Waste Incineration: A Dying Technology - GAIA

to the manufacturer. Case studies show how these principles work in widely varying
environments, such as a small maternity clinic in India and a major urban hospital in
the United States.
Industrial process wastes tend not to be as mixed as municipal or healthcare
wastes, but many of them are chemically hazardous. Clean Production is an approach
to industrial redesign that seeks to eliminate hazardous byproducts, reduce overall
pollution, and create products and subsequent wastes that are safe within ecological
cycles. The principles of Clean Production are:
- the Precautionary Principle, which calls for precaution in the face of scientific
uncertainty
- the Preventive Principle, which holds that it is better to prevent harm than
remediate it
- the Democratic Principle, under which all those affected by a decision have the
right to participate in decision-making
- and the Holistic Principle, which calls for an integrated life-cycle approach to
environmental decision-making.
A variety of tools are being employed to implement Clean Production, from
policy measures like right-to-know and tax reforms, to UN assistance to firms engaged
in Clean Production.
Clean Production cannot answer the problem of existing stockpiles of
hazardous wastes, which need some form of treatment besides incineration. A number
of programs are developing technologies to address this problem. The standards that
have evolved for such technologies are:
- high destruction efficiencies
- containment of all byproducts
- identification of all byproducts
- and no uncontrolled releases.
Several emerging technologies fit these criteria, and have been selected in Japan,
Canada and Australia for PCB destruction, and in the United States for chemical weapons
destruction. The U.S. chemical weapons program is a success largely because of strong
public participation, which pushed an unwilling government to investigate and
eventually select safer, non-incineration technologies.
Section 3: Putting Out the Flames
Section 3 discusses the growing rejection of incineration across the globe. Public
opposition has killed many proposed and existing incinerators, and is being
incorporated into local, national and even international law. Popular resistance to
incinerators is global: hundreds of public interest organizations in dozens of countries
are engaged in the fight against incineration and in favor of alternatives.
In the United States, business interests and a perceived landfill crisis drove an
incinerator building boom in the 1980s. But the boom spawned a massive grassroots
movement that defeated more than 300 municipal waste incinerator proposals. The
activists fought for higher emission standards and removal of subsidies, which virtually
shut down the industry by the end of the 1990’s.
4 Waste Incineration: A Dying Technology