Rachel's Environmental News
August 23, 2008
August 23, 2008
By Neil Seldman
Like any other vampire, "waste to energy" technology, e.g., burning
garbage for electricity, needs a good, swift stake to the heart.
Decades after garbage incinerators disappeared from U.S. cities,
burning garbage with energy recovery made a dash for federal, state
and city subsidies following the energy crisis in the l970s and '80s.
It had a brief flurry of activity but, by the time the '90s hit, was
on the decline. Only 30 of 300 proposed plants were ever built -- the
last ones in l995 as the result of some dubious political shenanigans
in Syracuse, New York and Montgomery County, Maryland.
The scheme is more aptly described as "wasted energy," as the energy
produced through incineration at the plants is quite small compared to
the amount of energy needed for extraction, processing and
distribution, to replace the materials destroyed.
While environmental dangers from acid gasses, dioxin, particulates,
lead and mercury alerted citizens to the dangers, the proposed plants
were really outdone by the financial weight of the capital outlay --
the operating costs and liabilities that a community had to undertake
to build 1,000-ton-per-day facilities or larger. Detroit spent $1.2
billion to support a garbage incinerator for 200 years. The city
council and mayor just cancelled any further dealings with the
facility. In New Jersey, former governor Christine Todd Whitman had to
drain the general budget of over $1 billion to bail out five county
incinerators, as haulers could not afford to pay the tip fees needed
to sustain the finances of plants and they took their trash to cheaper
landfills in Pennsylvania.
No amount of subsidies, including arbitrage bonding, exemptions from
hazardous waste regulations, mandatory purchase of electricity, put or
pay contracts, tax credits and court rulings could sustain such
financially and environmentally outlandish technologies. The companies
offering these technologies ended their runs. This was no small
accomplishment for the millions of citizens and small business owners
who banded together in a spontaneous grassroots movement to gain
control over the decision-making process at the local level. These
citizen-activists reclaimed America's birthright of local democracy,
despite harassment, including SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public
Participation) lawsuits.
Now a new wave of Wall Street consortia have pooled their billions and
adopted a 'new' wave of technologies -- plasma arc, pyrolysis and
gasification. These so-called non-incineration technologies gasify
garbage and burn the gas. Proponents scold citizens and reporters who
refer to these facilities as incinerators.
Frederick, Maryland officials made it easier to settle this dispute.
They touted their new plan for a facility as non-incineration. When
opponents questioned them, they directed them to look at the facility
in nearby Montgomery County, Maryland, which was an old fashioned mass
burn, water wall incinerator.
You expect these new consortia to try to take advantage of the latest
energy crisis to make a killing. What is unexpected is the total lack
of due diligence on the part of both local officials and environmental
organizations.
Local officials in Florida, for example, are supporting a 3,000-ton-
per-day plasma arc incinerator (scaled up from a pilot plant of 100
tons per day) without knowing the actual costs involved, emissions
data, status of put or pay clauses, or which counties will commit
their garbage to what will be the largest garbage incinerator ever
operated in the world. Bradley Angel of GreenAction in San Francisco
dubs these facilities "incinerators in disguise."
Citizens in Los Angeles seem to have put the proper parameters on
their city, which is evaluating these new alternative technologies.
L.A. citizens will only allow consideration of waste-to-energy
technologies if they are scaled at not more than 10% of the waste
stream and no materials set aside for recycling are incinerated.
Citizens have shown their support for modestly scaled (300 tons per
day) biological systems, which generate methane from organic matter.
To its credit, the city is listening to its citizens and has
implemented diverse programs to reduce the materials placed in the
waste bin and increase materials going into the compost and recycling
bins.
The state of Florida has taken the opposite course. A recent law calls
for 75% recycling, but will count garbage that is incinerated as
recycling. Paper and plastic set aside for the BTU-hungry incinerators
can claim recycling. Meanwhile hundreds and thousands of cities and
counties are solving their problems their problems with no landfill
extensions and no incinerators. Recycling rates in towns that don't
kid around are hitting the 60% level, headed toward 70 and even 90% by
2025. A vibrant take-it-back network, which confronts the unfunded
mandates of products and packages designed for immediate disposal are
aggressively challenging manufacturers in the North West, New England
and California through stewardship councils that pinpoint products and
packages that are hard to recycle and/or contain hazardous materials.
Manufacturers are being pressured to pay for the financial burden they
place on households and businesses.
Many manufacturers have responded with zero waste pledges and
accomplishments. Grocery chains are striving for zero waste at the
checkout counters, as well as recycling and composting the materials
that they generate in their stores. The concept and practice of zero
waste has entered into mainstream thinking and action. In one
generation, the U.S. recycling movement has matured into a zero waste
movement
Why is there a new wave of incinerator promotion? Wall Street greed is
understandable during a time of energy and economic panic. Not only do
the venture capitalists seek to gain fortunes from cities and counties
for the facilities, but Wall Street firms will issue billions of
dollars in bonds at great profit to them and participating investors.
Incumbent officials always love bond issues as it leads to financial
patronage. The large hauling firms support incinerators as a way to
keep the status quo of mass disposal intact. Virgin materials
corporations want to see recycled materials incinerated and remove
10,000 local governments from competing with them as suppliers of
secondary materials, which compete directly with raw materials
extracted from nature.
While some national environmental organizations have closed ranks with
the big manufacturers, the grassroots environmental movement is
steadily growing in size and ambitions. Demanding zero waste in 2008
is a far more radical proposition than calling for recycling and
composting in the '80s and '90s. Activists are taking on the core of
the system.
The key fault line appears to be at the county and city level. Despite
new calls for green cities and counties, officials seem to have lost
the forest for the trees. The single largest thing a city or county
can do to add to its local economy and reduce its global environmental
footprint is to transform its waste stream into a resource stream.
Local governments are totally in charge of what they do with these raw
materials. Yet, despite the success of small towns, large cities and
rural counties in approaching zero waste (90% or more diversion from
landfill and incineration), elected officials seem to be asleep at the
switch -- falling for the huckster's call for an easy fix to the
garbage and energy crises.
==============
NEIL SELDMAN is co-founder and president of the Institute for Local
Self-Reliance. He is a senior staff to ILSR's Waste to Wealth Program
and is responsible for recycling and economic development projects in
20 cities across the U.S.
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