I see these articles about landfills overflowing and waste being improperly dumped in our oceans. Why can’t we just burn all of the garbage and never have to deal with it again?
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The trick is pretty much to burn the trash INSTEAD of putting it in a landfill. So that the landfill doesn’t expand any. Because incinerating trash from a landfill is quite a hassle for a handful of reasons.
The idea that you can incinerate trash and use the heat as a source of energy is used in a lot of cities for city-wide central heating systems. But for hilarious reasons, the hot water for several hundred thousand citizens is considered a byproduct; it’s often the stem-powered electrical generator that is the REAL money making machine in the system.
But it also comes with the problem that if you want it to be financially sound to incinerate trash, you also need to have a need of the heat and electricity nearby. And this is one of the reasons why landfills are more popular in warmer climates; no-one has started to look at the landfill (problematic or not) as a free source of fuel, yet.
Incinerators that burn trash also constantly deal with the problem that they have very little control over the chemical composition of their fuel; it’s quite difficult to get an automated combustion process where the temperature is constantly optimal for the desired catalyst cleansing on the chimney. Most of them control the combustion process with…petrol. Or diesel. An oil derivate of some kind, anyway.
But that is kind of how trash incinerators have become tolerated; they provide electricity that is sought after and heat as a nice by-product. And to do it, they steal trash away from the hideously ugly idea that the landfills are.
The simple truth is that incinerators are not exactly awesome. But in comparison to a landfill, it’s actually a pretty good idea anyway.
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