September 19, 2001
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Mr. Allan Gerlat, Editor
Waste News
1725 Merriman Road
Akron, OH 44313-5251
Via Fax: 330-836-1692;
Via E-Mail: editorial@wastnews.com
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Dear Editor,
Touché Maria Zannes -
those battling waste incinerators will feel a measure of success
in the half-truths and lies in your article, "A few full-truths
about WTE," (September 3, 2001, Waste News).
Half-Truth: waste incinerators
convert trash into energy
Reality: Incinerators burn discarded resources and the
embodied energy they contain. They waste energy. For every ton
of material destroyed by incineration, many more tons of raw material
must be mined, processed, or distributed to manufacture a new
product to take its place. On the whole, three to five times more
energy can be saved by recycling materials than by burning them.
Furthermore, if the U.S. burned all its municipal waste, it would
contribute less than 1% of the country's energy needs.
Half-Truth: waste incinerators
support recycling. They recycle hundreds of tons of materials,
including ash, and communities served by incinerators are recycling
33% of their materials.
Reality: Source-separation recycling systems do a better
job of recycling than incinerators. It is much better to compost
and market segregated yard trimmings than to compost the potentially
toxic organic fraction of mixed trash. Garbage in, garbage out.
In our study of recycling programs with the highest recovery levels,
Cutting the Waste Stream in Half (published by the U.S. EPA) not
one was in a community served by a waste incinerator. Why? Incinerators
compete with recycling for the same materials and dollars. Montgomery
County, MD, for instance, recently announced that it will not
reach its 50% recycling goal as a result of the county incinerator.
An incinerator in Babylon, NY, found it better to burn readily
recyclable materials than pay extra fees for tonnage shortfalls
at the incinerator. One study evaluating Florida's seven largest
incinerators found that these facilities regularly burn significant
amounts of highly recyclable materials. Incinerators perpetuate
the throw-away society and waste generation. They are an obstacle
to preventing waste and encouraging sustainable methods of production
and consumption. With regard to ash recycling, this practice should
be immediately halted. Incinerator ash poses a health hazard.
In Newcastle, U.K., for instance, soil testing of land spread
with incinerator ash in the 1990s revealed dioxins and heavy metals
far in excess of safety levels.
Half-Truth: Waste incinerators
are cleaner, more efficient, and safer than ever before. They
prevent greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution as a result
of displacing coal.
Reality: All incinerators
release pollutants to the biosphere through air and ash emissions.
These include acid gases, particulate matter, carbon monoxide,
nitrogen oxides, metals, dioxins and furans, and at least 190
volatile organic compounds. Many of these chemicals are known
to be persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic. According to the
latest dioxin and furan inventory from the U.N. Environment Programme,
municipal waste incinerators are responsible for 69% of the dioxin
in the global environment. The better the air pollution control,
the more toxic the ash. Instead of ensuring ash is disposed in
lined landfills with leachate collection systems, the industry
continues to promote the dispersion of this potentially toxic
material throughout the environment by mixing it into a road sub-base
material. Moreover, waste prevention and recycling can reduce
greenhouse gases and pollution far more effectively than burning
trash to displace coal.
Maria Zannes wonders why incinerator opponents keep up the attack. One major issue she overlooks is costs. Incineration is the most costly of all waste management options. Facilities often cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build. Operating costs are far higher than recycling and composting facilities. Indeed many existing facilities have become white elephants for their communities. In New Jersey, for example, the state and, therefore, the citizens have had to bail out -- to the tune of over $1 billion -- five counties that built incinerators. Some communities have raised property taxes to subsidize their incinerators.
Zannes makes the point that newer facilities are better at curbing emissions. But she doesn't state that their costs skyrocket as a result. In the Netherlands, a 1,800 ton-per-day facility recently cost $600 million with half the investment going into air pollution control.
The industry wants more subsidies because it costs so much more to burn garbage than to reduce, recycle, compost or landfill the materials. The industry wants to overturn anti-flow-control rulings in order to use government power to force businesses, cities and citizens to pay for something that is not otherwise economically viable. Citizens and businesses know better. Each of the heavily subsidized plants now in operation was built over public opposition.
Sincerely,
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Neil Seldman, Ph.D., President
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Brenda Platt
Director, Materials
Recovery
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Institute for Local Self-Reliance
927 15th St. NW, 4th Floor
Washington, DC 20005
Phone 202-898-1610
Fax 202-898-1612
http://www.ilsr.org