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The 1974 groundbreaking for the WLSSD wastewater treatment plant at 27th Avenue West and the St. Louis River waterfront , with Rep. Willard “Mr. Environment” Munger at the microphone. Munger was instrumental in passing WLSSD’s enabling legislation.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Western Lake Superior Sanitary District’s Solid Waste Authority—a notable time to look back and take stock. It has always been WLSSD’s mission to safeguard public health, protect the environment, and prevent pollution, but have we made any real progress? If I’m being honest, every time I watch a semi truck full of our community’s trash head to the landfill, I struggle to believe that we’ve made meaningful change. 

In these moments of defeat, I push myself to take a step back. Fifty years back, in fact. The year is 1974. The Watergate Scandal is in the news. Duluth is beginning to bounce back from the oil embargo and steel crisis. I-35 construction projects are just reaching downtown Duluth, and if you drive that brand-new interstate into town, you’ll likely smell the St. Louis River before you see it. In fact, you might not see the river at all, obscured as it is under a surface of glistening slime and pillowy foam, telltale signs of industrial effluent and marginally-treated residential wastewater. 

As the river passes under the Aerial Lift Bridge, it laps up against the busted cars and haphazard scrap piles of the junk yards that make up Canal Park. It’s barely recognizable as the bustling tourist destination it will become. After all, why would anyone want to spend time relaxing and recreating next to an estuary that smells like chemical byproducts and human waste? These overwhelming waste challenges had built up through decades of habitual disposal practices, and it would take decades to reverse them.

A hop and a skip upstream, shovels hit dirt in the groundbreaking for WLSSD’s wastewater treatment plant. And though the planning of this monumental project began in 1971, when WLSSD’s responsibility only covered our region’s wastewater, it was already clear that solid waste and wastewater are inextricably intertwined. So, in 1974, WLSSD is designated our region’s Solid Waste Authority, and the institution takes on the responsibility of ensuring proper management of everything our residents throw away in a bin in addition to everything they flush down a pipe. 

This concept – of a government entity overseeing management of all varieties of waste in a region encompassing multiple communities across county lines – was brand new. There was no road map for developing a regional waste authority. Since then, WLSSD has been learning and growing alongside the communities we serve.

This journey has been an evolution. By the time the first toilet flush flowed through WLSSD’s wastewater treatment plant in 1978, solid waste was integrated into the District’s operations. Trash hauled from homes and businesses was trucked to incinerators at the wastewater treatment plant and burned as fuel alongside wastewater sludge to offset the plant’s energy costs.

That presented a problem for hazardous waste, which couldn’t be processed by the wastewater treatment plant and could cause serious risks to incineration. So, the District’s operations needed to evolve. WSSD began collecting hazardous waste, first in drop-off events in the staff parking lot and eventually in its own dedicated facility, and transporting it to facilities where it could be processed properly.

Meanwhile, the incentives to incinerate garbage were waning. On one hand, incineration turned waste into an energy resource. On the other hand, the process was high-risk for dangerous fires, and scientific study began demonstrating a link between garbage incineration and elevated mercury in the atmosphere and soil. Landfilling our trash became the more responsible choice. But WLSSD saw this as an opportunity to evolve – does everything have to go to the landfill? What’s the next step forward to minimize our energy costs and carbon footprint? 

That next step was transforming wastewater sludge into an effective fertilizer instead of burning or landfilling all those nutrient-rich solids. As an added bonus, the methane produced in this process was (and still is) captured for energy production.

Around this same time, WLSSD developed ordinances and infrastructure to compost yard waste and food scraps. Diverting this organic matter from the trash not only saves landfill space but dramatically cuts greenhouse gas emissions from organic matter breaking down in oxygen-starved landfills.

And now we come to 2024. Our river is swimmable and fishable. Our communities are growing. But the waste challenges we face are evolving too. In about two years, the landfill where we send our trash will be full. We’re only just beginning to understand the impacts of PFAS forever chemicals in our household products, bodies, and environment.

WLSSD recommits every day to evolve through these challenges. We make change by piloting new technologies, leveraging funding from outside our region to improve infrastructure, and educating and informing the people we serve.

And this work isn’t WLSSD’s alone. It might seem like a drop in the bucket for one person to double check their local recycling rules, reuse their own travel mug, collect their plastic bags for a drop-off recycling program, or save their orange peels and chicken bones for composting. But evolving our waste culture is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s not about the action you do today but the habit you form to shape your lifestyle for the next fifty years. It’s about the children who watch you sort your recycling and learn it as a basic human habit. It’s about the restaurant patrons who see you bring your own to-go container and realize they could do the same. It’s about supporting businesses and organizations that champion waste reduction so that they can expand their reach and capacity.

We’re playing the long game. The next time you use your reusable grocery bag, don’t think of it as one plastic bag avoided but as the first of fifty years – 2600 weeks of groceries – worth of plastic bags. The next time you give a present in reusable gift wrap (like a bandana or a beeswax wrap), don’t think of it as one piece of wrapping paper saved but as one more person inspired to pay it forward with the next gift they give. The next time you fix your broken phone screen instead of throwing it away, don’t think of it as one phone out of the landfill but as years of extra life given to a device you use every day.

When we’re motivated to snowball our small actions for the sake of the future, that future will arrive sooner than we think.

Emma Pardini is an Environmental Program Coordinator at Western Lake Superior Sanitary District. She specializes in education and communications around recycling and solid waste reduction, and her favorite trash-into-treasure trick is making pesto out of carrot greens.