Why Garbage Incinerators Are A Bad Deal For Communities — Episode 74 of Local Energy Rules Podcast

This is Local Energy Rules. A podcast sharing powerful stories about local, renewable energy.

And that facility is about 35 to 40 years old. The city sends its nonrecycled waste to that incinerator in downtown Baltimore. Um, it, most of the materials generated in Baltimore go there because the city has a very low recycling rate estimated between 14 and 19%. By comparison, the national average is 34 and of course, some cities are at 50, 60, and 70%. Um, so if the city stopped sending its garbage there. In theory, because it’s a privately owned facility, that facility can import garbage from anywhere they want to. Baltimore County in New York City to fill in for the garbage that is not delivered by the city. However, with the passage of this law — it is not signed yet, Mayor Pugh has said she was going to sign it — It has not happened yet. It will become law if she doesn’t sign it in about five or six days. [Editorial note: The Baltimore Clear Air Act, mentioned here was signed by the Mayor shortly after we recorded this interview on March 7, 2019. More information about the policy can be found in the show notes.]

It will become law, the importance of the law. It will require any facility, private or public to meet these new standards. Um, and um, it will therefore prevent the incinerator from continuing to operate with private sector trash of public trash if it does not make the adjustments to pollution control, uh, that will, um, allow it to meet best available control technology. Vice president of the Wheelabrater Corporation already mentioned that if this law came to pass, they will probably, actually, he said certainly you have to shut the incinerator because the cost of putting on new pollution control equipment is about $70 million. And that pollution control equipment will require about $11 million a year of operating expenses. These expenses for the corporation are just too much for it to continue operating this plant. Um, in theory it could knock down the plant and build another, uh, a more modern plant. But that is highly unlikely. The legislation can be used in at least 11 other states according to Mike Ewall, who wrote the bill, he works for the energy justice network and, there are about 11 other states where this strategy can be used. That would include at least a eight other existing old incinerators, Detroit, Annapolis among those eight other cities that have existing plants.

Related to this economics point, the tip fees or what waste haulers pay to dispose of waste at incinerators are often quite a bit more costly than alternatives. So we see two to three times higher rates of tip fee disposal than comparable recycling or composting costs, which again, I’m here, I’m with Neil and our expert, so he can perhaps touch on some of that too as he gets more into the waste side of the equation. We also see that jobs, local jobs which are generated at incinerators are quite a bit less than other alternatives. So we see four, four times the number of jobs per unit of waste in composting sites, for example. So really there are better alternatives that exist when you look at these plants through an economics lens.

We also see with the impacts on public health and that was a big motivator for it sounds like the, the Baltimore case, certainly, but incinerators are these classic cases of environmental injustice. In the communities that they’ve been located in, they are often sited in neighborhoods that are predominantly made up of people with lower incomes and people of color, as the Energy Justice Network has illustrated in some really great maps that we feature in the report. And so Neil had mentioned them — they’ve done some great work documenting again, that the harmful, costly and avoidable public health risks that these incinerators present to, to the local communities that are living nearby. We also talk a little bit, I think, more about that dynamic with partners from EJN or Energy Justice Network, and then also another great organization, GAIA, who’s done more work, in a webinar that we hosted about the report in January. So, we can point folks more to that resource.

And then, finally we, especially in looking at this through our Energy Democracy lens and the impacts that incinerators have on the energy sector, we argue the third point being that renewable trash, which these incinerators are often being classified under is really a legal oxymoron. It doesn’t really make sense that burning garbage would be considered a renewable resource, but it is in the majority of states where incinerators are located. We have 52 plants operating in states that do classify trash burning as a renewable resource of energy. So, these are three reasons that we definitely see communities pushing back against this dirty practice, and we highlight those three in our report.

And this triggered simmering discontent in the community, which is low income, mixed white people, Black people, Latino people and Asian people, they were absolutely fed up when this 4,000 ton per day incinerator was announced, the plan for it. And through incredibly well organized citizens, led by united workers, and their staff all live in the community and went to Ben Franklin High School, these adults and young people … also adults, but just out of high school and in college, came up with incredible tactics, videos, small meetings, many, many small meetings, which mobilized the city. Among their best tactics was a video produced by the young people in the community that was sent around to the museums, the school systems in the city and the region that had pledged to buy electricity from this planned garbage incinerator. And the video made it clear that this was dirty electricity. And one by one these institutions withdrew their offers to buy electricity from this source. That was a major accomplishment, and it led to lawyers, and doctors, and organizers from other issues on the environment to join United workers. Energy Justice Network did a whole lot of work, the institute, myself and Brenda Platt did a lot of work. The institute’s work was showing, pointing to specific examples of what government, industry, and citizens have been doing to implement alternative systems that do not have incineration. We supported the Fillbert Street Garden, which is a community institution in Curtis Bay. We raised money to build a compost pad, that compost pad is now the basis for a collection program in nearby neighborhoods that picks up organic waste from households and businesses, brings them back to the garden for composting, and reuse. The program involves young people and also small children. There’s an elementary school right across the street, the children are growing flowers, fruits, vegetables, it’s quite an institution.

All of this mobilized the community both from the fear of pollution, and the possibilities that the 90 acres that was going to be devoted to the incinerator could now become a green industrial park with recycling, composting, solar energy projects. So the community was turned around into what’s possible, it energized their mobilization, and after the defeat of the planned incinerator in Curtis Bay, there was a seamless transition to focus on the existing incinerator, and of course, Environmental Justice did a great job in documenting the pollution. I also want to tip my hat to Environment Justice Network because they also went deep into the weeds, working with communities surrounding the incinerator who suffer the most from the pollution, and raised money and developed a pilot recycling program. Baltimore has a very low recycling rate.

There are reasons for it, the DPW, the Department of Public Works in the city just hasn’t paid attention to recycling and composting. And the Energy Justice Network pilots showed that citizens with the proper carts, proper information, and proper incentives, they were recycling at 39%. The city’s average is anywhere from 14 to 19%, so virtually a doubling of the recycling rate just by paying attention and proving that low income people, black, white, or green, will recycle and want to recycle.

But we’re going to take a quick break here and when we come back we’re going to talk about how many states are providing subsidies to trash burning through renewable energy definitions, which we touched on before. I’d like to dive into how industry consolidation is helping the incinerator industry. And then also to talk a little bit more about what we’ve already heard about, is what communities can do instead of hosting trash burners, in terms of waste processing and things that they can do to create jobs, and healthier jobs in their community.

Every year ILSR’s small staff helps hundreds of communities challenge monopoly power directly and rebuild their local economies. So please take a minute and go to ILSR.org and click on the Donate button. And if making a donation isn’t something you can do, please consider helping us in other ways. You can help other folks find this podcast by telling them about it or by giving it a review on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. The more ratings from listeners like you, the more folks can find this podcast and ILSR’s other podcasts: Community Broadband Bits and Building Local Power.

Thanks again for listening. Now, back to the program.

While you’re on our website, we encourage you to explore ILSR’s interactive Community Power Toolkit and Community Power Map to learn more about policies and programs that are enabling a local, clean energy future.

You can also find more than 70 past episodes of the Local Energy Rules podcast, sign up for one of our newsletters, and connect with us on social media. Tune back into Local Energy Rules — now every 2 weeks — to hear more powerful stories of communities taking on concentrated power to transform the energy system.

Until next time, keep your energy local and thanks for listening.