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Harmful pollution from municipal waste incinerators must be regulated
In many parts of the country, household waste is sent to municipal incinerators for burning, instead of to the landfill. The harmful air pollution from these incinerators is alarming.
In January 2024, EPA proposed to strengthen protections from incinerator pollution—a proposal long overdue. This is an important step. But the proposed rule is no match for the vast amounts of hazardous air pollution, greenhouse gases, and hazardous wastes produced by municipal solid waste incinerators, or combustors. Many of these incinerators are located in historically marginalized communities already overburdened with dirty air from toxic industrial facilities.
Nearly 20 years have gone by since these incinerator standards were last updated. Many incinerators are operating with long-outdated, heavily polluting technology, and some are illegally burning medical and industrial waste in addition to municipal trash.
Plastic has made pollution from incinerators worse
In recent decades the toxicity of municipal trash has increased due to the growing concentration of plastic in the waste stream. Plastic waste is on track to triple by 2050. That means much more plastic will be sent to incinerators. More than 13,000 chemicals are used in plastics production, yet EPA regulates waste incinerators for only 9 air pollutants.
When plastic is burned, it releases particulates, dioxins, heavy metals, PFAS chemicals, and other harmful air pollutants, all of which have well-documented harmful effects on human health.
EPA’s proposed rule could be stronger
Moms Clean Air Force is urging EPA to finalize the strongest possible pollution protections for municipal incinerators. A strong rule would do the following:
- Expand the list of chemicals that are regulated. The Clean Air Act explicitly requires EPA to regulate emissions of polycyclic organic matter (such as PAHs) and PCBs, but EPA has not done so. Nor does EPA monitor and control the toxic forever chemicals known as PFAS. Researchers are finding that rather than break down all the PFAS chemicals in plastic waste, incinerators can release them through the stacks into surrounding communities.
- Tighten the standards (go beyond the “Maximum Achievable Control Technology floors”) for lead, cadmium, mercury, dioxins, particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and other dangerous pollutants. This is particularly important to protect our children’s developing lungs.
- Require continuous emissions monitoring for all regulated pollutants. EPA requires only that the emissions data for CO, NOX, and SO2 be collected continuously. For dioxins and other toxic chemicals, EPA lets companies get away with monitoring only one time per year—for six hours—adjusting the timing and the waste stream to ensure the purity of their emissions. EPA’s reasoning for this minimalist approach is that continuous air monitoring devices “have not been extensively applied commercially and lack the extensive track record of the more established [continuous air monitors].” If not required to use continuous monitoring technologies, U.S. incinerators will never develop a domestic track record.
We support EPA’s proposal to eliminate exclusions for data collected during Startup, Shutdown, and Malfunction (SSM). If EPA requires the continuous monitoring of more pollutants, then similarly there should not be an SSM exclusion for those pollutants.
- Strengthen pre-combustion controls. Require incinerators to separate materials before loading all the waste into their furnaces. The current lack of pre-combustion controls is highly damaging to the recycling of metal, paper, and glass. Pre-combustion controls should sort out PVC and other chlorinated plastics and materials that emit heavy metals, dioxins, and other pollutants when burned. Food and other organic waste should be diverted to composting facilities. Paper, cardboard, metals, and glass should all be recycled.
- Revise the incinerator standards to prevent fires and other incidents, and to protect workers and surrounding communities. Examples of safety provisions that can be required include community emergency response plans; facility installation of sensors, sorting, and inspection technology; thermal imaging cameras; and fire suppression technology.
- Add municipal waste combustors, pyrolysis units, and other incinerators to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). The TRI is the EPA’s tracking inventory for hazardous chemicals released by industrial facilities. TRI makes data on toxic pollution available to the public and to decision makers.
- Remove exemptions for pyrolysis, cement kilns that fire municipal solid waste, and other combustion units. Plastics pyrolysis incinerators and cement kilns burn some of the most toxic components of the waste stream; they should not be allowed to sidestep the critical air pollution controls of the Clean Air Act.
Take action
Moms are counting on EPA to protect people from the deadly chemicals released by burning plastics and other wastes. Join us in urging the agency to finalize the strongest possible protections.
Learn more about Moms’ work on waste incineration.
Released: March 2024