The Story of Stuff - Annie Leonard [149]
9. Incinerators Undermine Creative, Real Solutions
If your city invests hundreds of millions of dollars to build one of these things, and then you come along with an ingenious idea for reducing waste at its source—forget about it! Relying on an incinerator to solve the garbage challenge signifies a real failure of imagination. It is for those who go along with impulsive temporary fixes, rather than those who can hold the long-term view and consider the broader system that created the problem in the first place. What decisions were made at the production, distribution, consumption, and disposal points that resulted in this waste? How can we go back and make different decisions to design the waste out of the system? Preventing a problem upstream is always far preferable—and more economical—than just focusing on a quick solution.
10. Incinerators Just Don’t Make Sense
I’ve met many an engineer who strives to convince me that his latest bells and whistles incinerator is really different: that it really does solve the dioxin issue; that it really does recover energy, etc. Dr. Paul Connett, who has testified at hundreds of hearings on incineration, has a mantra: “Even if you could make them safe, you could never make them sensible.”107 It just doesn’t make sense to invest hundreds of millions of dollars developing machines designed to destroy resources. It is not an investment in the right direction.
Toxics Use Reduction in Massachusetts
Municipal leaders, community residents, and businesses will often focus on the question of what’s to be done with the hazardous waste that’s being produced. If both burying and burning are off the table, what’s the alternative? In fact, a real solution requires shifting our attention upstream, to stopping the flow of waste at its source. This may seem counterintuitive if you’re looking at a discharge pipe pouring muck into a river, but it’s the best strategy for long-term change.
Here’s an analogy I often use: Suppose you come home from a vacation to find that you left your kitchen faucet running. The sink has overflowed and water covers the kitchen floor, the dining room floor, and most of the living room. It’s a mess. Where do you start: mopping up the lovely oriental carpets or turning off the tap? It’s a no-brainer, right? In the context of hazardous waste, turning off the tap translates to reducing the amount of toxic chemicals used in production.
An impressive example of how this can work is Massachusetts’ Toxics Use Reduction Act (TURA), which was passed in 1989. The law included ambitious waste reduction goals, requiring Massachusetts companies to track their chemical use and release and to develop plans detailing how the company would reduce toxics by changing the materials or processes they used. In 1990, TURA established the Toxics Use Reduction Institute (TURI) at the University of Massachusetts Lowell to help companies and communities research toxic chemicals, figure out innovative and costeffective alternatives, and provide a range of technical assistance with toxics use reduction and energy and water efficiency.108
It worked. As just one example, the lighting company Lightolier reduced its VOC emissions by 95 percent, its toxics use by 58 percent, and its electricity and natural gas use by 19 and 30 percent respectively. In the process, it saved millions of dollars in operating costs.109 Statewide, TURI’s work has led to a reduction in industries’ toxic chemical use by 41 percent, toxic chemical waste by 65 percent, and emissions by an impressive 91 percent. Manufacturers participating in the program recently reported $4.5 million in annual operating cost savings.110
Those are impressive numbers—I give them to every public official considering incineration or landfilling of hazardous waste. With such proven viability, TURI-style options should be exhausted before even considering any other approach. TURI