Garbage!

This is another SCHEME being perpetrated on taxpayers!

The cost of municipal waste disposal is significant and little has been done to address it.
Incineration is NOT a solution!

Please add your voice to oppose this SCHEME!

In just three days, we'll be out of time to tell the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) to uphold the 22-year ban on building new polluting incinerators in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts already has seven trash burners that incinerate more than 3 million tons every year - that is more than enough. That's why I was shocked when this winter, MassDEP suggested we lift the decades-old moratorium on new incinerators.

Tell MassDEP and Governor Patrick: Keep the door closed on new incinerators. We want a plan for Zero Waste.

Because of pressure from the trash industry, they want to open the door for more archaic, dirty burners when common sense says that door should stay closed. Burning trash doesn't make it disappear: it pollutes our air and water.¹ The garbage industry is calling the proposed technology "waste to energy," but we know an incinerator is an incinerator is an incinerator. Whether you call it "gasification," "plasma arc" or "pyrolysis," it is just another form of burning trash and creating a landfill in the sky, adding more pollution to our air.

We know what will actually get us on the path towards Zero Waste: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. In fact, much of what currently goes to our seven incinerators could be recycled right now.² Paper, plastics, metals... It's obvious, but it will take courage for state officials to stand up to the trash industry's demands.

We have until this Friday to get our voices heard on this important issue. On March 1, the state will stop accepting public comments on whether to lift the ban, so send your message to MassDEP today!

Sincerely,



Sylvia Broude
Executive Director
Toxics Action Center



¹ An Industry Blowing Smoke: 10 Reasons Why Gasification, Pyrolysis, and Plasma Incineration are Not "Green Solutions" [pdf], Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, June 2009.

² MassDEP