It Is Illegal To Throw These 14 Items In The Trash In Michigan

A person's relationship with trash can be summarized as opening the lid, dropping the bag in, and closing the lid. In many ways, the garbage can acts like magic- you put the bin at the curb, and the trash all magically disappears. It feels like you can put basically anything in that bin, and the dump truck will take it away.

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But that isn't true. There are plenty of items that are prohibited from entering a landfill. These are items that can contribute to further pollution in the landfill or create toxic waste. Trash isn't exactly a "good" thing, but there is definitely such a thing as "bad" trash.

Michigan Landfill Waste

In 2024, Michigan disposed of a mindboggling 24,000,000 tons of trash across the 67 reporting landfills. That rate has increased year-over-year. Trash that shouldn't be here makes up a hefty portion of this total, with prohibited substances asbestos, TENORMs, and contaminated soils making up over 3 million tons on their own.

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Here's another haunting fact from the EGLE 2024 report: The Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) estimates that there is only about 21 years of remaining disposal capacity. With landfills filling up quickly and the environment at greater risk each day, it's more important than ever to ensure only the correct trash enters a landfill.

Many of these prohibited items have designated disposal sites. When you take out the trash, make sure none of the following items are in there: