COVID-19 Exposes the Dangers of Burning Trash

Ana Baptista, PhD, Director, Tishman Environment and Design Center, Assistant Professor of Professional Practice, The New School

Adrienne Perovich, MPA, Assistant Director Tishman Environment and Design Center, The New School

There is so much we don’t yet know about COVID-19, but there is evidence the virus is especially deadly for those who live in neighborhoods with elevated air pollution. This environmental reality is almost certainly contributing to the disproportionately higher number of COVID deaths in Black and Latinx communities.

There is a wealth of empirical evidence that communities of color and low-income communities, also known as environmental justice (EJ) communities, face disproportionate pollution burdens and are not equally protected from environmental hazards under the law. Dirty industries are more often sited in communities of color with lax environmental protections and oversight. 

Now we are seeing the deadly and unequal health impact of air pollution in real time. A Harvard University study published on April 5th concluded that a relatively small increase in airborne particulate matter is associated with a 15 percent increase in the COVID-19 death rate. 

One major contributor to air pollution in environmental justice communities, including high amounts of particulate matter, is waste incineration. Harvard’s COVID-19 study is the grim bookend to an earlier study by the Tishman Environment and Design Center (created using U.S. EPA data) showing that almost all municipal solid waste incinerators – about 80 percent of them – are located within three miles or less of communities of color and low-income communities. It’s clear why no one wants to live next to a trash incinerator. Environmental justice communities have resisted the siting of these dirty facilities in their communities for decades and will continue to do so. Many communities have won the closure of a waste incinerator, most recently in Detroit, where sustained, community-led opposition resulted in shutting down the Detroit Renewable Power facility in 2019. 

Burning municipal waste – a mix of every material you can imagine, including plastics and metals – produces highly toxic emissions and byproducts including lead and mercury. Trash incinerators emit nitrogen oxide pollution, which is specifically linked to respiratory ailments including irritation of the nose, throat, lungs. Carbon monoxide is also released, which contributes to ground-level ozone, a major trigger of asthma as well as sulfur dioxide– a pollutant that can aggravate asthma, even with extremely limited exposure. Incinerators have also been found to emit six times more mercury, per unit of energy, than coal-burning energy facilities.  

Even more shocking is the fact that state and local governments support this dirty industry with generous waste disposal contracts paid for by taxpayer dollars or through renewable energy subsidies. In order to cloak their image as polluters and qualify for renewable energy subsidies, incineration plants rebranded themselves as “waste-to-energy” facilities.  But incinerators in fact produce a negligible amount of energy and are considered among the most inefficient and expensive forms of energy generation along with being highly polluting. The contracts and subsidies given to the incineration industry hurts taxpayer wallets in the short term and the health of vulnerable populations over the long term.  

Cities across the United States have been burning more of their trash since China began refusing our recyclable materials. The current COVID crisis is generating a sudden increase in both residential waste and contaminated medical waste. This sudden increase in waste will likely increase emissions in already overburdened communities hit hardest by the pandemic and can further exacerbate the susceptibility of EJ communities to COVID mortality. 

The unfair burden that these incinerators place on environmental justice communities - coupled with the sad news that there’s an increasing amount of trash being burned - means increased negative health impacts for vulnerable residents living near these facilities. 

The swath of tragedy caused by COVID-19 is difficult to comprehend and accept, especially the elements of human suffering and death that might have been avoided. We cannot let these deaths be in vain - this crisis is an opportunity to learn from our mistakes and radically change our business as usual approach to many systems - including the waste management system. State and local officials must reconsider any future incineration industry investment decisions through the lens of COVID-19 deaths. This pandemic is an opportunity to stop the dangerous practice of waste incineration and instead tackle the root of our waste problems through reduction, plastic bans, and organics diversion to prioritize the equal protection of public health.   

REFERENCES

CDC, Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): FAQ for Healthcare Professionals (last updated March 22, 2020), https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/faq.html.

Healthcare Waste Institute, Frequently Asked Questions 2019 Novel Coronavirus (March 9, 2020),https://cdn.ymaws.com/wasterecycling.org/resource/resmgr/hwi_minutes/HWI_COVID-2019_FAQs.pdf.

EA Crunden, “Medical waste companies preparing for potentially elevated volumes as coronavirus concerns accelerate,” WasteDive (March 17, 2020), https://www.wastedive.com/news/coronavirus-covid-19-medical-waste-contamination-stericycle-veolia/574155/.

James Marshall, “Could the U.S., like China, face a medical waste crisis?” E&E News (March 24, 2020), https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2020/03/24/stories/1062690625.

EA Crunden, “Medical waste companies preparing for potentially elevated volumes as coronavirus concerns accelerate,” WasteDive (March 17, 2020), https://www.wastedive.com/news/coronavirus-covid-19-medical-waste-contamination-stericycle-veolia/574155/.

Justine Calma, “The COVID-19 pandemic is generating tons of medical waste,” The Verge (March 26, 2020), https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21194647/the-covid-19-pandemic-is-generating-tons-of-medical-waste.

Oliver Milman, “‘Moment of Reckoning’: US cities burn recyclables after China bans imports,” The Guardian (February 21, 2019). https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/feb/21/philadelphia-covanta-incinerator-recyclables-china-ban-imports

Michael Corkery, “As costs skyrocket, more US cities stop recycling,” The New York Times (March 16, 2019). https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/16/business/local-recycling-costs.html