Blog 5

Something that I found really interesting in the MacBride readings was the section where she talks about waste-to-energy incinerators (MacBride, 67). She says that the American dependence on oil was “especially worrisome to the public and policymakers during the energy crisis of the late 1970s,” (MacBride, 67). I was curious about why it would have been such a big topic at the time, and what the differences between the incinerators of the 1970s and those of today are.

            It seems like our dependence on foreign oil is still a major issue. One major cause of the oil topic being so prominent in the 70s may be the Arab Oil Embargo. The embargo created a major shortage of oil in the United States starting around 1973, and according to the Office of the Historian (2013),  was created by Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries because the U.S.A. supported Israel in the Arab-Israeli War. I believe that it was this embargo that would cause the United States to feel pressured to find other sources of both oil, and alternative energy so that they would not need as much oil.

            This pressure, as stated in the reading, helped promote the increase in dependence on incinerators and waste-to-energy facilities in the United States. MacBride talks about how during this time period, the main issues that people had against waste-to-energy incineration was that while they do provide energy and help reduce the amount of dependence on oil and reduce the amount of waste going into landfills, they also take away potential waste resources from recycling facilities. The waste-to-energy incinerators, especially when curbside for all, lessen the support for recycling.

            This is still relevant today, with Covanta. Although Covanta does some recycling, a large portion of the waste going into the incinerator is made up of paper and cardboard, which we saw when we went to visit. The first photo I have included shows all of the waste material at Covanta, much of which could have been put to better use in recycling.

Incineration of recyclables happens not only with cardboard and paper, but also with a lot of recyclable metals, which are shown in the second picture. The problem with this is that unlike the cardboard and paper, the metals do not burn much, which would increase the heat for steam energy, but they do end up relatively disfigured and much less useful.

Another thing to note is that the incineration process can also take away from goods that could be sold at goodwill or given away. There were useful things in the ashes, such as the metal spatula, that do not burn.

The carelessness that we saw at the incinerator intensifies my understanding of what MacBride is saying, however, I still wonder if the people of the 1970s understood all of the effects that the incinerators had on the environment. I doubt that they would have been so supportive of the incinerators if they had known about all of the air pollution. Also, I think it is difficult to understand just how much pollution comes from incinerators until you see the ash.