PRESS RELEASE: Industry Front Group Promotes Practices that Bankrupt American Cities
Earth Engineering Center study on burning waste ignores economic, climate and public health impacts.
The Earth Engineering Center (EEC) of Columbia University, an industry-sponsored think tank,1 released a report yesterday claiming that burning municipal waste and plastics would be beneficial for the U.S.2 However the report's conclusions fail to address the serious environmental and economic impacts of incineration, and the real threats that trash incinerators pose for cities across America.
Earlier this week, Harrisburg-the capital of Pennsylvania-became the largest U.S. city to declare bankruptcy,3 due to a more than $300 million debt crisis caused by the city's waste incinerator.4
"Burning waste is the most carbon-intensive and costly form of energy generation," said Ananda Lee Tan of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives. "The fact that this report flagrantly ignores the huge burdens that incinerators pose to public health, the environment, and the public purse is not surprising given that the Center is sponsored by the same company that runs the Harrisburg incinerator."
The EEC study fails to mention that waste incineration is the single most expensive form of energy in the US, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration. Operating and maintenance (O&M) costs of incinerators are ten times greater than coal and four times more than nuclear power, per unit of energy produced.5 A number of cities like Harrisburg are facing severe debt loads as a result of investing in such dirty energy plants, which also cost twice as much to build and produce 25% more carbon dioxide per unit of energy than coal-fired power plants.6
The EEC study also fails to address the range of pollution produced
by waste incineration, including dioxins, furans, mercury, carbon
monoxide, and numerous other toxic and hazardous emissions. A recent
study published in the American Economic Review found that waste
incineration has the highest ratio of negative economic impacts (from
pollution) compared to benefits, amongst U.S. industries.7
Eight years ago, Mike Ewall of the Energy Justice Network
forewarned the city of Harrisburg that they would face bankruptcy if
they guaranteed a $125 million loan to rebuild the incinerator.8
"It's astounding that lawmakers continue to take advice from the snake-oil salesmen promoting these toxic technologies," said Ewall. "Unfortunately it's the American taxpayer and working poor, people of color communities that suffer the consequences from the resulting pollution and poverty," he added.
The Harrisburg incinerator, once the country's largest single source of dioxin pollution,9 is built next to a housing project in the city. Dioxins are highly toxic compounds that can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage immune systems, interfere with hormones, and cause cancer.10
Incinerators frequently violate pollution control limits. This May, Wheelabrator-a Waste Management subsidiary-settled a lawsuit with the Massachusetts Attorney General for $7.5 million to address pollution violations.11 In June, the nation's largest incinerator company, Covanta, settled a $400,000 lawsuit with the Connecticut Attorney General for excessive dioxin emissions at its Wallingford plant.12 Covanta is both a sponsor of the EEC and the operator of the Harrisburg Incinerator.
Rather than burning more waste, GAIA and Energy Justice Network call for zero waste strategies including waste reduction, recycling, and composting, as well as product and packaging redesign to minimize waste. Such practices create ten times as many jobs, per ton of waste, as incinerators.13
The majority of waste burned in incinerators and buried in landfills can be recycled and composted, resulting in the creation of millions of new jobs across the country. Last week California Governor Jerry Brown passed a state law mandating a goal of achieving a 75% recycling rate by the year 2020.14
Reference Materials:
1. Incinerator Fact Sheet: Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, December 2010.
1 Earth Engineering Center Sponsors include Incinerator Companies,
i.e. Covanta: http://www.seas.columbia.edu/earth/sponsors.html
2 Energy and Economic Value of Non-recycled Plastics and Municipal
Solid Wastes that are Currently Landfilled in Fifty States, N.J.
Themelis et al, Columbia University Earth Engineering Center, August 16,
2011.
3 Pennsylvania state capital files for bankruptcy protection:
http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/12/8285336-pennsylvania-
state-capital-files-for-bankruptcy-protection
4 WSJ: The Incinerator that kept burning cash, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903532804576564882240033792.html
5 U.S. Energy Information Administration (Department of Energy),
Updated Capital Cost Estimates for Electricity Generation Plants,
November
2010: http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/beck_plantcosts/pdf/updatedplantcosts.pdf
6 Incinerators emit more carbon dioxide (CO2) per unit of electricity
(2988 lbs/MWh) than coal-fired power plants(2249 lbs/MWh), U.S. EPA,
http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-and-you/affect/air-emissions.html
7 Muller, Nicholas Z., Robert Mendelsohn, and William Nordhaus.
2011."Environmental Accounting for Pollution in the United States
Economy." American Economic Review, 101(5): 1649-75.
8 CBS News: Harrisburg Financial Collapse was Predicted,
http://www.whptv.com/news/local/story/Harrisburg-financial-collapse-was-predicted/pt4-wfBLrEWBSzi5sCB0iw.cspx
9 The Harrisburg Incinerator is a Dioxin Factory:
http://www.stoptheburn.com/dioxin.html.
10 Dioxin fact sheet, World
Health Organization: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs225/en/
11 http://www.no-burn.org/wheelabrator-oks-settlement-of-75-million
12 http://www.ctpostchronicle.com/articles/2011/07/18/news/doc4e2449831d488574130683.txt
13 Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Washington, DC, 1997, http://www.ilsr.org/recycling
14 October 6, 2011, Governor Brown Signs Landmark Recycling
Legislation: http://www.cawrecycles.org/issues/govsignrecyclingbills
