Environmentalists seem cautiously optimistic about Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s announcement Monday that the city will opt out of buying the incinerator that burns two-thirds of the city’s trash.

Continued -Only 8 percent of the waste in Detroit gets recycled now, and trash burning has been associated with respiratory problems for people living in surrounding neighborhoods. It is also expensive. Councilwoman Joanne Watson and other advocates for shutting down the incinerator claimed that increasing recycling efforts in the city will improve air quality and create new jobs.

Brad Van Guilder, who worked on the issue for the Ecology Center in Ann Arbor, told the Detroit Free Press that he wasn’t ready to celebrate. “It’s a positive step, but we don’t know what will happen next,” he said.

According to the Metro Times:

The City Council’s environmental task force reported last year that, if the city were to achieve a 30 percent recycling rate, there would be