Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC) Tour

On Wednesday, November 8th, our group was invited into the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC) for an informative and fascinating tour of their operations. Located adjacent to Target Field in Downtown Minneapolis, the HERC is a waste-to-energy facility that processes a large amount of residential and commercial waste from Hennepin County.

We followed the process throughout our tour, starting with trucks entering the building to drop off their loads of waste, the hazardous materials removed, and the rest pushed into a forty-foot pit. Once piled into the pit, a large claw mixed and moved the waste around, to properly feed it into the fire. The HERC uses this burned waste to generate steam used for energy; some goes back into powering their very building, some powers downtown Minneapolis, and the rest is sold to Xcel Energy. We learned about the strict regulations on pollutants coming from the facility. Because the HERC has such precise control over their emissions, they create significantly less air pollution than a landfill.

It is sobering to see first hand the waste we as humans generate; Here’s to trying our best to live less wasteful lives! Thank you to the HERC team for the fantastic tour.