LONG BEACH, Calif. Reduce. Reuse. Recycling is a common refrain for most Californians. Trash goes into the black bin, while recyclables go into the blue. There are separate bins for garden waste or compostables. Incineration is a common method used by many Southern California cities to divert their waste away from landfills.
The California legislature has introduced a bill this week to end the practice. Assembly bill 1857, a bill introduced by Assemblymember Cristina Garcia of Bell Gardens, would end a California waste law incentive that grants cities a credit for burning trash, rather than sending it to landfills. It would also redefine the term incineration and require the state’s waste management agency to prioritize zero waste strategies.
What You Need to Know
- California’s AB 1857 bill is a proposal that would discourage cities from diverting landfill waste to incinerators.
- California has two municipal solid-waste incinerators: Covanta Stanislaus and Southeast Resource Recovery Facility, Long Beach.
- California’s waste law requires that municipalities divert at least 50% of their waste from landfills. Incineration can meet 10% of this goal.
- Annually, more than 42,000,000 tons of material are disposed of in California landfills
Garcia stated that Garcia believes it is time for the legislature’s update of the state policy on municipal incinerators. This will help advance equity and sustainability.
There are just two waste incinerators in the state of California: Southeast Resource Recovery Facility in Long Beach and Covanta Stanislaus in Stanislaus County. Both facilities are located in environmental justice communities that include a higher proportion of people of colour.
Garcia said that municipal waste incinerators are a reminder about how environmental racism can be accepted as a policy-neutral solution even though the story is always more complex.
California’s AB 939 law, which was passed in 1989, requires that municipalities divert at least 50% of their waste from landfills to be diverted towards recycling, source reduction, composting, and reuse. Many cities take advantage of a credit provided by the law to be able to divert waste to an incinerator and achieve 10% of their goal.
You have the idea that burning your waste is just as beneficial to recycling, reuse and composting because of this incentive. This is a result that significant amounts waste from across the state will be going to incinerators located in communities that are most affected by this loophole, said Byron Chan of Earthjustice, an associate attorney who has been working with community organizations advocating for the closures of incinerators in Long Beach.
Whitney Amaya, a West Long Beach resident, said that incineration is just like landfilling. Whitney Amaya is a zero-waste organizer for East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice and lives five miles from SERRF. There is always an either-or argument. However, we believe there is a better method to manage our waste. It’s your resources. They are irreplaceable.
According to CalRecycle.com, California has not issued any permits for new incinerators since the 1990s. However, it is legal for the two remaining municipal solid-waste incinerators to continue operating in California.
Amaya mentioned that there are many polluting businesses in our communities. She cited the Port at Long Beach and the trucks that provide service to it. The incinerator sector is a major player. It has a direct impact on the health outcomes we see and feel.
CalRecycle identifies the hazardous byproducts from burning municipal waste as bottom ash, which is the noncombustible ashes of the incineration process, which includes metals; flyash, which must be treated like hazardous waste; and fluegas emissions, which are released into our atmosphere.
The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments required incineration facilities be equipped to reduce emissions. According to CalRecycle, this has led to large reductions in the emissions of pollutants such a sulfur dioxide, dioxins, and nitrousoxide. However, there may still be volatile organic compounds, heavy metallics, persistent organic pollutants, and furans.
These emissions have been linked to respiratory, cardiovascular, and reproductive health issues. However, landfills also produce emissions that contribute to climate changes. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, they are one of the largest sources of methane in the country. This greenhouse gas is 25 times more potent that carbon dioxide.
We have pollutants, but we were very regulated on what emissions we emit and were able meet those regulations,” said Alan Foley, Long Beachs Bureau Manager of Electric Generation. The South Coast Air Quality Management District regulates Long Beach’s SERRF incinerator. We have done health risk assessments and found that our emissions have a negligible impact on the community.
Foley stated that SERRF is preferred by cities over landfilling.
He said that for every ton that is disposed of through waste-to energy, one ton of greenhouse gases or their carbon equivalent are not released into the atmosphere. He also stated that the Long Beach incinerator produces 35 megawatts of electricity which the city sells to its power grid.
Long Beach accounts for 40% of the solid refuse that is burned at SERRF. The rest comes from nearby communities that transport it to the facility. Foley stated that Lakewood and Signal Hill, Pasadena, Norwalk, and Pasadena are the top five cities for diverting waste from landfills in order to be incinerated at SERRF.
Los Angeles plans to divert 100% landfill waste by 2050 under the city’s Green New Deal. However, Long Beach SERRF is not used regularly. Heather Johnson, spokesperson for LA Sanitation and Environment, stated that it is part of our contingency plans/adverse conditions. She said that in the last five years, the facility has been used only once to process 176 tonnes. This is despite the fact that the city collects 900,000.000 tons of waste each year.
In 2020, 382 tons of waste was processed by the SERRF Long Beach. According to CalRecycle, Covanta Stanislaus, Stanislaus County, processed 278 tons. California residents throw away an average of 6.7 pounds of waste each day, and 42.2 million tons of material are disposed of annually in landfills.
California’s move to a circular-use economy offers an opportunity to encourage source reduction, reuse, and products that are designed to flow back into the system to facilitate efficient collection and in-state manufacturing, CalRecycle explained to Spectrum News 1. California is currently working on the foundation for a zero-waste society.