Waste Incineration: A Dying Technology - GAIA

is the third form of finance: direct government payment to the companies, either in the form of
subsidies or bailouts. No matter which form of financing is employed, the public ends up
bearing the cost. Indeed, the World Bank recommends taxing residents of Southern countries 3-
4 percent of their household budgets in order to build municipal waste incinerators. 86
If a municipality, hospital, or enterprise decides to invest in an incinerator, it will be one of
the most costly investments that institution undertakes. Many cities have found themselves
“We can either send garbage to the incinerator or we can send dollar bills!
That’s what it amounts to.”
— County Commissioner Richard Schwartz,
Lake County, Florida, USA 87
strapped with substantial long-term debt when revenue from tipping fees fell short of projections
(see box). Some jurisdictions, including the country of Sweden, have resorted to importing
waste to keep their burners running. 88 Obviously, such expensive projects make even less sense
in the context of Southern countries, where public funds are scarcer.
Trapped by Debt:
Four Examples from the U.S. 89
New Hampshire:
A dispute between a regional municipal waste incinerator in Claremont, New Hampshire,
and the communities it served resulted in 29 nearby towns filing for bankruptcy in September of
1993. At issue was US$1.1 million in back payments owed to the incinerator operators by the
towns. The towns were locked into a 20-year “put-or-pay” contract that demanded far higher
levels of waste than the towns actually produced. As a result, the local municipalities found
themselves paying exorbitant fees to burn waste that they did not produce. Unable to change the
contract or switch to other waste management methods, the 29 towns filed for bankruptcy; but
the filing was denied by a bankruptcy court, and they eventually had to impose extra taxes on
residents in order to pay the incinerator bill. 90
New Jersey:
In the 1980s, many counties in New Jersey went into debt when they issued bonds to
finance modern incinerators and other trash facilities. The counties were assured of a steady
stream of garbage, and they thought they would also have guaranteed revenues, thanks to New
Jersey’s “flow control” law. That law banned garbage haulers from taking their garbage to
cheaper out-of- state sites, and required them to deposit their trash at county-designated sites at
a fee sufficient to cover debt payments. However, this arrangement collapsed in 1997 when the
U.S. Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling that struck down the state’s flow control law. 91
This action allowed New Jersey towns to shop around for cheaper landfill sites in neighboring
Pennsylvania. By 2000, 18 New Jersey counties struggled with more than US$1 billion in solid
waste debt and no means to generate revenues to repay it. The state has been forced to dip into
its general fund to assist some of the counties that have had trouble meeting their debt payments. 92
Lake County, Florida:
Lake County, Florida is suing to extricate itself from an incinerator contract with incinerator
giant Covanta (formerly Ogden-Martin), which critics have panned as a boondoggle. When the
county signed the contract in 1988, a landfill shortage was looming, and the county was looking
to find a place for local trash. Lake County agreed to issue bonds to finance the incinerator
28 Waste Incineration: A Dying Technology