Natalie VanDerMolen

Mrs. Entrekin

Environmental Science

5 April 2018

Waste-To-Energy

Waste to energy is a transitional strategy which impacts carbon emissions but the social

and environmental options cost money. Although nuclear industry has decreased, waste

incineration has increased. With “trash-to-cash” programs, nuclear plants can help the

environment be cleaner (Citation). By burning the waste plants can create energy. Garbage is

a gigantic problem and there are three ways of dealing with it: zero-waste, landfills, and

waste-to-energy. Of these three options is waste-to-energy the ultimate solution to disposing

of trash?

Zero-waste is one solution for garbage. Most man-made materials should be designed to

not be thrown away because they have lasting value. