How do people feel about having an incinerator plant nearby? What environmental concerns would you have?

Question

I'm currently doing a paper in this topic and would like to know about the social opinion to this topic. As well as environmental concerns, how do people feel about recycling in general?

Thanks

Answer 1

MOVE. I used to live near one and people, especially kids had all kinds of health problems. Some people had allergies and asthma attacks on days when a lot of burning was done. Many kids in the area were born with health problems too.

Incinerating waste is a dangereous practice and I am surprised it is still not banned.

Move as far as you can. Or write a complaint letter, make a petition.

Answer 2

Honestly, no matter what we do with our garbage it pollutes. We have to do something with it.

My concerns would be

*I would want to know that it is sorted before incineration and any and all recyclable material be removed and properly recycled.

*I would want the energy used to create power.

*I would want to know that the ash is disposed of in a way that is not harmful, one way would be mixing it with concrete used to build roads and sidewalks. Incinerator ash is normally not good for mixing with soil.

*I would want to know that the exhaust gas is as clean as possible.

*since prevailing winds in my area normally come from the south-west, I would want the plant built North-east of me.

Answer 3

You can get three times as much energy by burning garbage (with the paper and plastic left in) than you can by burying it and using the gas.  You trade off the emissions produced, which in some areas can be a problem.  The operators of these plants have a reason to keep waste volumes high, and not recycle, because plastic and paper make up most of the heating value of the garbage.  However, the ash produced is stable, and takes up only 1/10th of the space in a landfill.

Recycling can be very beneficial, or wasteful, depending on what is recycled and where.  If your glass has to be trucked 1000 miles to be recast, then it's not worth it.  Aluminum, on the other hand, is so energy intensive to purify from ore that recycling it is almost always justified.  Paper and plastics are in the middle - it depends on how much you have and what you do with it as to whether recycling makes sense.

DK

Answer 4

You can fond out about this and even who are polluters in your community at this website:

Answer 5

You must live somewhere near the new Blyth power station :0)

First you get NIMBY, (not in my back yard), that's the unreasoned objection to the idea without any knowledge of the subject.

Second you get the transport issue. It has to arrive by road or rail and an incinerator has a big appetite when taking account the raw fuel has a much lower calorific return than coal or gas. 100 bin wagons per day, two trains per night is not unreasonable.

Third there's the smell, landfill sites have to be in the middle of nowhere, incinerators have to be close to population density or it costs too much to transport the waste and energy from waste, (EFW), can't be fed directly into the grid as it's a variable so there has to be a sub station nearby, (probably hooked upto wind turbines as seems to be the habit). Also the transfer stations have to be within haulage range.

This means odours from tipping and storage.

Then there is the small matter of emissions and the unproven technology that says no harmful gases will enter the atmosphere. You wouldn't believe that if the technology was proven, because you don't actually know what is being burnt.

Then there is the icing on the cake - what exactly happens to the waste ash?

It goes to landfill or in Northumberlands case it gets dropped down disused mine workings.

EFW isn't recycling, the hierarchy is reuse, recycle, EFW, landfill.

I look forward to reading your paper :0)

Answer 6

My concerns would be similar to what Charles laid out. I'd be very concerned about what exactly was being burned. There are strict guidelines about what should be thrown out and what needs to go to a safe disposal/Household Waste type program, but very few people actually follow them.  Is the incinerator tracking this stuff? Sorting it out? How much extra energy does that use? How much extra resources are being used to inform the public? It's one thing to shove that stuff in the ground, quite another to have it burned and put into the atmosphere. In all there's pros and cons, I'd be open to hearing the proposal and thinking it through.

Answer 7

i think it can be a useful tool if the energy created from burning is reused like they do in some countries

Answer 8

bury the garbage use the methane compressed to generate electricty.

or cook down kelp mash to make alcolhol to mix with gassoline 2 parts gasoline for 100parts alcohol file the paper work with IRS and they send you a check for

.61 cents a gallon of gasahol you use.