lsree t1_iyexj2j wrote
Reply to comment by jabbadarth in Baltimore County's landfill transforms rotting garbage gas into electricity to combat climate change by lmshertz
It's worse than burning trash because
- Not all the methane is captured. Methane is 80x more potent than CO2 and incineration generates none.
- Not incinerating leads to a larger landfill footprint with long term environmental effects. (I agree that consuming less is better but I don't see that happening).
- Waste incineration generates significantly more power than this methane recapture.
- It's easier to mine the trash for recyclable metals after trash has been burnt than if it's in the dump.
- Western Europe and Singapore have used incineration with great success. Just because BRESCO failed to comply with EPA standards and the EPA and MD state failed to enforce proper filtration does not make the entire method invalid.
jabbadarth t1_iyez8lr wrote
There are other games aside from co2 and methane and other issues with burning trash. Air quality around incinerators is markedly worse than away from them and things like nitrous oxide and ammonia are expelled in the smoke that comes from them.
I'm not saying eliminate incineration, nor am I an expert but solely looking at greenhouse gases ignores a lot of other issues with both scenarios.
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