Catalina Jaramillo reports for WHYY
Until very recently, Philadelphia burned its recyclable plastic at an incinerator in Chester, one of Pennsylvania’s poorest communities. The city still sends about 30% of its trash to what are known as waste-to-energy facilities, including the one in Chester.
More than 4 million people in the United States live next to such incinerators, which emit lead, particulate matter, mercury, and other pollutants that can cause several diseases, according to a report published this week by The New School in New York City. Eight out of 10 such facilities are located within low-income neighborhoods, among communities of color.
“We wanted to show the reality of how these dirty incinerators are largely concentrated in environmental-justice communities, which is what community residents and activists on the ground have suspected all along,” said Adrienne Perovich, assistant director at the Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School and one of the authors of the study.
“And it turns out that 79 percent of the incinerators in the country right now are located in environmental-justice communities.”
Two of the country’s most polluting incinerators are in poor cities near Philadelphia, the study says. The Delaware Valley Resource Recovery Facility in Chester emits more particulate matter than any other such facility in the country, the study says, releasing in 2014 over 200,000 pounds of PM2.5 — very fine particles that are less than 2.5 microns in width. The Covanta Camden Energy Recovery Facility is the second largest emitter of lead among incinerators nationwide, at 380 pounds in 2014, the study says.
Zulene Mayfield chairs Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living, a group fighting against the city’s incinerator. In an interview Thursday, she said the city’s rate of child hospitalization due to asthma is more than three times the state average.
“It’s literally killing people,” said Mayfield. “The City of Brotherly Love chooses not to incinerate their trash within their border, they don’t mind poisoning our children.”
