Akira Yano: Shutting Down HERC and the Zero Waste Movement

It was a normal Wednesday afternoon when we gathered to meet with Akira Yano over Zoom. Akira is currently working as an environmental justice organizer for the Minnesota Environmental Justice Table, which, he explains to us, is a local organization that seeks to guarantee environmental justice across Minnesota through campaigns to

fight against the systemic harm to frontline communities, developing solutions that build a more environmentally just world, and bringing resources to the movement.

Curious as to how Akira became involved with the environmental justice movement, we learned that his interest was sparked in AP Environmental Science at Central High School in St. Paul. While Environmental Justice was just a vocabulary word to him at that time, the idea that climate change would affect people differently based on their identity, demographics, and country stuck with him. Akira later attended the University of Minnesota, where he initially was a Journalism major, but switched to Environmental Sciences. In addition to classes, Akira sought out external internships and ended up at a nonprofit organization in North Minneapolis called Neighborhoods Organizing for Change. There, he started to learn firsthand about Environmental Justice as he worked on a campaign to address the issue of waste incineration and its health impacts.

Akira explained to us how he felt shocked and angered after learning that a waste incinerator was the reason North Minneapolis had the highest asthma and asthma hospitalization rates out of the entire state, and how this was largely being experienced by low-income and BIPOC communities. It also frustrated him that his Environmental Science classes up to that point had never addressed this issue.

Akira’s classes had talked about climate change as it is often popularly talked about: something that would affect animal habitats and glaciers in five to ten years. Akira was concerned that this rhetoric positions the consequences of climate change as being very far away, both in space and time. “It doesn’t really communicate a greater sense of urgency of what the issue is,” he told us. At the same time that he was being taught about climate change as a distant issue, marginalized communities in his city were, and still are, being poisoned as a result of unsustainable waste management practices that also ultimately contribute to climate change.“At the same time that he was being taught about climate change as a distant issue, marginalized communities in his city were, and still are, being poisoned as a result of unsustainable waste management practices that also ultimately contribute to climate change.”

This disparity opened Akira’s eyes to the huge gaps present in many contemporary education systems. “It motivated me to pursue environmental education,” Akira said, “to provide that information and insight into Environmental Justice and local Environmental Justice issues that I didn’t receive when I was in school.” For the rest of his three years at college, Akira took on a variety of other Environmental Justice internships, which ranged from teaching about climate change at middle schools to working as an intern in the Energy and Environment Department at Hennepin County.

Akira’s Current Work: HERC

Currently, in his role with the Minnesota Environmental Justice Table, Akira is a full-time environmental justice organizer working on a campaign to shut down the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC), a trash incinerator located in downtown Minneapolis, close to the Twins stadium built in 1989. HERC was constructed in the city following plans to create a landfill in the suburbs, near a majority white and affluent community. Residents threatened to pursue legal action against the construction of the landfill. As a result, rather than build a landfill in the suburbs, a trash incinerator was to be constructed in downtown Minneapolis, an area historically populated by low-income, BIPOC communities. Immediately the community protested. Akira emphasized that even back in the ‘80s, local residents knew HERC would cause health issues for years to come. They were right.

“Within mere miles of HERC live 230,000 people: 49% are low-income, and 49% are people of color. The area around the incinerator has a greater prevalence of particulate matter than 90% of the state of Minnesota, and it has a higher rate of diesel particulate matter than 98% of the state.”

Akira is passionate about raising awareness for and fighting against both the climate issues and environmental injustices HERC has created. The facility burns about 1000 tons of trash every day and consistently places among the top five emitters of pollutants in Hennepin County. It is clear HERC poses serious health risks and impacts to nearby marginalized communities.

Within mere miles of HERC live 230,000 people: 49% are low-income, and 49% are people of color. The area around the incinerator has a greater prevalence of particulate matter than 90% of the state of Minnesota, and it has a higher rate of diesel particulate matter than 98% of the state. North Minneapolis also has the highest rate of asthma and rate of asthma hospitalization out of anywhere in Minnesota.

Through his work with the Environmental Justice Table, Akira is pushing Hennepin County to redirect the millions of dollars invested in HERC and instead fund zero-waste infrastructure. However, he believes that HERC is but a symptom of a much larger waste crisis that is at the root of the problem.

