Earlier this month, the Mayor and City Council was presented with a proposal for fixing the city’s overwhelming problems of solid waste disposal, which includes recycling and incineration. Dr Carl Niamatali, who made the presentation, is a well-known local figure with ties to the Guyana Cancer Prevention Society and is also the brains behind the successful Memorial Gardens and Crematorium in the city. Based on the report in this newspaper, his proposal, among other things, detailed the advantages of incineration and the disadvantages of using landfills; the entire country is by now familiar with the latter. Scratch that, it is well known globally that landfills, particularly poorly managed ones, are deathly to the environment. But is incineration the answer?
The answer to that question is that it is highly debatable. Many countries around the world, particularly the more developed ones, like Japan, the US, the UK, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark among others, use incinerators to process waste. In several of them, the incineration system is that of waste to energy. But incineration does more than generate electricity or heat.
Incinerators do not emit odours and noise, nor do they produce methane gas, both of which are hallmarks of landfills. When measured against a landfill, an incinerator is more environmentally friendly. Modern incinerators have filters for trapping pollutants, which makes them ideal for eliminating hospital and clinical waste. It would seem then that incineration has a lot going for it, until one takes a good hard look at the flipside.
Besides energy, incineration also produces ash and flue gas. Now the flue gases are supposed to be cleaned of particulate and gaseous contaminants before being released into the air. But testing in developed countries has revealed that there is still some amount of toxic emission. Then there are instances like last Friday in Newark, New Jersey in the US, when a waste incinerator in a highly populated area began to spew purple smoke. Investigations revealed that it was caused by iodine that was placed in the incinerator and that another similar incident had occurred at the same facility in June this year.
Iodine is a hazardous substance that can cause serious health issues when inhaled. The New Jersey Department of Health has determined that the legal airborne permissible exposure limit should not exceed 0.1 parts per million at any time. The company that owns the incinerator claimed that neither incident was a public hazard, yet, disturbingly, was unable to pinpoint exactly how the iodine entered its facility. This would indicate that the quantity incinerated was unknown.
Then there is the ash. When waste is incinerated, there is fly ash and bottom ash. The fly ash disperses in the atmosphere. The bottom ash, the quantity of which depends on how much waste is burned, has to be disposed of. And guess what, for years incineration companies have been dumping their bottom ash at landfill sites.
Just last month, the authorities in a Miami, Florida community shut down a popular golf course after soil testing found high levels of arsenic, lead and other contaminants. The course had been built on an old incinerator ash dump and according to reports is being eyed for purchase by a group, led by former international footballer David Beckham, that is hoping to build a US$1 billion soccer stadium and shopping complex.
Modern incinerators are nothing like Guyana’s Old Smokey in Princes Street that constantly belched black smoke into the air. But although they are now capable of reducing air pollutants these are not completely eliminated. Additionally, they are not cheap. According to the report, Dr Niamatali outlined the high cost of developing and managing landfills as one of the reasons why they should not be pursued. However, there was no mention of the price of a modern incinerator system which can run to around US$41 million (around $8 billion) or more for a small one, with a 30-year life. This does not include the cost of training people to operate the system. And if this were to be pursued, it would only address the garbage issue in the city.
It is well known, but needs to be said, that there has not been a city council in decades that has adequately managed even the collection of waste, much less its disposal. If Georgetown wants to prove itself a model city, it would be far better off concentrating solely on the part of Dr Niamatali’s proposal that dealt with recycling. Given the state of the planet and the effects of climate change, reduce, reuse, recycle with the aim of zero waste is the greenest concept there is. Everything else is pie in the sky. It is not a concept that was ever seriously introduced or developed here, but it can be. People are not intrinsically opposed to conservation or cleanliness. Littering can be unlearned and love for the environment nurtured, well it’s catching on everywhere else. Why not here?
