Philadelphia: Burning Trash is NOT the Answer

May 9, 2019: 40 Orga­ni­za­tions call on May­or Ken­ney to Stop Burn­ing Philly’s Trash

See the state­ment to the may­or, and the press release. In addi­tion to these 40 envi­ron­men­tal, com­mu­ni­ty, pub­lic health, and busi­ness orga­ni­za­tions, the Amer­i­can Sus­tain­able Busi­ness Coun­cil wrote a sep­a­rate let­ter to May­or Ken­ney mak­ing the eco­nom­ic case for end­ing incin­er­a­tion of Philly’s trash.

June 13, 2019 UPDATE: Despite over­whelm­ing oppo­si­tion (41 orga­ni­za­tions signed on above, plus all 11 mem­bers of the pub­lic who spoke at the 6/5/2019 Streets Com­mit­tee hear­ing), City Coun­cil approved May­or Ken­ney’s admin­is­tra­tion’s two pro­posed waste con­tracts with Waste Man­age­ment and Cov­an­ta, allow­ing con­tin­ued incin­er­a­tion of much of Philly’s trash and of the por­tion of recy­cling bin con­tents that does­n’t have a recy­cling mar­ket. These con­tracts run for 4–7 years (four more years plus three 1‑year renew­al options).

Each year, Philadel­phia dis­pos­es of near­ly 1.4 mil­lion tons of res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial waste. 55% of this goes to land­fills in the state. 45% is first burned in trash incin­er­a­tors. For every 100 tons burned, 30 tons become tox­ic ash that is dumped in land­fills. The oth­er 70 tons become air pol­lu­tion. Burn­ing trash is far worse for the envi­ron­ment and human health than direct use of landfills.

Since mid-2012, Philly has been con­tract­ed with two waste cor­po­ra­tions: Cov­an­ta (the nation’s largest trash incin­er­a­tor com­pa­ny), and Waste Man­age­ment (the world’s largest waste cor­po­ra­tion). The Waste Man­age­ment con­tract includes some waste going to a “Spec­Fu­el” plant in NE Philly that feeds trash as fuel to be burned in cement kilns in the Lehigh Val­ley, just north of Allen­town — anoth­er form of incineration.

These con­tracts expire June 30, 2019 and new con­tracts are now pro­posed by May­or Ken­ney’s Streets Depart­ment to con­tin­ue the sta­tus quo for anoth­er sev­en years. Ken­ney’s admin­is­tra­tion seems to pre­fer incin­er­a­tion, even though it’s the most expen­sive and pol­lut­ing way to man­age waste. They pre­tend it’s part of a “zero waste” plan, even though it harms Philadel­phi­ans with tox­ic air pol­lu­tion that also con­tributes to asth­ma attacks. May­or Ken­ney qui­et­ly declared Octo­ber 11, 2018 as Chil­dren’s Envi­ron­men­tal Health Aware­ness Day, but did noth­ing to pub­li­cize it, and is now ensur­ing the Philly’s kids will con­tin­ue to miss school due to asth­ma attacks caused by incin­er­a­tor pol­lu­tion. See more con­text, see our tes­ti­mo­ny at Philadel­phia City Coun­cil’s hear­ing on health dis­par­i­ties, as well as these talk­ing points. See these links for more info on incin­er­a­tion or zero waste.

Penn­syl­va­nia has a glut of land­fill space, which is why the state is the nation’s largest waste importer, accept­ing trash from Cana­da down to Puer­to Rico, and every state in-between. There is no short­age of land­fill capac­i­ty, and while we work to reduce the city’s waste, it’s vital to avoid the even greater envi­ron­men­tal impact of burn­ing trash and land­fill­ing tox­ic ash.

The largest recip­i­ent of Philly’s trash under the cur­rent con­tracts has been the Cov­an­ta Delaware Val­ley trash incin­er­a­tor in near­by Chester City, just south of the air­port. That incin­er­a­tor is the nation’s largest, and is the worst air pol­luter in the Philly region now that the oil refin­ery is closed. Chester is known as one of the nation’s worst cas­es of envi­ron­men­tal racism.

Where Philly’s trash has been going
(Dur­ing the cur­rent con­tracts from mid-2012 through first quar­ter of 2018)

Land­fill / Incin­er­a­tor	Coun­ty	Tons	%
Cov­an­ta Delaware Valley	Delaware	1,912,001	24%
Whee­labra­tor Falls	Bucks	1,360,959	17%
Mod­ern Landfill	York	1,253,083
G.R.O.W.S. North	Bucks	1,027,550
Con­esto­ga Landfill	Berks	690,035
Fair­less Landfill	Bucks	674,542
Tul­ly­town Landfill	Bucks	517,239
Cov­an­ta Ply­mouth Renew­able Energy	Mont­gomery	155,869	2%
York Coun­ty Resource Recov­ery Center	York	147,554	2%
Delaware Coun­ty SWA Rolling Hills Landfill	Berks	78,311
Pio­neer Cross­ing Landfill	Berks	16,693
Cum­ber­land Coun­ty Landfill	Cum­ber­land	14,496
Com­mon­wealth Envi­ron­men­tal Sys­tems Landfill	Schuylkill	13,810
West­ern Berks Com­mu­ni­ty Landfill	Berks	11,529
LCSWMA — Susq. Resource Mgmt Complex	Dauphin	10,622	0.1%
LCSWMA Resource Recov­ery Facility	Lan­cast­er	8,747	0.1%
Chester Coun­ty SWA Lan­ches­ter Landfill	Chester	7,517
Beth­le­hem Landfill	Northamp­ton	6,515
Advanced Dis­pos­al Ser­vices Green­tree Land­fill LLC	Elk	5,907
South­ern Alleghe­nies Landfill	Som­er­set	1,321
Impe­r­i­al Landfill	Alleghe­ny	1,232
Key­stone San­i­tary Landfill	Lack­awan­na	375
Clin­ton Coun­ty SWA Wayne Town­ship Landfill	Clin­ton	310
Casel­la McK­Kean Coun­ty Landfill	McK­ean	92
Grand Cen­tral San­i­tary Landfill	Northamp­ton	1
TOTAL		7,916,310	45%

