Trash incineration is the wave of the past

Thursday, March 2, 2006

Frederick County is wrestling with some difficult issues regarding responsible waste management. I have been reading much press about how waste-to-energy incineration is ‘‘the ultimate type of recycling.”

Incineration (mass burn, gasification, pyrolysis) has a side effect of producing some energy, but its primary function is to burn trash, not recycle it. Although newer incinerators are cleaner, they are by no means clean.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, there is a hierarchy of solid waste options, ranking from most to least favorable methods. Source reduction or waste prevention, which includes reuse, is the best approach, followed by recycling. At the bottom of the hierarchy is incineration and landfilling.

Considering incineration before seriously reducing the waste stream is an extreme case of placing the cart before the horse. In a recent public seminar at the C. Burr Artz Library, speaker Neil Seldman brought detailed illustrations of a well-designed resource recovery park, which is comprised of a combination of independent businesses and government programs or government contractors.

Resource recovery parks are the wave of the future. They stimulate the economy, create jobs and help eliminate useful materials from taking up valuable landfill space. Waste-to-energy incinerators are the wave of the past. The last waste-to-energy incinerator to be built in the United States was in 1995 in Montgomery County, amid much protest from residents.

Doesn’t it make you wonder that communities aren’t rushing to build them?

Waste-to-energy incineration is the most expensive method of waste disposal. A 2000 World Bank report concluded, ‘‘when applying waste incineration, the economic risk in case of project failure is high.”

Waste-to-energy incineration will raise our taxes. It will lower property values. It will emit acid gases, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, metals, dioxins and furans, among other pollutants. We will more than likely have to import trash, adding to the pollutants we are breathing.

I do not wish my taxes to be spent this way. If this project gets under way, I think more people will realize they do not wish their tax dollars to be spent this way. Let’s do our homework and follow the wave of the future, not the past.

Sally Sorbello, Frederick