Rules

What Michigan Law Keeps Out of a Landfill

This is not our house policy. It is state law, and it is the reason a hauler asks what is in the container before it is loaded rather than after.

A ban list, not a preference

Most dumpster companies publish a list of things they will not take, and most of those lists read like company policy. In Michigan a large part of it is not policy at all.

That distinction matters more than it sounds. A company policy can be argued with. A statutory prohibition cannot, and the disposal facility at the end of the chain is the one enforcing it — which is why a load that turns up with a prohibited item in it becomes a problem at the scale house rather than a quiet inconvenience.

It is also why we ask what is going in the container before it is loaded. Not to be difficult, but because the alternative is a truck that cannot tip.

Where the ban actually comes from

Part 115 is Michigan's solid waste law and it sits inside NREPA, the state's main environmental statute. It is administered by EGLE — the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy.

The ban list is not arbitrary. Broadly, materials get excluded for one of three reasons: they are hazardous in a landfill environment, they have a recovery route that the state wants used instead, or they cause operational problems at the disposal site. Understanding which reason applies to a given item usually tells you where it should go instead.

EGLE's general line is 800-662-9278, and they will answer questions about specific materials. For anything unusual that is a better first call than guessing.

The materials Michigan keeps out

The categories that come up most often on residential and renovation jobs around Pontiac:

• Liquids of any kind — paint, stains, solvents, thinners, fuels and motor oil
• Batteries of every type, lithium especially — a genuine fire risk in a loaded container and on a tipping floor
• Tires, which have their own handling requirements
• Used oil and oil filters
• Whole electronics — televisions, monitors, computers
• Refrigerant-charged appliances that have not been professionally evacuated
• Mercury-containing devices — old thermostats, some switches, fluorescent tubes
• Medical and infectious waste, including sharps
• Hazardous waste generally, including a great deal of what accumulates in a garage
• Beverage containers on which a deposit was paid — see below
• Asbestos-containing material — see below, it is a regime of its own

Some materials are not banned outright but are handled as special wastes with additional requirements for landfill disposal. Those are worth a phone call rather than an assumption, because the answer depends on the specific facility.

Asbestos is its own regime

The most consequential item on the list for anyone renovating an older Pontiac house, and the one where guessing is genuinely dangerous.

Asbestos demolition, waste handling and disposal are subject to a federal National Emission Standard for Hazardous Air Pollutants — NESHAP. In Michigan, EGLE's Air Quality Division implements the asbestos NESHAP program, and both landfills and abatement contractors must have provisions in place to meet it.

Two practical consequences:

• It never goes in a roll-off container. Not ours, not anyone's.
• Whether a particular landfill accepts it at all — and how it must be prepared and shipped — is a question for that landfill directly. There is no general answer, and a hauler cannot give you one.

This matters here because of the housing stock. A great deal of Pontiac and the older parts of Birmingham, Rochester and Clarkston predates 1980, and in those buildings floor tile, pipe and boiler lagging, textured finishes and some siding and roofing products are all realistic candidates. Basements are the usual location, because that is where the old heating runs are.

Get it tested before demolition starts, not after. Information is at Michigan.gov/EGLEAsbestos, and an abatement contractor is who does the work.

The bottle deposit catch

A distinctly Michigan one, and it catches out-of-state contractors constantly.

Beverage containers on which a deposit was paid are among the landfill-prohibited materials. Michigan's bottle deposit is not just a refund scheme — the containers are legally excluded from landfill disposal.

For a household clear-out this is trivia. For a job site with a crew on it for three months, or a commercial clear-out, or an estate property where somebody has been storing returnables in the garage for years, it is a genuine volume of material that has to be dealt with separately.

Practical answer: put a returnables bin on site from day one. It costs nothing, it keeps the container clean, and somebody gets the deposits back.

Where each banned item goes instead

Oakland County Planning Services administers the household hazardous waste program and publishes recycling and disposal information. Contact for the NoHaz program is nohaz@oakgov.com.

Worth knowing that recycling in Oakland County is managed by the local communities rather than by the county. Two solid waste authorities operate in the southern part of the county — RRRASOC and SOCRRA — but your own city, village or township is the right place to ask what is available to you.

Why one wrong item costs a whole load

The economics are worth understanding, because people assume a single prohibited item is a single item's problem.

It is not. A container is tipped and inspected as one load. A prohibited item found in it can mean the load is rejected, or reclassified, or that the whole thing needs sorting by hand — and every one of those outcomes costs far more than the item.

The same logic applies to separated streams. A clean load of concrete has a cheaper route than mixed debris; one bag of household rubbish in it and it is mixed debris. A container of scrap metal is worth money; contaminate it and it is waste.

That is why we would rather have a two-minute conversation at booking than a phone call from a scale house. If you are unsure about something, ask. The answer is free.

A pre-load walk-through

• Walk the basement first — in this county that is where the old paint, chemicals and heating-system material live
• Then the garage and any shed
• Pull every liquid: paint, stain, solvent, fuel, oil, antifreeze
• Check for batteries in tools, mobility equipment, e-bikes and solar lights
• Set aside electronics for proper recycling
• Look for the second fridge or freezer as well as the obvious one
• Pull tires — there are usually more than you expect
• Start a returnables bin if there is any volume of deposit containers
• In a pre-1980 building, get suspect material tested before you break it
• Separate scrap metal — it has value and reduces what you pay for the rest
• Keep yard waste out of the container; it has a free curbside route
• Load flat and heavy first, bulky on top, and stop at the fill line