National Letter: 100+ Organizations Tell Hennepin County to Close the HERC Trash Burner

Dear Hennepin County Commissioners,

We, the undersigned, in alignment with our commitment to the Principles of Environmental Justice, write to express our deep concern with your continued support for the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC) and to stand with the Freedom to Breathe Hunger Strikers, who are now putting their bodies on the line so their neighbors can breathe clean air instead of the incinerator’s toxic fumes.

Across the United States, the fight against waste incineration has become one of the defining environmental justice battles of our time. At a moment of widespread environmental rollbacks and weakening federal protections, the responsibility to protect public health and frontline communities increasingly falls on local elected leaders. Your decisions in Hennepin County are part of that national story—and they are being watched.

This moment did not come out of nowhere. It comes after years of community advocacy, unanswered concerns, and continued delay.

You have acknowledged the need to close HERC. Yet the facility continues to operate—prolonging harm to communities and delaying the transition to real, sustainable waste solutions. 

You cannot claim climate or racial justice leadership while continuing to operate the county’s largest polluter. You cannot claim to be progressive while allowing Black, Brown, and immigrant communities to continue bearing the burden of this pollution. Your continued support for incineration is not a progressive position; even temporary use of incineration violates environmental justice principles.

Incineration is not a solution—it is a barrier to progress

The idea that incinerators are a sustainable, responsible, or viable solution to handling waste is fundamentally flawed.

Burning waste destroys valuable resources that should be reused, recycled, or composted. It produces toxic ash and harmful emissions while generating relatively little energy at high cost. In fact, incineration emits more greenhouse gases per unit of energy than coal and remains one of the least efficient and most expensive forms of energy production.

Incineration also undermines the very waste reduction strategies it is often used to justify. The EPA prioritizes reducing, reusing, recycling, and composting—yet incineration disincentivizes all of them. More than 65% of what is burned in U.S. incinerators is recyclable or compostable.

The choice between landfilling and incineration is a false one. Incineration still requires landfilling—25% of what is burned becomes toxic ash that must be disposed of, creating additional environmental risks. 

Delaying closure until arbitrary recycling and renewable energy thresholds are met is backwards. Continuing to operate HERC locks the county into a harmful system and slows the transition to zero waste. 

Closing incinerators is often the first step toward building better systems—not the last.

HERC perpetuates environmental injustice and public health harm

Incinerators release some of the most dangerous pollutants known, including dioxins, mercury, lead, and particulate matter—contributing to serious health risks and degrading quality of life through ongoing exposure, noise, and odor.

Across the United States, 79% of incinerators are located in environmental justice communities, reflecting long-standing patterns of racial and economic inequality in land use. These communities contribute the least to the waste stream yet bear the greatest burden of its impacts.

This is not incidental—it is structural. And it is reflected in Hennepin County, where the continued operation of HERC places disproportionate harm on already overburdened communities, in direct contradiction to Minnesota’s own environmental justice goals and Cumulative Impacts Law.

These harms extend to workers as well, who have a right to a safe and healthy workplace.

Closing HERC is possible

While ultimately source reduction is the key to sustainable waste management, landfilling is an essential transition from incineration to zero waste. Cities like Detroit show what is possible. 

After 33 years of operation, Detroit’s incinerator was closed following sustained environmental justice advocacy. Initially, waste was diverted to landfills—but the city then launched curbside recycling for the first time and expanded composting programs, reducing landfill use and allowing valuable materials to cycle back into the economy rather than into the lungs of nearby residents.

The small amount of energy once generated by the facility was readily replaced. This transition demonstrates that closing incinerators is not only feasible—it is a catalyst for building more just and sustainable systems.

Burning trash in so-called “waste-to-energy” incinerators is one of the most inefficient and expensive ways to generate energy. In addition to being costly to build and run, incinerators generate a small amount of electricity and emit 68% more greenhouse gases per unit of energy than coal plants.

