Despite a reduction in the requisite material, China continues to build new waste-to-power incinerators. Its policy for utilising waste needs standardising and refining, writes Li Jiacheng
Isn’t incinerating trash bad though? Isn’t it good that they’re running out of trash to burn? The ashe produced still needs to be put in a landfill, so wouldn’t these old landfills that will be dug up be refilled with the waste ash from the incineration process? For-profit waste management is a bad idea regardless… I don’t even think this counts as recycling if you’re just taking all the burnable trash and burning it. That said, it’s clear to me the whole concept of “recycling” is a grift to begin with, since almost all of our waste is just sent over seas to be burned in conditions worse than this, like open burn pits. When you have as many people as China does, you probably have to use every method of disposal to keep up with the waste produced by the population.
Modern waste-to-energy technology is actually less polluting than coal or gas plants, and China is using waste ash for building materials as concrete alternative.
Isn’t incinerating trash bad though? Isn’t it good that they’re running out of trash to burn? The ashe produced still needs to be put in a landfill, so wouldn’t these old landfills that will be dug up be refilled with the waste ash from the incineration process? For-profit waste management is a bad idea regardless… I don’t even think this counts as recycling if you’re just taking all the burnable trash and burning it. That said, it’s clear to me the whole concept of “recycling” is a grift to begin with, since almost all of our waste is just sent over seas to be burned in conditions worse than this, like open burn pits. When you have as many people as China does, you probably have to use every method of disposal to keep up with the waste produced by the population.
Modern waste-to-energy technology is actually less polluting than coal or gas plants, and China is using waste ash for building materials as concrete alternative.
Well then, that’s good to know!
Incinerating trash is “bad” but the methane produced by mixed organic and inorganic waste is much much much worse.