Maryland: 2 Garbage-Burning Incinerators Worse than 4 Coal-Burning Power Plants

Because of the relative abundance of cheap land, most Western states have not seen the kind of garbage-incinerator building spree a lot of the East Coat and Mid-West has experienced over the last 30 or so years. We still landfill our trash in Texas for the most part. In their sales pitches, garbage burners are often touted as "renewable energy," and/or "recycling" – just like TXI's burning of hazardous waste was labeled "recycling." What really happens is that other people poisons get recycled into your lungs. Now theEnvironmental Integrity Project has the audacity to actually compare emissions from garbage burners in Maryland to the state's four coal-fired utility plants, and gosh, those incinerators don't look so green anymore. They generated up to five times more mercury and up to 18 times more lead than all four coal-fired plants between 2007 and 2009. The punchline? Maryland wants to double its trash-burning capacity over the next decade.