Shut down HERC

For nearly four decades, Minneapolis residents have lived with the consequences of this facility. Continuing to operate HERC is inconsistent with your stated commitments to environmental justice, climate action, and public health—and with the progressive values you claim to uphold.

At a time when federal protections are being weakened, local leaders have a heightened responsibility to act. You have the authority to protect your constituents. The question is whether you will.

Zero Waste USA has created a HERC Transition Plan, with input from communities negatively impacted by the HERC. We support this plan and strongly urge the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners to work with environmental justice leaders in Minneapolis to address the demands and enact the steps outlined therein. 

As part of this process, we call on the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners to:

• Take a public vote to close the HERC trash burner by December 31, 2027

• Establish a community-led just transition task force toward a zero-waste future

At a moment when residents are on hunger strike to demand clean air and accountability, continued delay is indefensible.

The time for action is now.

Respectfully, 

Signed by

• Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT)

• Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments

• American Sustainable Business Network

• Between the Waters

• Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota

• Biindigen Healing and Arts

• Breathe Free Detroit

• California Communities Against Toxics

• Californians Against Waste

• Camden for Clean Air

• Caring for Creation: Our Planet and Its People (at All Saints Lutheran Church, Minnetonka)

• Center for Earth, Energy & Democracy (CEED)

• Center for Progressive Reform

• Cherokee Concerned Citizens

• Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living

• Citizens' Resistance At Fermi Two (CRAFT)

• Clean Air Action Network of Glens Falls (NY)

• Clean+Healthy

• Climate Justice Alliance

• Climate Reality Project - NJ

• Climate Reality Project: Susquehanna Valley PA Chapter

• Coalition for Plastic Reduction MN

• Community Members for Environmental Justice (MN)

• Delco Environmental Justice

• Denby Neighborhood Alliance

• Detroit Hamtramck Coalition for Advancing Healthy Environments

• Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice

• Earth Ethics, Inc.

• East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice

• Ecology Center

• Energy Justice Network

• Environmental Defence Canada

• Environmental Transformation Movement of Flint

• Flint Rising

• FracTracker Alliance

• Free Your Voice

• FreshWater Accountability Project

• Freshwater Future

• Friends of the Earth US

• Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA)

• Great Lakes Environmental Law Center

• Healthcare Workers for Palestine

• Illinois Clinicians for Climate Action

• Institute for Local Self-Reliance

• JustAir

• Justice Outside

• Labor Network for Sustainability

• Legal Rights Center

• Los Jardines Institute

• Mankato Zero Waste and Beyond Plastics Greater Mankato Area

• Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition

• Minneapolis NAACP

• Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy

• MN350 Action

• Moms for a Nontoxic New York (MNNY)

• New Energy Economy

• North American Climate, Conservation and Environment (NACCE)

• Operation Grow Inc.

• Original United Citizens of Southwest Detroit

• Pacific Environment

• Plastic Pollution Coalition

• Pocasset Pokanoket Land Trust

• PODER

• Recycle Hawaii

• San Antonio Bay Waterkeeper

• Sane Energy Project

• Save our Susquehanna

• SC Clean Energy Community

• Science for the People-Twin Cities

• Shen Neurolaw Lab

• Sierra Club

• Society of Native Nations

• South Baltimore Community Land Trust

• Southwest Detroit Community Benefits Coalition

• Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision Project (S.D.E.V.)

• St Luke Presbyterian Church

• The Last Plastic Straw

• The Link

• The Story of Stuff Project

• Tishman Environment and Design Center

• Toxic Free NC

• Twin Cities DSA

• Union of Concerned Scientists

• University of Michigan School of Social Work

• Valley Improvement Projects

• Washtenaw350

• West Berkeley Alliance for Clean Air and Safe Jobs

• West End Revitalization Association

• Zero Waste 4 Zero Burning

• Zero Waste Detroit

• Zero Waste Ithaca

• Zero Waste USA