RE: [greenyes] Waste-to-Energy

[Alan Muller <amuller@no.address>]

At 10:39 AM 3/8/2004 -0800, you wrote:
> Dear GreenYes-
> I hesitate to raise this issue, but here goes.  The City I serve sends its
> refuse to a waste-to-energy plant.  I'm conflicted about the relative
> environmental impacts of landfilling vs. WTE.  It is my understanding that
> our WTE plant meets Air Quality Management District standards.  Obviously,
> the AQMD does not regulate everything, and you only know about the
> emissions that you test for.  WTE has more immediate impacts from what is
> coming out of the stacks, as compared to the more long-term (and
> uncertain) groundwater and other impacts from landfilling.  But is it
> possible to truly label one of these as the lesser of two evils?  Is one
> really lesser?

Well, you are asking for a comparison between two unacceptable 
alternatives.  But you already know that.

IMO, any comparison in general terms between incineration and landfilling 
is going to be somewhat arbitrary, depending on the assumptions, how wide 
the net is spread, and the weights assigned to different impacts.  For 
example, incinerator promoters claim that greenhouse gas emissions are 
reduced because one is burning garbage rather than fossil fuels.  Recycling 
advocates point out that a lot more energy can be saved by reusing 
resources than by  burning them up.  People just tend to select from the 
argument that fits their interests.   Generally community health advocates 
are a lot more concerned about toxic emissions that "global warming."  On 
the other hand, fat-cat policy-wonk enviro organizations like the Union of 
Concerned Scientists may disregard local concerns.  Pick your priorities.....

Now, if you want to compare the specific alternatives being used by Long 
Beach, it gets easier, in the sense that you can find out how much poison 
your incinerator is putting into the air (lots!) v the groundwater threat 
of the landfill you are using, both immediate and longer term (of course, 
nobody will readily agree).  You can find out what is in your waste streams 
and whether there is any purposeful separation between what is burnt and 
what is dumped.  But how are you going to compare the significance of ten 
apples v five oranges, or whatever.  How do you compare the long term and 
the short term?

I would argue that the definition of acceptability that consultants and 
bureaucrats like to use (compliance with current laws and regulations) is 
about the least inherently significant.

All this is why one has to end up back with "zero waste" and how to get 
there....

"Waste to Energy" is a propaganda term of the industry.  None of the waste 
gets "converted into energy" or anything like that....

Alan Muller
Green Delaware


> I am personally fully committed to zero waste.  However, the City that I
> serve continues to generate "waste" and this is an issue I have to deal
> with on a daily basis.
>
> When you respond to this post, please do so gently.  I am not responsible
> for my City's policies, for WTE in general, or for much else in this
> world.  Please do not offer suggestions as to how to get rid of our WTE
> plant.  I'm really looking narrowly at the lesser-of-two-evils question.
>
> Sharon Gates
> Recycling Specialist
> City of Long Beach, California
> 562/570-4694