Why Are We Against the Incinerator?

Public Health Hazards

Burning anything from wood to coal releases particles that enter the air we breathe. While most of the particles found in natural materials are harmless, there are serious health risks associated with burning solid waste. Dioxins, known to cause cancer, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) can be released over huge areas, posing moderate health risks for anyone within a 50-mile radius of a waste incinerator and serious health risks for anyone closer. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, incinerators are the leading source of dioxin into the global environment. Although there have been considerable improvements in the capture and containment of these materials, the fact remains that we'd be burning our trash at the expense of our health. The groundwater and the air will be affected, and so would cows and other animals in our local farms. Our food and milk could become contaminated with the cancer-causing dioxins, which get stored in the animals' fat.

The British Society for Ecological Medicine states:

"… science is continually evolving and research studies are revealing toxicity at progressively lower exposures for many toxic substances. This trend is certain to continue. Secondly there is the historical fact that regulators have consistently and repeatedly underestimated the risk of pollutants and toxic chemicals." (see full PDF)

There are medically proven health hazards — cancer, birth defects, respiratory problems, lymphoma, sarcoma — from living close to one incinerator, but many residents, such as in Adamstown, Buckeystown and Point of Rocks, would be near this now-approved facility AND the Dickerson, Maryland, facility, increasing their health risks.

Read a letter that a Florida doctor and member of the Physicians for Social Responsibility sent to Frederick County and Carroll County commissioners, the Maryland Municipal League, the medical boards of both counties, and Frederick's mayor, warning them of the risks of waste incineration.

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection "estimates that solid waste combustors [incinerators that primarily burn household trash, also referred to as municipal solid waste combustors] are the largest source category [of mercury], emitting slightly more than 6,000 pounds of mercury per year. Incinerators that burn medical and related wastes also appear to be a significant source, although less so than estimated in a previous EPA report on mercury emissions nationwide."

Waste-to-energy incinerators convert 10% to 30% of the waste burned into toxic ash, which the EPA allows to be used as daily landfill cover. Waste-to-energy incinerators do NOT eliminate the need for a landfill. Instead, they create the need for a landfill with potentially hazardous ash as a byproduct of the burning. Read more about the problems with the ash (PDF).

Southern Frederick County has already faced enough pollution and contamination. Groundwater contamination occurred as recently as 2006 from Eastalco (see articles: 1, 2 and 3) and in the late 1980s from Trans-Tech (Skyworks) (PDF) on Adamstown Road. See pollution reports (with information from the U.S. EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) on Eastalco, Essroc (closed for now) and Dickerson's incinerator. If you search for Frederick county's "Facilities Releasing TRI Chemicals to Land," you find all three of them are in the Adamstown/Buckeystown area! The reports show them rated on the scale toward the "dirtiest/worst facilities in the United States."

Montgomery County residents who live near the Dickerson incinerator have expressed concern over the number of rare cancers in their area and wonder if they could be linked to the incinerator (as of January 2009, a cancer cluster study is being conducted in Poolesville, Maryland, by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

Stories about other incinerators:

View the plethora of environmental groups opposed to waste incineration. Even The Florida Medical Board passed a resolution in 2008 regarding the health impacts of waste incinerators.

Sources/further reading: