Plastics 1 and 2 are the only numbers that the city of La Crosse recognizes to be adequate for their recycling system, the rest, numbers 3-7 along with garbage is sent to the Xcel Energy Incinerator on French Island where it is burned for energy. On campus, through the help of things like the green fund and work done by Student Association, UW-L recycles plastic numbered 1-7 and paper. The Xcel Energy Incinerator has to appeal to certain permit limitations as far as the amount of toxic chemicals, such as Dioxin, Cadmium, HCL, Benzene and Formaldehyde.
Guy Wolf, a passionate environmentalist and advisor in the Office of Multicultural Student Services, had been chasing garbage across the country trying to prevent companies from burning it before he began to investigate the Incinerator on French Island. After doing some digging, with support from the Midwest Environmental Advocates, Wolf found that the Incinerator was violating the Clean Air Act and determined that a lawsuit would be the best way to invigorate change.
Wolf, alongside several students who felt passionately about how this was effecting the environment, hit the streets and collected signatures for a petition to show the community's concern and also testified in court. The fight against the Incinerator began back in the 1990's and now the story is being expressed through a film, "Crossing the Line: Defending Wisconsin's Environmental Commons." The film premiered on April 19 in Madison and will be shown in Milwaukee on May 12. Wolf hopes to have a film screening on campus next fall so that more students can attend and learn what is really going on. "The Incinerator is like a landfill in the sky and awareness needed to arise because the poor quality of air was severely affecting the people living near the Incinerator on French Island," Wolf said.
In 2001, a settlement was announced that demanded Xcel Energy and La Crosse County to pay millions of dollars to go towards the plant for pollution control equipment and to pay fines. Wolf explained that $1 million was given to construct the La Crosse County Household Hazardous Materials Program, which allowed them to build a site where people could bring hazardous materials to their location on State Hwy 16, just north of Onalaska.
"People had know where to go with hazardous materials before this was built and were forced to throw it away as garbage, which would then be led to the Incinerator," Wolf said, "That building provides such a great resource for the community." Wolf's work to try and stop polluted air from reaching the La Crosse area has led him to speak in UW-L classes about the certain ways that students can reduce their overall carbon footprint. "Reduce, reuse, recycle. Reduce is at the top of the list and the most important thing is to inform students of things they can do to create less waste so that it doesn't have to go to the Incinerator in the first place," Wolf said.
Two students who are pursuing environmental studies minors, Melissa Clawson and Mandi Jorgensen have passionate feelings about the actions of the Incinerator. "The Incinerator is an extreme health hazard to everyone living within the La Crosse area," Clawson said. "We live in one of the most beautiful places in the state of Wiscsonsin, yet we are damaging the environment around us by allowing the Incinerator to burn garbage and also plastics that the city should be recycling," Jorgensen said. La Crosse county is the only county in the state of Wisconsin that does not recyle plastics 1 through 7.
Wolf's gratitude goes out to the students because he feels they are the whole reason why change has occurred and will promote the change that needs to happen in order to protect and conserve our environment. To stay informed on household and personal products that are chemical free head to the web site www.ewg.org/skindeep for more information.
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