A new study says Maryland’s two major trash-burning power plants produce more pollution than four of the state’s largest coal-fired plants.
Maryland’s trash-burning plants — which the state considers sources of renewable energy — generated up to five times the amount of mercury and up to 18 times the amount of lead than its coal-fired plants between 2007 and 2009, according to the study by the Environmental Integrity Project think tank. The trash-burning plants are also leading sources of nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide.
Maryland is on track to more than double its capacity to incinerate trash in the next decade by expanding one of its plants and breaking ground on two new plants in Baltimore and Frederick County.
The current plants are in Baltimore and in Dickerson in Montgomery County.
“Waste to energy incineration is not clean and it is not renewable,” said Robbie Orvis, who co-authored the report. “We urge Maryland to reconsider the path that it is on to become the trash incinerating capital of the United States.”
While two states, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, have banned new trash incinerators altogether, Maryland last year began requiring utility companies to buy more energy from the waste-to-energy plants.
