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Patrick Administration Veers Away from Zero Waste Path
BOSTON - Despite receiving nearly 14,000 messages urging Governor Patrick to retain a 22 year old moratorium on new trash incinerators, the Administration today announced that the Commonwealth is open to incineration developers. MassDEP received only 11 comments in favor of allowing gasification technologies, a form of incineration.
Burn facilities recover only a small amount of energy from garbage while burning resources that could be recycled or composted, creating new businesses and jobs.
Keep the Moratorium on New Incinerators
PETITION
The Patrick Administration has proposed to lift the 22-year-old moratorium on more garbage incinerators. The landfills are filling up with things that are easy to recycle or compost—paper, bottles and cans, leaves, and more—and all these materials are already banned from both landfills and incinerators. But instead of enforcing existing waste ban regulations to conserve landfill space, DEP proposes to allow new incinerators to be built. Incinerators, whether old or new, pollute land, air and water, waste energy and resources, and emit more carbon dioxide per megawatt hour than coal. The combustion technologies that the Patrick Administration wants to allow here have been tried and failed in the United States and around the world since World War II.
Tell the Governor that you want him to keep the existing moratorium on building new incinerators.
Tell the State: Recycling Trumps Incineration!
Businesses, schools, municipalities —and residents too— are not supposed to trash material that is easy to recycle. But the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) regularly turns a blind eye when trucks full of banned materials show up at waste facilities. What’s worse, now the state is saying we need more incinerators because we’re running out of landfill space.
Tell the MassDEP Commissioner that it’s time to enforce the waste ban laws and keep the ban on the construction of new incinerators! Send a message today!
Protecting Our Health from Toxic Chemicals
In Massachusetts, Clean Water Action is a founding member of the Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow (AHT), a coalition of citizens, scientists, health professionals, workers, and educators seeking preventive action on toxic hazards. Our goal is to correct fundamental flaws in government policies that allow harm to our health and environment.
The Massachusetts Campaign to Protect Drinking Water
A starting definition of sustainable infrastructure includes systems that use, treat, store, and reuse water efficiently at a small scale andthat blend designs into restorative water hydrologies. These would include rain gardens and green roofs, water-efficient appliances and landscaping, decentralized wastewater systems, digestors to recover energy and nutrients from wastewater, and others that conserve resourcesand restore ecosystems and healthy communities. This work is funded in part by the Massachusetts Environmental Trust.
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