,green energy is waste incineration the way forward?

Question

this will also has the knock on effect of reducing landfill which can only be a good thing

Answer 1

If all the garbage were to get incinerated, this would lead to the rise in toxic chemicals released into the atmosphere and the contribution to more greenhouse gases.  And then what would happen to the ashes?  Not everything would be safe to bury in the environment.

  What should be done would be to make sure that everything that is recyclable is recycled. Excess food should be composted.  Batteries, nail polish, cell phones, computers, and toxic chemicals should not be thrown in the trash and should be disposed of properly.

  People should not view landfills as the only way to get rid of things they dont want.  But incineration will cause just as many problems.

Landfill= problems of toxins entering the underground water sources

Incineration= toxic chemicals contributing  to the pollution problem and global warming.

Answer 2

Unfortunately there are a few problems with that.  One, not everything will burn at a reasonable temperature.  Two, much of the garbage we generate will release toxic or at least unpleasant gasses when burned.  Three, burning that much of anything will release tremendous amounts of smoke and greenhouse gasses, causing more air pollution.

Answer 3

No.

One has to use a tremendous amount of energy to burn trash (a lot of rubbish in its raw state is not easy to burn), therefore releasing a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere which increases global warming.  The rubbish itself will also release CO2 as well as other chemicals such as CO and CN (cyanide, not nice stuff).  These poisons can be removed but it takes more energy to do so...  You get the picture by now.

This is the reason why a two-fold approach has to be taken:

1. Consume less.  If there is less trash to begin with, there will be less to dispose of and the resources of the planet will last longer.  

Consuming less includes cutting down on energy consumption such as driving, heating and air conditioning.  Effective building codes and use of insulating materials can really help with these last two factors.

2. Recycle.  Trash has to be sorted effectively to that it can be used as a raw material for the production of new products.  Metal can be sorted and used instead of ripping more ore from the earth; paper and card can be reshredded instead of harvesting more trees.  Plastics reused instead of using more oil from the ground to manufacture them.

People accuse the green lobby of being anti-capitalists.  This is not necessarily the case.  Although a lot of anti-capitalists have now jumped on the environmental band wagon in order to carry on their fight, the above examples show that there is a lot of business to be generated by being environmentally aware.  

Personally I has saved a great deal of money by swapping to energy-efficient lighting and installing a new gas boiler (although better insulation is still required).  I do recycle as well, but my local council helps with this by supplying door-step collections which I am happy to pay for out of local taxation.

Being Green has to be a joint effort between the state and the citizen for the policy to be truly effective.