Incinerators: Good or Bad?
- Thread starter jennpitswald
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Incinerators are very good for incinerating. :lol: Not sure what the hue and cry is, after all fire departments have been known to deliberately burn down derelict old houses (paint and all) as part of their training practice, which I'm sure would be equal to hundreds of home incinerators burning for an hour.
When we do a burn house it is fairly well stripped out of plastics and asbestos. Lead paint doesn't seem to be an issue when burning. It is when turned into dust when sanding. lots of lead paint material goes into hog fuel for the pulp mills. Other than that it is buried in landfills with the regular garbage. Not sure on the amount permitted when burning but we have books on all this stuff for demolition work. Dry and often confusing reading.
There's an incinerator in downtown Paris. They're ok.
One argument against them is that they are fundamentally un-eco, pro-consuming, because they must always be fed material. An argument that suggests we shouldn't consume, anything, or just consume less an less, so we have a subsistence existence like in the stone age. A noble, a pure, argument that doesn't hold up in the modern world.
One argument against them is that they are fundamentally un-eco, pro-consuming, because they must always be fed material. An argument that suggests we shouldn't consume, anything, or just consume less an less, so we have a subsistence existence like in the stone age. A noble, a pure, argument that doesn't hold up in the modern world.
The only argument I see against them is from the far right environmentalists who are committed to zero waste and total recycling. Their argument is that once you build these plants you have to feed them thus negating any effects of recycling on the overall mass of waste. Fine, utopian argument guys but lets' live in the real world for a moment and from what I have seen in docs and read in various articles such as this one, they could build one next to me tomorrow.
Europe Finds Cleaner Energy Source by Burning Trash - NYTimes.com
Europe Finds Cleaner Energy Source by Burning Trash - NYTimes.com
And the one they want to build in Vancouver will generate about 50 megawatts of power. It will make money! Trash makes cash. Very green.
Is zero waste and total recycling even possible? To my basic understanding (and it is just an understanding, I am not a particularly science minded person) everything on this planet consumes and produces waste of one kind or another. It is, as they say, inevitable.
So shouldn't it really come down to the best waste possible? What has the most positive impact and, ultimately, causes the least harm or potential harm; incinerators or landfill?
Interesting article by the way.