INCINERATOR FREE – Lake County

“The proponents of incinerators claim the new breed of incinerators are not problem polluters. But the industry’s own data prove the contrary. Modern incinerators emit mercury at a rate five times higher per unit of electricity generated by coal, and greenhouse gases at a rate substantially higher than coal-fired or natural gas-fired plants…”
“But this argument [that burning waste is an energy source] fails to recognize that burning garbage is a very inefficient way to generate energy. Indeed a waste incinerator generates substantially less energy that would be gained by recycling those materials instead of burning them. For example, recycling plastics conserves 10 to 25 times more the energy [than] generated by burning plastics.” — JOHN JACKSON, DIRECTOR, CLEAN PRODUCTION, GREAT LAKES UNITED, http://www.environmentnorth.ca/Docs/Waste_Incinerators.pdf