University study reveals the “Scientific Truth about Waste-to-Energy.”
Waste-to-energy is “one of eight technologies likely to make a meaningful contribution to a future low-carbon energy system.”
“We therefore commit to further reduce, reuse, and recycle waste (3Rs), and to increase energy recovery from waste."
Waste-to-energy is a “key greenhouse gas mitigation technology.”
“Under the Obama Administration Clean Power Plan promulgated in 2015, new Waste-to-Energy facilities were eligible to generate Emission Rate Credits.”
Waste-to-Energy “generates a renewable energy source and reduces carbon emissions by offsetting the need for energy from fossil sources and reduces methane generation from landfills.”
“Waste prevention and re-use are the most preferred options, followed by recycling (including composting), then energy recovery, while waste disposal through landfills should be the very last resort.”
Waste-to-energy is identified as one of the “targeted measures” to implement in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“Trash burned at a Waste-to-Energy facility doesn’t’ generate methane, as it would at a landfill; the metals that would have been sent to the landfill are recycled instead of thrown out; and the electricity generated offsets the greenhouse gasses that would otherwise have been generated from coal and natural gas plants.”
“We find that municipal solid waste combustion is a better alternative than landfill disposal in terms of net energy impacts and carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gas emissions.”
“California Waste-to-Energy facilities provide net avoided methane emissions over waste otherwise disposed in California landfill.”
"Combusting waste in the three waste-to-energy thermal facilities in California results in net negative greenhouse gas emissions.”
“Harvesting these leftover materials as solid waste energy sources could provide multiple environmental benefits.”
“Increasing Waste-to-Energy capacity appear to provide the greatest potential for controlling future methane emission from landfilled waste.”