The Waste Crisis and the Zero Waste Movement 

Akira explains to us that the idea behind the zero-waste movement is to foster a circular economy, where products are being produced with reuse, recollection, and recycling in mind, rather than the current single-use production mindset. Implementing this can look like a wide variety of policies, including more robust recycling and compost collection, increasing what can be accepted in recycling, and creating reuse facilities – places where people can bring items to be either repaired, repurposed, or redistributed.

Akira is currently working on a transition plan with some of the top zero-waste experts in the country. “It’s not like the amount of trash is going to magically disappear,” Akira pointed out. As a solution to this, the transition plan proposes that as the country works to transition to a lower-waste system, the County could work with landfills that would be open to contracting to operate at higher standards than are required by the U.S. EPA or MPCA, and which are comparable to or better than the European Union Landfill Directive. That could result in the creation of new special cells of the landfill that are better lined, monitored, and managed than the rest of the landfill, for materials coming under contract from Hennepin County to that facility.  That could also result in incentives being included in the contract between Hennepin County and the landfill to add reuse, recycling, composting, material recovery, and/or biological treatment operations at or near the landfill, to form a Resource Recovery Park. This would limit the places landfills could be located by following certain criteria. For example, a landfill couldn’t be placed within a certain distance of communities that have high rates of health disparities, are within a certain index of low-income brackets, or have a certain percentage of people of color. This, in addition to a greater standard of management, would help reduce the environmental impact on the communities surrounding landfills, without creating new ones. Akira does not believe these are long-term solutions, but the goal is to eventually develop zero-waste systems to help reduce the amount of waste that’s getting thrown away in the first place so that neither landfills or incinerators eventually remain necessary.

The reason we have these waste problems in the first place is that a lot of companies have helped feed into a larger culture of consumption. The creation of products is profit-driven, which means that products are designed using the cheapest possible material. Akira also mentioned that he thinks there is a deeper culture of overconsumption that exists, especially within the United States. “A large qualifier for success is, how much can you consume? How much can you afford?”, Akira said. He later explained that he believes it is more of a social problem, and one that there isn’t really a short-term or easy solution for. But Akira has hope that increasing accessibility for participation in more sustainable waste management systems can help to shift that mindset.

Akira’s Challenges and Inspirations

Akira is inspired by the potential positive impact their work could have on their local community and people who have been marginalized by existing systems. He believes that environmental issues can be daunting to tackle on a global scale. “It can be very easy to look at the larger picture and to feel like there’s no chance of having an impact or shifting the problem,” Akira said. However, the relationships built through community organizing help to connect movements. He also finds momentum in the shared visions and unity of the environmental justice movement. Though Akira told us he doesn’t “think it’s fair for people to be born into problems that they then feel a responsibility to solve, despite having not created it themselves,” he is inspired by the possibility of making things better.

Doing environmental justice work does not come without challenges: “I think the biggest is that you’re pushing back against systems, which have been embedded for decades if not centuries. You’re combating a narrative that has the support of governments, of corporations, of millions of people and billions of dollars,” Akira said. Environmental issues are also difficult because their impacts are not always immediately apparent, and the causes of the issues may not be visible. Lastly, Akira notes that there are many other urgent problems in the world, and it can be hard to get people to prioritize environmental justice issues when they are focused on more immediate concerns like personal safety or other daily needs.

Environmental justice is an issue that needs to be known and addressed by more people around the world. Akira believes in the power of telling stories: “[Statistics] might not grab as many people as hearing from somebody who lives in the community, talking about how sometimes they can’t let their kid play outside because their child will have an asthma attack due to the poor air quality. And that they’ll have to take them to the hospital, so they literally can’t let their kids play outside some days. I think lived experiences and life stories connect with people way more than statistics,” Akira explained. He also has plans to get young people involved in the movement. “There’s a lot of power in youth organizing. Don’t ever underestimate the potential of your own impact,” Akira said. As we wrapped up our conversation, Akira reminded us of the importance, as young people, of using the internet skeptically, checking sources, and listening and learning from past movements, particularly those historically led by underserved communities.