Palm Beach County’s massive waste-to-energy plant, which when completed will burn trash and convert it into energy, costs $600 million to build, and it is supposed to be the cleanest of its kind in the country.
SWA officials have proposed offsetting some of its costs by letting the waste-to-energy plant do what it’s designed to do: burn lots of trash.
Specifically, the agency wants to consider importing trash from other counties to burn here for a hefty price. Officials estimate that using the plant’s excess capacity to burn out-of-town trash would bring in more than $45 million in the first eight years.
But that suggestion isn’t sitting well with some city leaders and county residents, who bemoan the notion that Palm Beach County would become known as “Garbageland.”
Some complain about the effect on air quality from increased burning and the risk that biohazardous materials may be incinerated.
Others worry about filling up space in the county’s current landfill. The SWA’s executive director says that eight years of creating extra ash would only reduce the landfill’s lifespan by two months.
Exchanging two months of landfill use for $45 million is a pretty good return. And it may even be an environmentally friendly outcome, since garbage imported here might not otherwise be incinerated, meaning it would take up even more space in another landfill somewhere else.
Should Palm Beach County import trash from other areas? What do you think?