What’s the problem?
Toxic incinerators.
How do you organize your community to clean up or close a toxic incinerator?
Too much of the estimated 250 million tons of trash we generate each year ends up being burned in incinerators. And that’s a big problem for the health and environment of nearby communities.
Incinerating trash releases into the air we breathe the toxic chemicals, such as lead and mercury, found in many consumer products. It even generates additional byproducts, such as dioxins, highly toxic chemicals that can cause cancer.
Even after incinerators burn our trash, there’s still waste that must be disposed of in landfills: namely, the toxic ash that forms when toxic chemicals and heavy metals concentrate at the bottom of the incinerator’s smokestack.
Trash incineration is big business, and tangling with big businesses is no picnic. But when communities are organized, they can win:
- Massachusetts: Springfield residents already have to deal with being known as the asthma capital of the country. When plans were announced for a biomass incinerator in the city, they organized. And they won. The state revoked the incinerator’s permit.
- New Hampshire: Claremont neighbors celebrated when Wheelabrator closed a toxic incinerator in the community in 2013. And they’re leaving nothing to chance, pushing to have the facility dismantled.
- Massachusetts: Saugus residents are still working to close the Wheelabrator incinerator in their community. They won a partial victory when the state denied the company a permit to expand its toxic ash landfill into nearby wetlands.
All of these community activists, along with many others, are not only working to clean up or close toxic incinerators. They’re organizing support for zero waste solutions that mean less trash to bury or burn in the first place.
