A comprehensive new report “Waste incineration and the Environment” released today finds that burning waste, especially plastics, produces unsustainable and unmanageable hazardous air emissions and large amounts of highly toxic solid residues (ash), concluding that waste incineration is not a solution to the triple planetary crisis – it actually contributes to it. The report is authored by IPEN, the International Pollutants Elimination Network.
What is the triple planetary crisis?
The triple planetary crisis refers to the three main interlinked issues that humanity currently faces: climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. Each of these issues has its own causes and effects and each issue needs to be resolved if we are to have a viable future on this planet.
Climate change
Incinerators convert waste directly into greenhouse gases, toxic emissions and ash.
The proposed Te Awamutu incinerator would produce 145-165kt/CO2e per year, an amount that the agency says is “significant on a national level”. The Environmental Protection Agency’s advice is that the incinerator emissions would “contribute to significant changes in the environment including the global environment.”
Air Pollution is the largest cause of disease and premature death in the world, with more than seven million people dying prematurely each year due to pollution. Incredibly, nine out of ten people worldwide breathe air that contains levels of pollutants that exceed WHO guidelines.
In Aotearoa the situation with air pollution is horrific. In 2016, human-made (anthropogenic) air pollution in New Zealand resulted in an estimated: 3,317 premature deaths (in people aged 30+ years) 13,155 hospitalisations for cardiovascular and respiratory disease, including 845 hospitalisations for childhood asthma. We already have an air pollution crisis – incinerators will add to it.
Biodiversity loss refers to the decline or disappearance of biological diversity, which includes animals, plants and ecosystems. With plans to site toxic incinerators on floodplains in both Waimate and Te Awamutu with emissions of dioxin, heavy metals and lead – and with clear evidence that the land and animals close to incinerators are contaminated by these – we can be sure that any incinerators here will have devastating impacts on local ecosystems and communities.
Not a solution for Aotearoa NZ’s waste
Incinerators are not solutions to waste. They actually create new forms of waste: dirty air emissions, toxic ash and liquid discharge. They are just another end-of-the-pipe response to waste that encourages its continual production.