Source: PA Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion, Divi­sion of Report­ing and Fees

Accord­ing to EPA’s lat­est Nation­al Emis­sions Inven­to­ry, the Cov­an­ta Delaware Val­ley trash incin­er­a­tor is the 3rd largest air pol­luter in the 5‑county Philadel­phia area. Only the air­port and the PES oil refin­ery are worse.

Philly’s trash is the sec­ond largest con­trib­u­tor to this major air pol­luter. We throw our trash “away” and end up breath­ing it as air pol­lu­tion, since Philly is imme­di­ate­ly downwind.

Where the waste burned in Chester came from in 2017:

State	PA Coun­ty	Tons	%
PA	Delaware	366,037	28%
PA	Philadel­phia	343,474	27%
NJ		230,169	18%
DE	(most­ly NYC waste)	206,693	16%
NY		100,360	8%
MD	(Ocean City)	33,493	3%
NC		8,084	1%
VA		4,616	0.4%
PA	Lehigh, Bucks, Chester, Berks, Lack­awan­na, Luzerne, & Mont­gomery Counties	808	0.1%
TOTAL		1,293,732	100%

Source: PA Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion, Divi­sion of Report­ing and Fees

How polluting are these trash incinerators?

Incin­er­a­tor	Coun­ty	City/Town	Air Pol­lu­tion Rankings
Cov­an­ta Delaware Valley	Delaware	Chester City	Largest air pol­luter in Chester City, and sec­ond only to the PHL air­port in Delaware Coun­ty. Third worst air pol­luter in the 5‑county Philly region. With­in Delaware Coun­ty, their air pol­lu­tion even sur­pass­es the oil refiner­ies, fos­sil fuel pow­er plants, chem­i­cal plants, a sewage sludge incin­er­a­tor, and the waste coal-burn­ing Kim­ber­ly-Clark paper mill in Chester.
Cov­an­ta Plymouth	Mont­gomery	Ply­mouth Township	Largest air pol­luter in Mont­gomery Coun­ty, account­ing for 19% of all pol­lu­tion from Mont­gomery Coun­ty’s 123 indus­tri­al air pol­luters, and more that twice as bad as the sec­ond largest polluter.
Whee­labra­tor Falls	Bucks	Falls Town­ship	Largest air pol­luter in Bucks Coun­ty, account­ing for 31% of all pol­lu­tion from Bucks Coun­ty’s 104 indus­tri­al air pol­luters, and more that twice as bad as the sec­ond largest polluter.

With­in the 5‑county Philadel­phia area, which con­tains a large con­cen­tra­tion of pol­lut­ing indus­try (489 facil­i­ties), the Cov­an­ta’s incin­er­a­tor in Chester ranks high for many spe­cif­ic pol­lu­tants, includ­ing being:

• #2 in Mer­cury ­ caus­es dam­age to ner­vous, diges­tive, and immune sys­tems, low­ers IQ in chil­dren
  - Cov­an­ta Delaware Val­ley releas­es about 60 pounds of mer­cury into the region’s air every year
• #3 in Nitro­gen Oxides (NOx) ­ trig­gers asth­ma attacks, increas­es life­time risk of chron­ic res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­ease and stroke
  - Cov­an­ta Delaware Val­ley releas­es near­ly 2.5 mil­lion pounds of NOx into the region’s air every year
• #3 in Sul­fur Diox­ide ­ trig­gers asth­ma attacks, increas­es life­time risk of chron­ic res­pi­ra­to­ry and heart dis­eases and stroke
• #4 in Cad­mi­um ­ caus­es can­cer, dam­ages bones and brain func­tion, affects blood pres­sure and testos­terone levels
• #5 in Car­bon Monox­ide ­ caus­es headaches and dizzi­ness; increas­es life­time risk of heart disease
• #5 in Hydrochlo­ric Acid ­ irri­tates eyes, skin, and nose, dam­ages lungs
• #6 in Green­house gas­es ­ caus­es glob­al warm­ing, increas­es in heat-relat­ed deaths, sui­cide, mos­qui­to-born dis­eases, and much more
• #6 in Par­tic­u­late Mat­ter (PM10 and PM2.5) ­ aggra­vates lung dis­ease, trig­gers asth­ma attacks, caus­es acute bron­chi­tis; can cause heart attacks in those with heart disease