NYPIRG.ORG

Mayor Bloomberg's Proposal

NYPIRG's Response

fact sheets:

recycling

incineration

bottle bill

waste prevention

Fuel Buyers Group health good government consumer environment
INCINERATION: Polluting, Ineffective and Expensive

Incineration ("waste-to-energy") turns a solid waste problem into an air pollution problem, and creates a new waste disposal problem in the form of toxic ash. While a recently released report advocates that the City should burn approximately 1.8 million tons of garbage per year (Earth Institute, Life After Fresh Kills, 2001, p. B-8)), the ideas in that report are outmoded and have long since been debunked.

Incinerators Pollute

  • Despite vague statements in the press, incinerators remain a polluting technology. The so-called "advanced gas control systems" listed in the Life After Fresh Kills report (Part B) have been in use for years; they are not new. So-called "modern" incinerators release significant amounts of acid gases, harmful volatile organic compounds, and toxic dust. The American Public Health Association has expressed serious concern over the health effects of incinerator emissions and has strongly recommended intensive recycling.
  • A 3,000 tons/day incinerator with emission controls still releases about 2 million pounds of smog-forming nitrogen oxides into the air each day (similar to adding more than 300,000 cars to the road). And while the report praises mercury controls, even the data it cites (p. B-25) indicates that burning 5,000 tons per day of garbage could add about 300 pounds of mercury to NYC's air each year. When permit violations occur, the problem is even worse.
  • More and more evidence links air pollution with illness and deaths. Children with asthma are particularly vulnerable. Asthma often is very serious and can be fatal. NYC children are hospitalized for asthma two and a half times more often than adults, and African American and Latino children appear to suffer more severe cases.
  • The Life After Fresh Kills report is patronizing to communities of color. It refers to their "belief" that they don't want a waste facility in their "backyard." It instructs decision-makers to consider not only population density but also "the political sophistication of the surrounding communities." (p. A-14) Also, it praises Onondaga for circumventing the public decision-making process "after almost two decades of wrangling with the community" by creating an authority to site its incinerator (p. A-29) - which is now in serious financial trouble.
  • Surprisingly, the Life After Fresh Kills report actually recommends building incinerators not in NYC ("for aesthetic and logistic reasons") but rather in some other place accessible by rail or barge (p. B-27-B-28). That means either out-of-state, in conflict with the report's own goal of reducing such dependence, or elsewhere in New York, which is inappropriate and unrealistic.
  • Community advocates against the Brooklyn Navy Yard incinerator were ridiculed for raising the concern that contaminated materials might be improperly burned at the plant. But those involved in a parallel struggle in Spokane who were unable to stop an identical Wheelabrator incinerator faced just that result. It was caught improperly accepting and burning pesticide containers and diesel-soaked rags from Canada. (Northwest Envt. Educ. Fndtn., Burned: The Broken Promise of Spokane's Incinerator, 1998.)


Incinerators Are Inefficient
  • Incinerators create a new solid waste problem -- a toxic ash that must be disposed of safely. A 3,000 tons per day incinerator produces approximately 900 tons per day of ash.
  • Incinerators are no better today at reducing volume than they were 10 years ago. It is typically asserted that incinerators can reduce waste volume by 90%. But waste is not simply dumped into a landfill; it is compressed. Since at least 1994 it has been known that when raw garbage is compacted at a landfill - using a modern 100,000-pound steel-wheeled compactor, for example - the volume is reduced by about 70%. So an incinerator provides only about 20% - not 90% - additional savings in landfill space.
  • Incinerators are inconsistent with recycling. Many of the materials that burn best (such as paper and plastics) are materials that should be recycled.

Incinerators Are Far Too Costly

  • Incineration is a faltering industry. Covanta, which owns and operates 26 trash incinerators in the country (including in Onondaga, Babylon and Huntington) just filed for bankruptcy on April 1, 2002, and other companies are in serious financial trouble.
  • The cost of incineration has risen enormously over the past decade and a half. A 1993 report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that capital costs had risen by a third from 1986 to 1990, and that the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments' new pollution standards would increase costs by 20% more. (It also found that 209 incinerator projects were canceled between 1986 and 1990.) Construction costs have only increased since then. A May 2000 report by the National Solid Waste Management Association states that tipping fees nationally "have always been less at landfills than incinerators.... The difference has increased every year since [1982].
  • While the Life After Fresh Kills report touts the economic status of the waste industry and calls Waste Management the "market leader"(p. A-8), big industries can have big problems. The Associated Press reported on March 27, 2002: "A half-dozen former executives of Waste Management Inc. were accused Tuesday of inflating earnings by $1.7 billion as part of an accounting fraud scheme designed to enrich themselves and dupe shareholders. Embattled auditing firm Arthur Andersen LLP helped perpetrate the scheme, identifying 32 'must-do' steps to cover it up, the Securities and Exchange Commission said."

Incinerators Are Not an Appropriate Energy Source

  • The Life After Fresh Kills report clearly is based on outmoded thinking when it describes incinerators as technologies for "recovery of energy." Garbage is not a desirable substitute for oil or natural gas, and recycling is a better method for saving energy.
  • Garbage is a very dirty fuel. Burning garbage runs counter to New York's objective of reducing the amount of smog-forming nitrogen oxide emissions generated by energy sources. Municipal solid waste produces three to ten times as much nitrogen oxides as natural gas.
  • From an energy perspective, it is better to recycle than to burn. The Sound Resource Management Group found that recycling conserves four times the amount of energy generated by burning garbage. The Tellus Institute reached a similar conclusion.
  • Building incinerators to burn a dirty fuel directly conflicts with the goal of achieving environmental justice. The communities targeted for such facilities are already over-burdened by pollution and contain children at special risk from the harmful effects of incinerator fumes.

 

FACT SHEETS:
Recycling
Incineration
The Bottle Bill
Waste Prevention