Incinerating trash toxifies our air, sickening people, communities, and the planet.
As the City of Philadelphia’s waste disposal contracts near expiration, this is the moment to choose a healthier, greener, and more sustainable path.
PHILADELPHIA – Today, Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, Chair of City Council’s Committee on the Environment, introduced the Stop Trashing Our Air Act, which prohibits the City of Philadelphia from contracting with companies that incinerate the city’s solid waste or recyclables.
Councilmember Jamie Gauthier said, “I’m introducing the Stop Trashing Our Air Act to end the City of Philadelphia’s role in perpetuating environmental racism through trash incineration. The City’s work to build a safer, cleaner, and greener Philly shouldn’t come at the cost of making our neighbors sicker, dirtier, and less safe. That’s not brotherly love. Everyone deserves to breathe clean, trash-free air.”
37% of Philadelphia’s trash is burned. Nearly 1/3rd of materials incinerated at the Reworld (Covanta) trash incinerator in the City of Chester, America’s largest trash incinerator and the region’s top industrial air polluter, comes from Philadelphia. This incinerator alone burns 3,500 tons of trash and industrial waste daily. Over 2,400 tons of scrap tires that are “recycled” in Philadelphia also get incinerated in Chester annually.
Mayor of the City of Chester Stefan Roots said, “The presence of the nation’s largest trash incinerator on the City of Chester’s waterfront is a longstanding issue that requires strong partnership to solve. I thank Councilmember Gauthier and her colleagues for personally visiting Chester to see and hear firsthand the negative impacts of burning trash in Chester, and for introducing legislation to divert Philadelphia’s trash away from the incinerator in Chester. I urge Philadelphia City Council to be good neighbors, pass this bill without delay, and to join us in advancing regional solutions that put environmental justice and public health first. Chester stands ready to partner with Philadelphia to safeguard the health and welfare of our residents.”
Burning Philadelphia’s trash is making Chester, Philadelphia, and other communities around our region sick. 1 in 5 Philadelphia children have asthma, earning our city the title “asthma capital” by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. Philadelphia is also the number two big city for cancer incidence.
Zulene Mayfield, Chair of Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living, said, “Everybody deserves air that is clean enough to sustain life. But for over 30 years, the nation’s largest incinerator has wreaked havoc on our community. No one has the right to take away our children’s breath. That’s why we fully support Councilmember Jamie Gauthier’s Stop Trashing Our Air Act.”
A life cycle assessment conducted for Delaware County found that burning trash and landfilling the toxic ash it generates is 2.3 times more harmful to the environment and human health than sending unburned trash right to a landfill. As Philadelphia works to achieve Zero Waste, the healthier place for our trash is a landfill, not our atmosphere and lungs.
“Chester City is known as one of the nation’s worst cases of environmental racism,” said Mike Ewall, Executive Director of Philadelphia-based Energy Justice Network. “As a Philly resident, I don’t like being surrounded by the nation’s worst cluster of trash incinerators. These are our region’s largest industrial air polluters. Now that we know how much more harm they cause, it’s time to stop feeding them our trash.”
Trash incineration contributes to Southeastern Pennsylvania’s legacy of environmental racism. The region’s five incinerators are located in or near working-class, Black neighborhoods.
B. Preston Lyles, an organizer with Delco Environmental Justice, said, “Burning our trash in Chester City has helped to reduce the quality of life for residents across the region, increase healthcare costs, and place Philadelphians, young and old, at number 5 in asthma cases in the nation. This has got to stop! We have to care more about the lives of our people, use better approaches to waste management, and end incineration as a viable option!”
The City of Philadelphia’s current waste disposal contracts expire at the end of the fiscal year.
Chester resident Ms. Carol Fireng said, “Why is it that when there is a need to dispose of waste, Chester always becomes the dumping ground for the county and other states? Chester should not be a receptacle for others’ trash.”
Chester resident Mr. David Guleke said, “As a Chester resident, the trash incinerator is polluting our air and causing increased health issues for all our residents. Philadelphia needs to stop sending its trash to the Chester incinerator.”
Candice Lawton, Executive Director of Circular Philadelphia, said, “This bill is an important step toward protecting communities disproportionately harmed by incineration. At the same time, Philadelphia has a responsibility to ensure waste doesn’t simply shift from one harmful system to another. In the short term, that means designing a fair and timely RFP process that opens the door to innovative providers. Moving forward, it means investing in solutions that reduce waste at the source, expand reuse and repair and build modern recycling infrastructure. Circular Philadelphia is committed to working with the City, industry, and community partners to advance these alternatives to incineration that create local jobs and healthier neighborhoods while reducing costs in the long term.”
# # #
