Lynne Pledger, solid waste director for Clean Water Action, one of the many environmental groups against the state’s plan: “Of course if we didn’t put banned material in landfills, there would be more room. . . . The fact is these [new incineration] technologies are going to compete with recycling for paper, cardboard, and plastics.”
Massachusetts proposes loosening moratorium on incinerators
Plan to burn waste opposed; state disputed on safeguards for environment
By Beth Daley
Globe Staff / December 30, 2012
A state plan to loosen a nearly quarter-century moratorium on new waste incinerators is reigniting a long-simmering trash war in Massachusetts over how to deal with the vast amounts of garbage that residents and businesses generate each day.
State officials say landfill space is already so tight that Massachusetts is forced to export significant amounts of trash. By the end of the decade, space will be so scarce that the state could export as much as 18 percent of the garbage it generates.
To ease the landfill crunch, officials want to allow new technologies on a limited scale that would turn waste into energy and not emit as many harmful air pollutants as traditional incinerators.
Yet environmentalists are ardently opposed, arguing that the state could find more space for garbage if it stopped allowing banned materials such as recyclables, yard debris, and wood into landfills and incinerators. At the South Hadley Landfill in October, for example, there were at least 50 truckloads of banned material dumped in the landfill, according to town officials.
Environmentalists maintain that the new technologies are unproved and environmentally unsound and that loosening the incinerator moratorium will mean the state will not work harder to reduce waste.
“New technologies are proposed all the time, but thus far none of them have been proven safe and effective in removing harmful air pollution,’’ said Sue Reid, director of the Massachusetts office of
Conservation Law Foundation, a Boston-based legal environmental advocacy group.
State officials will probably decide whether to ease the moratorium within 30 to 60 days after receiving public comment through Feb. 15 as part of finalizing a solid-waste master plan for the state. Taunton officials are already hoping to bring such a facility to their community.
Garbage woes are nothing new in Massachusetts, which boasts some of the country’s most ambitious efforts to reduce garbage. The state, for instance, will begin banning some commercial food waste from landfills and the seven existing incinerators in 2014. But Massachusetts has experienced problems achieving those reduction goals.
The state lifted a moratorium on landfills in 2000 because of a growing realization that more space was needed for garbage, but no new landfills have been built because of a lack of space and opposition from local communities. The state has periodically reviewed its 1990 incinerator moratorium, most recently in 2009, when officials decided to keep the moratorium in part because new technologies to burn garbage in an environmentally safe way remained unproved.
Instead of traditional incineration that emits copious pollutants into the air, technologies called gasification or pyrolysis convert garbage into liquid fuels or gas that is clean and renewable and with less air pollution, he said. No such commercial technology operates in the United States, environmentalists say, which is why they are skeptical.
Kimmell said loosening the rules would allow a trial of the technology and only consume up to 350,000 tons of garbage a year out of 10 million to 11 million tons Massachusetts residents and businesses generate each year. Recyclables or banned material would not be allowed, and the facilities would have to adhere to strict air-quality rules.
Although Kimmell acknowledged a problem with enforcement of banned and recyclable material being dumped in landfills, he said the issue was unrelated to needing more ways to get rid of garbage.
Still, he pledged to expand a pilot program to require third-party independent “spotters” paid for by the state’s 230 transfer stations, landfills, and incinerators to document trucks that dump significant amounts of banned material. State environmental officials will follow up with enforcement, he said.
But environmentalists — and even a former state inspector — say they do not know how the state will guarantee that recyclables and banned materials will not be fed into new facilities, or even old landfills, if so much is getting in now.Continued...
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2012/12/31/massachusetts-proposes-loosening-moratorium-incinerators/OQq5vWwWKzmGXBJ6NVkOTP/story.html
State officials say landfill space is already so tight that Massachusetts is forced to export significant amounts of trash. By the end of the decade, space will be so scarce that the state could export as much as 18 percent of the garbage it generates.
To ease the landfill crunch, officials want to allow new technologies on a limited scale that would turn waste into energy and not emit as many harmful air pollutants as traditional incinerators.
Yet environmentalists are ardently opposed, arguing that the state could find more space for garbage if it stopped allowing banned materials such as recyclables, yard debris, and wood into landfills and incinerators. At the South Hadley Landfill in October, for example, there were at least 50 truckloads of banned material dumped in the landfill, according to town officials.
Environmentalists maintain that the new technologies are unproved and environmentally unsound and that loosening the incinerator moratorium will mean the state will not work harder to reduce waste.
“New technologies are proposed all the time, but thus far none of them have been proven safe and effective in removing harmful air pollution,’’ said Sue Reid, director of the Massachusetts office of
Conservation Law Foundation, a Boston-based legal environmental advocacy group.
State officials will probably decide whether to ease the moratorium within 30 to 60 days after receiving public comment through Feb. 15 as part of finalizing a solid-waste master plan for the state. Taunton officials are already hoping to bring such a facility to their community.
Garbage woes are nothing new in Massachusetts, which boasts some of the country’s most ambitious efforts to reduce garbage. The state, for instance, will begin banning some commercial food waste from landfills and the seven existing incinerators in 2014. But Massachusetts has experienced problems achieving those reduction goals.
The state lifted a moratorium on landfills in 2000 because of a growing realization that more space was needed for garbage, but no new landfills have been built because of a lack of space and opposition from local communities. The state has periodically reviewed its 1990 incinerator moratorium, most recently in 2009, when officials decided to keep the moratorium in part because new technologies to burn garbage in an environmentally safe way remained unproved.
Now, state officials say the situation is dire. In 2010, Massachusetts landfills had space left for about 2 million tons of garbage. By 2020, landfills will have room remaining for less than 600,000 tons. Without increased recycling, waste reduction, composting, or more space in Massachusetts landfills, garbage exports are projected to rise to 2 million tons a year by 2020.
“Even if we hit these extremely aggressive recycling targets, we would have still have a capacity problem,” said Kenneth Kimmell, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection. He said emerging technologies could help the state get rid of garbage that cannot be recycled.
Instead of traditional incineration that emits copious pollutants into the air, technologies called gasification or pyrolysis convert garbage into liquid fuels or gas that is clean and renewable and with less air pollution, he said. No such commercial technology operates in the United States, environmentalists say, which is why they are skeptical.
Kimmell said loosening the rules would allow a trial of the technology and only consume up to 350,000 tons of garbage a year out of 10 million to 11 million tons Massachusetts residents and businesses generate each year. Recyclables or banned material would not be allowed, and the facilities would have to adhere to strict air-quality rules.
Although Kimmell acknowledged a problem with enforcement of banned and recyclable material being dumped in landfills, he said the issue was unrelated to needing more ways to get rid of garbage.
Still, he pledged to expand a pilot program to require third-party independent “spotters” paid for by the state’s 230 transfer stations, landfills, and incinerators to document trucks that dump significant amounts of banned material. State environmental officials will follow up with enforcement, he said.
But environmentalists — and even a former state inspector — say they do not know how the state will guarantee that recyclables and banned materials will not be fed into new facilities, or even old landfills, if so much is getting in now.Continued...
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2012/12/31/massachusetts-proposes-loosening-moratorium-incinerators/OQq5vWwWKzmGXBJ6NVkOTP/story.html
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