasing 3,737 tons of greenhouse gases. Organic matter is especially harmful in a landfill because it releases methane during decomposition—a gas 84-times more potent than carbon dioxide. 

Enhancing the Local Economy

While there will be short-term costs necessary to implement many zero waste suggestions, reduced consumption, the top goal of this ZWP, has the potential to significantly lower costs for consumers. The full ZWP outlines many techniques to ensure the financial burden of this transition is not unduly placed on Northfield residents and businesses. 

Maintaining Human and Ecological Health in the Long Term

Also, through the CAP survey, the following facts became apparent: 

• 80% of residents surveyed were worried about worsening air quality
• 85% of residents surveyed were worried about the impact of air quality on food and agriculture

 Implementing the ZWP will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and positively impact our air. Realizing zero waste goals can ease the burden that waste generation places on already-marginalized community members.

The ZWP seeks to provide strategies that can be used by all members of the Northfield community—residents, businesses, institutions, industries, and the city government alike. The remainder of this tab outlines specific areas of recommendations.

Education & Awareness

Education must be widespread and consistent, with multimedia messaging and community engagement. It must change social norms, provide incentives, and make sustainable behaviors convenient, to create the most wide-spread and lasting change.

City Leadership

The City has the unique power to pass or change ordinances regarding Zero Waste, which can create lasting legal changes. But Northfield has room for improvement: waste management was the only category in which the city did not reduce its emissions between 2015 and 2017. 

Food Waste Prevention & Recovery

An article “When Good Food Goes Bad” written by the MPCA states, “Food is the single largest component of waste going to landfills and incinerators”. Preventing too much food from being produced in the first place would result in significantly less greenhouse gas impacts than any form of food disposal.

Organic Waste Reduction & Composting

Diverting organic waste from landfills presents a large opportunity for greenhouse gas reduction, with organic waste making up the largest portion of the landfilled waste by weight. At the state level, 31% of landfilled waste was made up of organic material in 2013. The decomposition of organic waste is one of the largest national sources of methane emissions. If composted, however, organic waste does not emit methane and instead can be used as fertilizer. Curbside composting is available in Northfield. 

Residential Waste Reduction

The Rice County Sanitary Landfill cited reusable items in good condition as the most problematic type of waste being sent to the landfill. 

Commercial & Industrial Waste Reduction

The City’s sustainability office seeks to develop a market for recycled products and encourage businesses that process recycled materials into new items to move to Northfield. 

Construction & Demolition

The MPCA estimates that 80% of the 1.6 million tons of C&D waste generated in the state of Minnesota was landfilled in 2013. But increasing the practice of deconstruction is one of the most impactful changes that can be made in this sector; this involves more careful disassembly of buildings such that construction supplies can be easily reused. Although deconstruction involves higher labor costs than demolition, it has notable economic advantages such as reducing the cost of materials and transportation for nearby construction projects. 

Institutional Waste Management

The institutional sector includes schools, both public and private, colleges, faith communities, hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, etc.

Community buy-in is crucial to the success of the entire CAP; stakeholders’ responsiveness to the recommendations outlined in this plan plays a key role in that process. 

A crucial next step in the implementation of this plan is to map priorities. These priorities will constantly be reset based on events, stakeholders’ responsiveness, staff and volunteer resources, grant opportunities, and new technologies. 

There are four key principles that underpin this ZWP, that are critical to its success. 

Prioritizing Preventing Waste, Reduction, and Reuse

Strategies that incentivize and promote the top rungs of the waste management hierarchy will have the largest long-run impact on Northfield’s waste-related emissions

Education for Cultural Change

Raising awareness of the City’s Zero Waste goals and educating on the opportunities to contribute to them is essential to create lasting change. Zero Waste is only possible if large-scale behavior changes towards reduced consumption and more sustainable habits are developed.

Equitable Opportunity for the Entire Community

It is important to keep in mind the diversity of attitudes and starting points that people in Northfield will be approaching Zero Waste with. While on the whole Northfielders value sustainability, it is not equally easy for all residents to shift towards reduced waste lifestyles. It is therefore necessary to keep in mind the differences in beliefs and awareness of Zero Waste practices that exist within the community and to intentionally implement strategies to include all members of the Northfield community in the path to Zero Waste.

Monitoring and Evaluation

To track Northfield’s progress, an organized system of collecting data on the City’s waste stream will be required.