Enviros Oppose Baltimore Trash Burner

Wheelabrator Baltimore

As climate change predictions raise alarm, proposals target Baltimore trash incinerator

Proposals to crack down on a Southwest Baltimore trash incinerator — both the city's main garbage receptacle and its largest single source of air pollution — are gaining momentum with support from a majority of the City Council and the Maryland General Assembly.

A city ordinance would demand that Wheelabrator Baltimore dramatically reduce emissions of harmful pollutants linked to asthma and heart disease, and could effectively close a facility that burns hundreds of thousands of tons of household waste from across the region each year.

State legislation would strip the incinerator of a “green energy” label that allows it to collect millions of dollars in subsidies from utility customers across Maryland, while also mandating that half the state’s energy come from renewable sources by 2030.

And those measures could be among a host of reforms to command attention in coming months aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing investment in clean energy. Lawmakers and advocates say growing public alarm over the consequences of climate change, detailed in recent government reports and evident in recent wildfires and storms, is stiffening political will to pass programs promoting solar and wind power and electric vehicles.

New regulations affecting the incinerator also could force officials to examine how much waste the region produces, and what to do instead of burning it. Only about a fifth of Baltimore’s trash bypassed the incinerator and went straight to a landfill in 2016.

Wheelabrator officials say their facility is vital for waste disposal while also, as a waste-to-energy plant, reducing the use of fossil fuels. They argue the real pollution problem is motor vehicles, which produce 10 times the emissions of their Baltimore incinerator.

“Waste-to-energy is widely recognized as renewable, sustainable energy and should remain recognized as such by statute,” Jim Connolly, vice president of environmental, health and safety for Wheelabrator, said in a statement.

Wheelbrator gets a pretty good subsidy as a renewable energy source:

And since 2011, it has qualified for a state program designed to create financial incentives for renewable energy. A Baltimore Sun investigation last year found that because state law classifies the incinerator on a par with solar and wind energy, it has earned more than $1 million a year, on average, in subsidies.

Since most of the energy from a trash burner comes from burning paper and other cellulose derived trash, it is renewable. It came from CO2 captured from the air by plants and is being returned there. And given that Baltimore is unlikely to run short on trash anytime soon, it's far more reliable than wind or solar.
The pollution?

More recently, environmentalists have seized on the incinerator’s impact on the environment and public health. For each ton of trash it burns, it releases about a ton of planet-warming carbon dioxide, along with scores of pounds of lead and mercury. It’s responsible for the bulk of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide emitted by industry in Baltimore, according to Environmental Protection Agency data.

I doubt the mercury and lead claims. That would imply concentrations of lead and mercury in the trash of 1 part per 1000. That's very unlikely. And again, with nitric and sulfur oxides, they ignore the larger source from cars and trucks.

I don't really care if Baltimore burns or buries its trash, but I despise overblown rhetoric.