Stop Feeding The Fire

By Lucy Corlett

In April of 2019, community members and local advocates authored a petition asking Mayor Kenney not to renew the city’s contract with Covanta Delaware Valley. A few weeks later, the city put out a press release that indicates that they have not entered into a long term deal with the incinerator. I’ve included some excerpts below:

Mayor Kenney joined city officials today to unveil plans for the City’s new recycling contract with Waste Management. Under the newly proposed contract, 100 percent of recyclables will be processed at a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF). The City will pay $90 to $100 per ton to process the collected recyclables under a best-value contract, with incentives for decreasing recycling contamination. The City is currently operating under an interim agreement that mimics the terms of the proposed contract. 

“The Streets Department along with representatives from Procurement and the Law Department worked intently to deliver a contract that combined fiscal responsibility with incentives for cleaning up the recycling stream,” said Mayor Jim Kenney. “Ultimately, the best value has been negotiated on behalf of all taxpayers, getting us back on track with our goals for Zero Waste by 2035.”

From Streets Commissioner Carlton Williams: “We hope to change behaviors and attitudes towards recycling by simplifying our messages about what goes in the recycling bin and what stays out,” “We are introducing a new educational component and tactics that include providing feedback directly to residents about what they are placing in the recycling bins at homes inadvertently or intentionally.” 

And still, our waste problem remains unresolved. “How we’re addressing the global recycling issue,” a page of the city’s website, states that “Much of Philadelphia’s and the nation’s contaminated recycling was being sent to landfills or incinerators for decades,” before the China ban, and even when selling recyclables was a viable option for municipalities in the U.S. 

So the ban is not the problem. And incineration is not the solution. And, it seems, the current contract is not a solution, either. In July, I mentioned my research on recycling incineration to a group of friends. As I was explaining that Philadelphia had come to a short-term resolution of the recycling crisis in the spring, my friend Christina informed me that trash collectors on her block in West Philadelphia had been pouring the contents of her and her neighbor’s recycling bins into the same truck that collected their garbage. “I confronted the trash collector and asked why they were putting recyclables and trash in the same truck,” she said. “He said it was just what they had been told to do.” 

I do not know the current status of the city’s recycling system. I don't know if we are separating recyclables from trash, if we are incinerating 60 percent or 40 percent, or none at all. I do know that we can’t carry on with short term contracts and waste management solutions that threaten public health so significantly. As a city, we produce around 2.5 million tons of trash each year. Where is that supposed to go if not into a fire? 

We need to produce less waste. I am far from the first person the first to point this out. At the federal level, Representative Ilhan Omar has introduced the Zero Waste Act, which aims to initiate a transition to a zero-waste economy in the United States. After announcing that she intended to push for the bill, Omar cited “the placement of incinerators in low-income communities” as one of her main motivations.  

In December of 2016, Mayor Kenney signed Executive Order 13-16, which called for the creation of the Zero Waste and Litter Cabinet. Since then, the group of  “major City departments and agencies, City Council representatives, community stakeholders, and chaired by the Managing Director’s Office,” aims to keep Philadephia on track to “fully eliminate the use of landfills and conventional incinerators by 2035.”  The initiative is ambitious and appropriate, given the city’s ever-growing waste crisis. The Action Plan, as it is briefly outlined on their site, intends to “reduce and divert 90% of the waste generated in the city away from the trash” and focus on reducing waste in buildings and at events, “engaging Philadelphia’s residents, businesses, and institutions in Zero Waste, and “exploring new ways to reduce and divert waste.” 

Philadelphia’s full Zero Waste plan is detailed and honest about the challenges involved in changing public waste disposal practices, stressing that its success depends on the participation of individual city residents. We can make Zero Waste possible in Philadelphia by educating ourselves, properly disposing of our waste, and paying attention when the city doesn’t keep its promises. Our waste crisis can be mitigated if we acknowledge our agency as consumers and disposers. Choosing to bring a reusable mug for your coffee for a week means at least five fewer cups in a landfill or ash pile. Composting might cut your household waste in half. Telling your neighbors to keep plastic bags and pizza boxes out of their blue bins could save your neighborhood's recycling from the incinerator. Every decision and every conversation counts. The less we feed trash fires and fills, the more we help ourselves, our children, and our planet.