Clean Energy News

Environment Maryland today sent the following letter to the Frederick County Board of Commissioners.

Frederick County Board of County Commissioners,

I strongly urge you to place a five year moratorium on the building of a 1500 ton per day regional waste incinerator, the cost of which would be approximately $350 million to taxpayers.  I have read local news reports in which some of you have stated that "waste to energy incineration is the most environmentally sound option for waste management."  I firmly disagree.  Incinerators transform garbage into harmful air pollutants and toxic ash.  They destroy valuable resources.  A 1500 ton per day incinerator would generate 450 tons of toxic ash to be dumped into a landfill.    

Additionally, Frederick does not have the material needed to run a large waste incinerator efficiently; it would need to import waste from other counties. At a time when it is imperative that we reduce global warming pollution, we must not invest in large scale incinerators that emit more carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour than coal-fired power plants. Building an incinerator competes with the 60% recycling goal that Frederick has established.

Environment Maryland recommends that Frederick County conduct studies to investigate and implement alternative solutions like a Resource Recovery Park and a comprehensive program for diverting materials away from landfills through reuse, composting and recycling.  Local citizens have done the research to get started.  Environment Maryland strongly supports the efforts of the Solid Waste Analysis Group (http://www.relifecycle.com/), and would like to see Frederick County move forward to resource management rather than backward to resource destruction.  Incineration destroys valuable resources and costs communities hundreds of millions of dollars. We can do better in managing our waste.

Sincerely,

Brad Heavner
State Director