Discussion on:

Why Sweden needs more trash

A rock (cave) to build out of the ashes, covered by earth. For a rainy day.

Wonder what will happen when questions start concerning the stack effluents from burning the waste, and in whose backyard are the 'toxic' ashes are being buried.

This is the kind of "trash talk" we can all use, especially here in the United States. While burning trash is not exactly the cleanest way to produce electricity, it is, as I understand it, cleaner than coal. And trash is everywhere, meaning each municipality could produce most of it's own power instead of relying on it being transmitted over long distances from remote facilities. This would take a lot of pressure off the national grid...if it would be allowed. My guess is that this solution to the massive problem of trash has been suggested before but only allowed in a few places by forward thinking pols. That, or this solution is regulated so heavily that no one has the money to devote to it. Or wants to. Yet, imagine: states or municipalities getting into bidding wars over trash!

Burning trash is a lot worse than coal. Trash contains all kinds of trace compounds from the manufacturing process that get into the air during burning. Some noxious compounds are creating during the burning process as well. While you can try to filter out the bad stuff, the record of trash-burning plants is very bad, and several have been closed.

Even burning wood is worse than coal. A recent article by the Wall Street Journal found that here in the US, 85 out of 107 wood burning plants have been cited with at least minor violations of environmental laws in the past five years (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303740704577524822063133842.html ).

We have known for many years about the export of ordinary trash to Sweden, but not about getting toxic waste in return. I wonder where they dump it, exactly . . . .

Last year I produced a public radio special called "Sustaindinavia!" about waste-to-energy plants in Copenhagen, Denmark. To Diveguy's concern about stack emissions, I stood below the stack outside a fully operating W2E plant on a clear day and could see nothing coming from it. The advanced scrubbing and filtering technologies they use are impressive. Another key to low toxicity is a legal restriction on what can go into the trash. PVC, for example, must be disposed of separately so as not to burn it. Here's the podcast of the radio program --
http://energypriorities.com/2011/12/sustaindinavia-copenhagens-integrated-approach-to-energy/

The technologies available to make trash burning a clean alternative are out there for everyone. Alarmist talk that such will produce massive pollution has no place in reality. The Scandinavian countries, along with Germany, etc. are moving forward to a cleaner, brighter, sustainable future that benefits all while countries like the United States let the vested interests dictate their future.

Why is simply asking a question about the toxic leftovers alarmist? Does any rational question regarding being green that could be seen as a criticism automatically alarmist? It's not even a criticism. Good for them, but where does even the smallest amounts of toxic waste leftover go? This is a reasonable question. Those amounts become large over several decades or when huge consumers like America begin to do the same. These are legitimate questions, not alarmist criticisms.

Here's a bit more context on emissions from waste-to-energy plants. According to Sweden, their plants produce 90-99% less air pollutants than they did in the 1980s. There's specific information about the drop off of each pollutant during that time and a really interesting graph showing the rise of electricity production and the decline in pollutants, in this document:

http://www.avfallsverige.se/fileadmin/uploads/forbranning_eng.pdf

And FWIW, here's research the U.S. EPA did on the subject: "per unit electricity generated, greenhouse gases emissions from landfills are two to six times higher than those generated from plants that burn waste."

More here: http://www.epa.gov/sciencematters/april2010/scinews_energy-from-waste.htm

@cliffmeixner: It is a good question. Obviously, worst case senario is that the toxic ash is disposed of and seeps into groundwater. Again, here's what the EPA has to say about it (scroll down to "Municipal Solid Waste"): http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-and-you/affect/sw-generation.html

good article! thx for doing the reporting.

Don

One thing that India has plenty of is trash! You see it all over the streets and in the alley ways.If the Swedes want trash, all they need to do is to call Indian "trash minister" and take all trash that is piled up all over the country. Two things will be achieved - 1. India will become clean 2. Swedes will never run out of renewable energy!!

Why doesn't Sweden help India produce these power plants? Since Sweden is so great and a model for us all, why don't they help countries like India, and for that matter, the USA, develop the same practices? India has such a huge and slow bureaucratic system that it would take years to implement without help.

but no one was interested at the time. Now that we have showed how well it works everybody is whining. By the way, Finland exports it's energywaste to Sweden too.

Burning coal wouldn't be a problem if the managers of coal-burning plants weren't so STUPID! If you catch, cool and condense the smoke from burning coal, you get a valuable product called Coal Tar -- which is very useful for making colorfast dyes for textiles. Likewise, smoke from burning trash can be caught, cooled, condensed, and put to use. I simply cannot understand why managers of any coal or trash-burning plant keep throwing money up the chimney.

--Leslie Fish

Hey, in Oakland, CA all the youthful sociopaths toss their empty (usually) containers from take-away businesses all over the streets and roads - it's a FU kind of behavior. Also, empty bottles from boozing while driving are available as broken glass on the same streets - flung out the car windows. We could recycyle the glass and burn the trash.

Burning trash is a lot worse than coal. Trash contains all kinds of trace compounds from the manufacturing process that get into the air during burning. Some noxious compounds are creating during the burning process as well. While you can try to filter out the bad stuff, the record of trash-burning plants is very bad, and several have been closed.