The article I read was about Britain possibly implementing waste incineration as a solution to their growing number of landfills. The local community opposes the incinerators for aesthetic reasons and fear of dangerous emissions, but they are quickly running out of places to put their waste.
This article was extremely intriguing to me because of the bad reputation trash burning has. I have never heard anything positive about it, so I was curious to know why Britain was considering incineration.
It was interesting to discover that some environmental activists are actually in support of waste incineration. I didn’t realize that it could be used to generate electricity and heat surrounding homes. It would also prevent the need for more landfills, which waste space and produce hazardous leachate that poisons plants, animals and potentially humans. Waste incineration seems like something that could even be implemented in Greensboro.
Our local landfill on White Street was closed in 2001 (even though it was not yet full) because residents complained about its smell and appearance. We now have to transfer all of our trash to the Uwharrie Landfill some 70 miles away. Incineration could be an alternative that the city could look into, because it seems likely that burning the waste would produce fewer emissions than hauling trash from the city everyday.
I would, however, be skeptical about how clean the waste would burn. I doubt that there is any process able to filter out the thousands of chemicals found in our garbage. It is also hard to think about releasing more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, considering the current state of the environment. A cost-benefit analysis could determine if waste incineration deserves its negative reputation or not.
No comments:
Post a Comment