Call it the Last Truck.

The final load of Toronto’s garbage bound for Michigan is slated to leave the city Thursday, ending a flow to stateside landfills that began in 1998 at 30 trucks a day and peaked at 140 daily in 2003, after the Keele Valley landfill in Vaughan was closed.

Along the way, Michigan politicians and citizens raised a stink about taking Toronto’s trash, while the city pleaded that it had no alternatives, with no landfill of its own (until 2007) after a plan to ship garbage to an old northern mine site was shot down in 2000.

“It’s very exciting,” Councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon says of the demise of the Michigan convoy. “It’s about time we stopped shipping to someone else, because none of us would like that in our backyards.”

Michigan’s Carlton Farms landfill was the only game in town until mayor David Miller announced the $220 million purchase of the Green Lane landfill near London in 2007.

Toronto has ramped up shipments to Green Lane as the state of Michigan threw up obstacles and the city’s contract wound down with Republic Services, operator of Carlton Farms. The contract ends Friday and is not being renewed.

“I think Torontonians will be pleased we’re no longer trucking our waste to Michigan,” said Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, chair of the public works and infrastructure committee.

Even with Green Lane, pressure remains to increase recycling and composting efforts to extend Green Lane’s life as long as possible, he said. The landfill would last until 2034 if Toronto managed to divert 70 per cent of its solid waste by this year. But last year’s diversion rate was only 44 per cent, and kicking that up has proved difficult — meaning Green Lane will fill up quickly.

Only six loads a day have been going there; about 60 to Michigan. After this week, Green Lane gets all of it.

Minnan-Wong said more apartment buildings need to join the recycling and green-bin programs. “We have to get better or we’ll never hit 70 per cent diversion.”

McMahon said citizens need to become more vigilant at the other end, too: “My thing is to promote the R no one promotes, and that is refuse,” she said. “Refuse to buy things you don’t need, that you could borrow or buy second-hand, and refuse to buy over-packaged products.

“We need to be more mindful of the waste we create.”

THE BUMPY ROAD TO MICHIGAN

October 2000: Southwest Ontario mayors outraged by the prospect of garbage truck conga lines on the 401 complain Toronto’s “institutional arrogance” will come back to bite the city.

January 2001: U.S. environmental groups vow “to do what is necessary to convince our government to take action” against cross-border garbage. A crash spews garbage all over the 401 near Woodstock.

February 2001: Michigan’s governor, coached by premier Mike Harris, begs Toronto to send its trash to the Adams Mine instead. Mayor Mel Lastman fires back with a letter to president George W. Bush, asking him to tell Michigan to quit messing with Toronto.

March 2001: The first of a long succession of U.S. bills attempting to curb Toronto’s garbage flow is launched in the state legislature.

September 2001: Days before 9/11, state inspectors launch a blitz, testing border garbage for radioactive waste. They find nothing, but a year later, seven truckloads are caught carrying medical waste that is radioactive. Toronto buys its own radiation-testing equipment.

Spring 2003: Michiganders near the landfill sites form a protest group called Public Outrage. Thanks to Homeland Security regulations, trash is now undergoing high-tech inspections. The SARS virus heightens concerns; then a mad cow outbreak in Alberta leads to a brief closure of the border to Toronto’s waste.

July 2003: A Michigan state trooper testifies to the U.S. congress about her “disgusting" discovery of discarded blood and blood products crossing the border in a “bleeding” truck. "I don't believe the United States should be accepting another country's garbage," she says. Michiganders sign up in droves on a petition to ban Ontario waste.

October 2003: A crash spews garbage all over the 401 near Guelph. Garbage becomes a top issue in the municipal campaign, with mayoral contender John Tory advocating for incineration. Oops.

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January 2004: Concerned about backlash, Toronto waste officials go to Michigan to explain that the $8 million worth of marijuana found in a load of trash wasn’t from Toronto. It came from Vaughan. Oh.

September 2004: Presidential contender John Kerry says he’ll ban Ontario waste if he gets elected. He doesn’t.

September 2006: A deal is struck with Michigan senators giving municipalities four years to phase out trash shipments, in return for dropping efforts to close the border to garbage. Halton, Durham and York regions discuss incineration. Toronto buys the Green Lane landfill. New Year’s Eve, 2010, looms.

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