To Burn Or Not To Burn?

An article in the New York Times yesterday poses this interesting environmental question. Europe is rapidly embracing waste-to-energy technology and simultaneously reducing demand on landfills and adding (mostly) clean energy to their power grids. Countries like Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands are building them in rural, suburban and even urban areas. NIMBYism be damned in these densely populated lands...but could this be feasible here across the pond, where ample amounts of land are yearning to stink like garbage and pollute the surrounding area and its water supply?

From The NY Times:

By contrast, no new waste-to-energy plants are being planned or built in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency says — even though the federal government and 24 states now classify waste that is burned this way for energy as a renewable fuel, in many cases eligible for subsidies. There are only 87 trash-burning power plants in the United States, a country of more than 300 million people, and almost all were built at least 15 years ago.

Instead, distant landfills remain the end point for most of the nation’s trash. New York City alone sends 10,500 tons of residential waste each day to landfills in places like Ohio and South Carolina.

Yes that's right, the piece of paper or plastic you are about to toss could end up down south, a thousand miles from that Brownstone you live in or high-rise office you work at. Logically, it takes a considerable cost to make that waste transfer happen. What New York legislators (and their constituents who could possibly be living near these facilities) must see, is that this technology looks nothing like the incinerators of old and that the benefits are more than impressive.

Now of course, conservation, recycling and renewable energy like wind and solar are still a crucial part of the 21st century energy equation. Yet we still have a lot of waste to deal with and not everyone is as green with their trash as they might admit to. Additionally, studies are beginning to show that these facilities are cheaper than hauling our garbage hundreds of miles away. The Mayor's Office commented in the story that it would be near impossible to achieve but realistically speaking, adding this to PlaNYC could be feasible if we can only stop relying so much on landfills.

A Trashy Debate

Walking up Third Avenue tonight I noticed all of the waste baskets brimming with trash. It was rather disgusting and more so because I had to find a niche to put my own refuse in so it wouldn't fall to the ground. Later on I know that a garbage truck with two men will drive by, throw the contents into the back of their truck and drive away. I see it all the time, but rarely do I ever ask the question....what happens next?

If someone asked me on the spot I'd have to guess that most of the trash New York creates goes out on barges somewhere far, far away, like New Jersey. Instead the real answer is that thousands of miles are driven collectively by private companies that throw the garbage (12,000 tons a day) into landfills out in Pennsylvania and various other states. It doesn't take much thought to come up with "thats not a good idea" so then what should we do? What can be done?

Well New York's leaders (including my own State Senator Liz Krueger) got together and talked about what we can do about the trash problem. Ideas range from taxing individuals on their garbage, burning it in waste-to-energy incinerators nearby, building a railroad that transports trash to a super landfill upstate and plain old conservation efforts. The participants agreed and disagreed on all ideas (depending on which idea and who was talking) and in the end, nothing was accomplished.

Well, why not compromise? Why can't we have some waste-to-energy plants, fund conservation efforts and build a slightly smaller landfill that uses trains to transport the garbage. Doing a little bit of both spreads it around and doesn't force us to put all our eggs in one metaphorical basket. All ideas have their pros and cons and dealing with garbage on the scale that NYC creates is no easy task. So why not try all of them and see where it goes from there. If the incinerators work better, than focus more on those. If the landfill works best, then build it bigger. And if conservation makes us a Zero Waste city....nah, that'll never happen, this is still New York.