Is Clean Trash Technology a Myth?

Everybody who grew up in the 80s remembers that magical moment when Doc Brown lifted off in a flying DeLorean, but if you were a budding environmentalist chances are you also noticed that he fueled-up with a few used cans and a banana peel. Well, Denmark is already in that future: The European country has been building state-of-the-art power plants that run on garbage for years. These advanced incinerators are cleaner than your backyard barbecue and have reduced Denmark's landfill waste to just 4 percent of total waste. So where are the U.S. futurists?

According to the New York Times, there are just 87 trash-burning power plants in the U.S., compared to 29 plants in Denmark, a country with a population significantly smaller than New York City's. We might not have the flying cars yet, but their fuel is positively overflowing.

The United States produces 250 million tons of waste a year, 135 million tons of which is shipped away from where you live and shuffled around to someone else's back yard. For New York City, which produces a titanic 10,500 tons of residential waste every day of the week, it ends up in places as far afield as North Carolina and Virginia. A top tier waste-to-energy plant can produce 590 kWh of electricity for every ton of waste. In a single day in New York City enough energy could be produced to power nearly 600 homes for an entire year.

But figures like these make many environmentalists fly off the handle. The fact that the EPA lists Municipal Solid Waste treatment plants as a "renewable power source" is insulting to those who promote cleaner renewable energy like wind power. Others cannot stomach the idea that this technology might convince Americans, already addicted to consumption, that they have carte blanche to buy and burn their way to a lower energy bill. People like Laura Haight of the New York Public Interest Research Group call trash incinerators "the devil" and contend that building more trash incinerators would create a physical and monetary incentive to keep the home fires lit with our litter.

"Our priority is pushing for zero waste," she told the Times.

Well, Denmark was not built in a day, and zero waste for the U.S. right now makes about as much sense as time travel. The truth is the technology and resources needed to create Denmark's waste-to-energy system were spurred into use by European environmental laws. Their waste-to-power plants are non-profit organizations controlled by local governments and municipalities, and because Denmark had a binding agreement to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 2012 under the Kyoto Protocol (which the U.S. never ratified), the country invested in the most advanced waste reduction method. Denmark's waste-to-energy plants are far cleaner than American incinerators.

Without that kind of pressure at our backs, it is doubtful that American environmentalists need to worry about the day when zero waste threatens to turn out the lights. The future is not a place you reach in a car, but through the march of attitudes and positive public action. Environmental legislation is the first step.

Photo credit: D'Arcy Norman