Trash Incineration in Prince George’s County?

Prince George’s Coun­ty is court­ing “waste-to-ener­gy” (WTE) cor­po­ra­tions to build new waste facil­i­ties that will pol­lute our com­mu­ni­ty. Cur­rent­ly our trash goes to the Brown Sta­tion San­i­tary Land­fill in Upper Marl­boro, which is sched­uled to fill up and close in 5 years at cur­rent dump­ing rates. The County’s Depart­ment of the Envi­ron­ment is mov­ing toward con­tract­ing with waste cor­po­ra­tions to build one of these types of facil­i­ties in the county:

• Incin­er­a­tion, using pol­lut­ing, expen­sive and exper­i­men­tal gasi­fi­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies unlike­ly to work
• Trash-to-ethanol schemes (also expen­sive, exper­i­men­tal and unlike­ly to work)
• Refuse-derived fuel (RDF) – com­pact­ing trash into pel­lets (prob­a­bly in Upper Marl­boro, near the state’s only sewage sludge incin­er­a­tor), to incin­er­ate them in exist­ing burn­ers, like the Chalk Point coal plant in Eagle Har­bor, or the heat­ing plants at Andrews Air Force Base or UMD-Col­lege Park (cheap­er and high­ly polluting)
• Trash com­post­ing schemes, aim­ing to make garbage into (con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed) fer­til­iz­er to dump on our agri­cul­tur­al lands

Just as in Bal­ti­more, Ener­gy Answers’ waste-to-ener­gy scheme is also being con­sid­ered for Prince George’s Coun­ty! We need to pres­sure the Coun­ty to con­sid­er imple­ment­ing a Zero Waste Solu­tion that does not include burn­ing of waste! A Zero Waste solu­tion means reject­ing “waste-to-ener­gy” schemes and divert­ing waste from land­fills by reduc­ing, reusing, recy­cling and com­post­ing mate­ri­als. This can reduce the waste stream by over 90% if done properly.

If you or your orga­ni­za­tion wants to work togeth­er to demand the Coun­ty holds pub­lic hear­ings before ven­dors are select­ed, please email us or call 301–836‑1405.