Burning trash won't fix problems

The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:

O ur country has a trash problem. We live in a disposable society, one which doesn't value the importance of materials and resources. On average, every American produces close to 5 pounds of solid waste daily.

For decades, we've relied on landfilling as the main option for managing items we throw away.

In fact, the U.S. landfilled about 146 million tons of waste in 2018 alone.

Here in Tucson, the Los Reales Landfill serves as the primary disposal site for waste materials.

The 370-acre landfill is owned and operated by the city of Tucson through its environmental and general service department.

Each day, the landfill receives approximately 2,300 tons of waste.

Last July, Tucson Environmental and General Services (TEGS) announced a plan to convert the Los Reales Landfill into a 'sustainability campus' to help address global warming. TEGS has produced a creditable vision of the campus as a place for technological innovation that would divert waste from the landfill.

There are promising ideas in the campus plan. Unfortunately, as currently written, the plan would make waste-to-energy (WtE) a key method for reducing our dependence on landfilling.

WtE is a high temperature process where energy (typically heat and electricity) is generated using waste materials as a fuel source. Incineration is the most common type of WtE in the U.S.

WtE also includes gasification and pyrolysis systems, which attempt to convert waste materials into combustible fuels and other feedstocks.

Creating energy from waste sounds like a win-win. However, a closer look reveals WtE comes with significant downsides. When we burn materials to produce energy, the resources used to make those products and packaging are destroyed.

This means we must continue to extract more resources from the Earth to make new products.

WtE is not climate-friendly like solar and wind energy. When plastics, paper and other materials are burned, their stored carbon is released into the air.

In 2016, U.S. waste incinerators generated the equivalent of 12 million tons of carbon dioxide, more than half of which came from plastics. True sustainability requires getting those carbon molecules back into new products, not burning them to add to the climate crisis.

WtE companies often assert that by burning waste, they are helping to reduce landfill emissions like methane, a potent greenhouse gas. But the methane produced at landfills largely comes from decomposing organic materials like food and yard waste. A more direct way to avoid methane emissions is to prevent food loss and turn inedible scraps and other organic materials into compost.

Converting wastes like plastic into fuel for vehicles and other equipment has the same climate drawbacks as traditional waste incinerators. Most plastics are manufactured from petrochemicals, sourced from oil and natural gas. This means plastic-derived fuel functions as a fossil fuel, and burning it generates greenhouse gases and other air pollutants.

Studies have shown that recycling plastic saves more energy — by reducing the need to extract fossil fuel and process it into new plastic — rather than burning it.

Producing plastic from recycled resins instead of manufacturing it from scratch also reduces the carbon footprint of plastic production and contributes to a circular economy that keeps materials in use. In contrast, burning plastic perpetuates our 'take-makewaste' linear economy. This moves us away from zero waste solutions that allow people to use less plastic and to reuse and recycle more through sustainable methods.

Now is not the time to lock ourselves into a costly, high-carbon future by incinerating waste.

We can't burn away our waste problem. The focus should be on waste prevention, in which we rethink the use of disposable packaging; reduce food waste; support reuse, repair and resale initiatives; and improve the collection of materials for both recycling and composting. More and more cities across the country are taking this zero-waste approach, and we can, too.

Kevin Greene is chair of Sustainable Tucson's Zero Waste Working Group.

KEVIN GREENE

Special to the Arizona Daily Star