TIMES RECORD • April 9, 2021
A recent article seemed to imply that incineration is always preferable to landfilling from a climate perspective. This is not true. One might think that burning waste is better than landfilling because of volume reduction. It certainly seems to get rid of waste very quickly. Yet, when looking at a long-term picture, quick “out of sight, out of mind” solutions are not always the best. Technology and engineering advances have made modern landfills more environmentally-friendly. Modern landfills with energy recovery emit substantially fewer greenhouse gases per ton of waste than incinerators. ~ Shelby D Wright, Casella Waste Systems