Waste Not! Carroll

From Carroll County Times

By Don West

Over the past several months much has been said about the proposed waste to energy incinerator. During that period, I have observed some interesting changes in the language associated with the project.

One of the most significant changes is how the project is defined. At first, it was a means of disposing of our municipal solid waste that, in turn, generated some electricity as a by-product. Now, it is defined as an electrical power plant that burns trash as fuel instead of coal or oil.

This is an enormous change since, just a few months ago, proponents of the incinerator successfully argued before the Public Service Commission that these facilities are not power plants. If they had been found to be so, our incinerator would have been subject to more rigorous permitting, regulation and emission controls. Once the case was settled, this new language now serves the proponents public relations effort.

Another interesting change has involved the amount of solid waste we currently generate. Finally, local officials admit that we can supply the new incinerator with only about 1/2 of the trash we are required to on the day it opens. Their solution to this shortfall is to try to entice neighboring jurisdictions to bring their trash to us. That's right, our local trash problem is going to be solved by importing other folks' trash.

Similarly, it was recently pointed out to the officials pushing for this project that increased recycling efforts have been diminishing the quality of the heat generating capabilities of the remaining waste. It seems that when paper and plastics are diverted to recycling, the remaining trash just doesn't burn as hot, which in turn leads to less generation of electricity - remember the power plant argument.

Believe it or not, they have a solution for this problem, too. Once again, it is more trash. The theory is that lower quality trash can be offset by burning more of it.

When I began to research this project over a year ago, I heard it was all about making our trash go away. I have since learned that this is not true either. Now I know that Carroll County's investment of up to $400 million in this project will entitle us to get rid of a lot of other people's trash, too.

Don H. West

Westminster

The writer is co-founder of Waste Not! Carroll.