# Can trash safely be burned? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 22, 2014, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-trash-safely-be-burned/686698 "2014-04-22T17:49:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-trash-safely-be-burned/686698/1 "2014-04-22T17:49:44Z")
I was just wondering how much effort goes into finding ways to safely burn household and even most commercial trash. It seems the footprint is going to be substantial anyway we do it. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-trash-safely-be-burned/686698/2 "2014-04-22T18:03:06Z")
I would wager that once you’re done recycling everything that can be recycled and composting everything that can be composted, you end up with a bunch of unrecyclable plastic containers and mixed-material trash (metal lids with plastic inserts, plastic twist-ties with metal wires, elasticized cloth) which, when burned, give off some fairly toxic chemicals, but when buried in a landfill, mostly just sit there. Burning unrecyclable and uncompostable trash on the scale of a large city would probably be markedly unhealthy for people now; it remains to be seen whether burying it in a landfill is unhealthy for future generations but hey, that’s their problem. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-trash-safely-be-burned/686698/3 "2014-04-22T18:18:05Z")
They tried to set up something to burn trash in Albany; the environmental issues were daunting. The ashes, for instance, are just concentrated toxic chemicals and metals that have to be disposed of, and, of course, the smoke is also filled with toxins. I believe they finally got it running for a few years, but it got shut down in 1994; the smoke was drifting into some upper class neighborhoods. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-trash-safely-be-burned/686698/4 "2014-04-22T18:20:39Z")
Do you mean on a individual guy-in-a-backyard level, or an industrial ‘take the whole city’s garbage’ level? On the industrial level, there are a fair amount of garbage burning facilities around. The owners usually call them ‘Waste To Energy’ facilities; they’re more often called something like Municipal Waste Incinerators by non-interested parties. I don’t know much about the details, but they would have a permit for their air emissions, so presumable the state or feds has been persuaded that the exhaust is safe enough once treated. On the worker-safety level, I’ve seen a plant that separated recyclable metals etc before burning, which gave them a chance to find and remove propane tanks and other potentially explosive stuff. But most plants now chuck everything in the fire; I’m not sure how they deal with potential explosives, but evidently it works well enough because the plants are still operating. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-trash-safely-be-burned/686698/5 "2014-04-22T18:22:24Z")
Lots of countries have [waste-to-energy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste-to-energy) incineration facilities. Newer technology such as [plasma gasification](http://www.plascoenergygroup.com/our-technology/) reduces emissions to almost zero, produces energy, and the waste can be used for roadways, bricks, etc. Ninjad by **Quercus**. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-trash-safely-be-burned/686698/6 "2014-04-22T18:43:13Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > Lots of countries have [waste-to-energy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste-to-energy) incineration facilities. > > Newer technology such as [plasma gasification](http://www.plascoenergygroup.com/our-technology/) reduces emissions to almost zero, produces energy, and the waste can be used for roadways, bricks, etc. > > Ninjad by **Quercus**. Thats actually what I had in mind, simply burying things just doesn’t seem right to me. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-trash-safely-be-burned/686698/7 "2014-04-22T19:31:42Z")
From a climate change point of view, it’s better to sequester the stuff by burying it than to release the carbon into the atmosphere by burning it. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-trash-safely-be-burned/686698/8 "2014-04-22T19:47:07Z")
I’m not sure that’s [necessarily true](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste-to-energy). > [@](#): > > In thermal WtE technologies, nearly all of the carbon content in the waste is emitted as carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere (when including final combustion of the products from pyrolysis and gasification; except when producing bio-char for fertilizer). Municipal solid waste (MSW) contain approximately the same mass fraction of carbon as CO2 itself (27%), so treatment of 1 metric ton (1.1 short tons) of MSW produce approximately 1 metric ton (1.1 short tons) of CO2. > > In the event that the waste was landfilled, 1 metric ton (1.1 short tons) of MSW would produce approximately 62 cubic metres (2,200 cu ft) methane via the anaerobic decomposition of the biodegradable part of the waste. This amount of methane has more than twice the global warming potential than the 1 metric ton (1.1 short tons) of CO2, which would have been produced by combustion. In some countries, large amounts of landfill gas are collected, but still the global warming potential of the landfill gas emitted to atmosphere in e.g. the US in 1999 was approximately 32% higher than the amount of CO2 that would have been emitted by combustion. And plasma gasification plants look even cleaner, from what I can tell.