Recycling and Incineration [antikvár]

FOREWORDWith little warning, managing our garbage has become a problem of immense proportions. This has traditionally been a task that few of us thought twice about, content to leave it to our municipal public works or sanitation managers to choose how and where to haul it away. Events in just the last few years, however, have made it apparent that there is no "away" Both the costs and environmental consequences of dealing with garbage in our own communities have skyrocketed. The growing number of attempts to export it to other states or even other countries are, understandably, bitterly opposed by their residents. Increasingly, we are recognizing the need for wholly new approaches to addressing this old problem.Americans now generate 160 million tons of garbage every year, approaching one ton per person. This amount is growing every year and greatly exceeds that produced by citizens in most of the other developed countries of the world. Congress has heard loud and clear from municipalities across the country about a solid waste disposal crisis. If not every community, a substantial number of our towns, cities, and counties are struggling with the problems of waste disposal and facing formidable hurdles. Typically, the crisis initially manifests itself in the form of landfill shortages. Underlying such shortages, however, is not only the fact that many landfills have simply filled up, but also that many have been forced to close because they cannot meet today's environmental standards or are contaminating groundwater or surface water. The resulting local opposition to the siting of neweven if more safely designedlandfills further magnifies these factors.Whatever its cause, the crisis is causing a revolution in the way we handle our solid waste. One part of that revolution is a new effort to make recycling, composting, and waste reduction, and, in many cases, waste-to-energy incineration work for communities.While solid waste has always been viewed as a local problem, it isxix