North Shore Waste and Cook County work together on transfer station expansion project

M Baxley | April 29, 2024

Given Cook County’s remote location, disposing of waste, debris, and building materials is a complicated and intensive process.

It’s a process that Barry Pederson and Dustin Hanson, the two owners of North Shore Waste, the only waste hauler in Cook County, think about and struggle with daily.

As Cook County has experienced growth in recent years in visitation and residency, so have the complexities of providing adequate waste management services.

“What we did 12 years ago worked 12 years ago,” Hanson said. “But a lot of changes have happened.”

Hanson said that, as the only waste management company in the county, North Shore Waste is responsible for collecting, sorting, and disposing of all waste produced and thrown away in the expansive county. “So everything that you visualize coming up Highway 61. Ultimately, we take back down Highway 61 to Duluth to get rid of that product.”

The intensive effort requires North Shore Waste crews to travel 250 miles to the nearest transfer station in Duluth. “It doesn’t matter if it’s two feet of snow, 40 below, or raining; we have a job to do,” Pederson said. “And we have to do it and get to Duluth and back so that we can load up for the next morning.”

To adapt, Pederson and Hanson have intentionally grown North Shore Waste’s capacity over the years and expanded its services to meet the needs of a growing population.

However, the growth spiked about four years ago, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and has shown no sign of slowing down. “Compared to what we had, say ten years ago. It’s not even comparable,” Pederson said.

In addition to seeing an increase in household garbage, Hanson said North Shore Waste has encountered a growth in new building construction, remodels, and demolitions that produce waste. That waste has led to efficiency challenges as it must be kept separate from household waste and hauled to Duluth in a container truck.

“We have 20 to 30 roll-offs coming in a day,” Pederson said. North Shore Waste delivers roll-off containers throughout Cook County, primarily used for construction, roofing, commercial, and demolition.

Despite its dramatic improvements since the old days of bear-watching for entertainment at the pincushion dump site, Hanson and Pederson acknowledge that innovative and creative solutions are needed to adapt to the current challenges. As part of the effort to improve efficiencies and handle the growth, the local waste management company is looking to build a new waste transfer station.

North Shore Waste co-owner Hanson said the new transfer station will make transferring solid waste garbage from Cook County to Duluth more efficient. It will also be greener. Included in the facility design plan are a collection of solar panels. The facility will also include chargers to support a fleet of electric garbage trucks the company plans to purchase in the coming years, both large trucks and smaller pickups. Also included in the plan is a composting system at the indoor facility and transfer station. The composting system would help eliminate the amount of waste that needs to be transferred from Cook County to a dump site in the Duluth area.

In recent months, Cook County has stepped in to assist in developing a new transfer station. “With this project, we want to modernize the way that we process solid waste and position ourselves to be even more progressive in the way that we do things in the future,” Cook County Administrator James Joerke said. “We want to make sure that again, as we grow as a community, that we have a transfer station that can grow with us and enable us to manage waste responsibly over time.”

In WTIP’s most recent interview with Joerke, he discussed the various funding opportunities available for the county to pursue forward progress on the new transfer station. Ongoing assessment is underway to determine the top priorities for investment in the community.

The video and audio of the feature are below.