MARYLAND is home to two trash incinerators – including one in Baltimore (WIN Waste, formerly Wheelabrator, also known as BRESCO). While a number of counties have recycling systems, the municipal solid waste recycling rates are nowhere close to 75% – the approximate amount of waste that is recyclable, compostable, or reusable. (Source: EPA)
We can do better!
Below is a graph of the typical makeup of household trash, also known as municipal solid waste (MSW). The bigger the pie piece, the more that material contributes to our waste stream.
As you can see, most of what we throw out every day is reusable, recyclable, or compostable! Now let’s extrapolate that makeup to Baltimore’s waste stream. The city, through the Department of Public Works, delivers around 200,000 tons of waste to the incinerator every year. (If we include private contributions, the total is around 425,000 tons.)
That’s a lot of recyclables / reusables / compostables! And it’s all being sent to the incinerator. So, what gives? If 75% of what we throw out is recyclable, reusable, or compostable, why is Baltimore’s residential recycling rate below 20%?
You probably already know, but it’s because of the damn incinerator! Incinerators have to burn a lot of waste to run as “efficiently” as possible. And for every 100 tons of trash you burn, you wind up with 30 tons of ash – which takes up a lot less space in a landfill. So the city has committed to feeding the beast for four decades instead of diverting the waste. Baltimore has never had a robust education program on the benefits of recycling and reuse, or the political will to make an immediate transition. Dante wrote an editorial about WIN Waste’s 40th unhappy anniversary, sharing how classism and racism have undeniably played a role in city policy. While there are some efforts among the bureaucracy to change this – such as a small composting facility in the near future – the city has slow-walked the changes we need.
The TL;DR? Baltimore has harmed its residents for 40 years with a trash incinerator, and that kind of facility cannot coexist with a reuse economy.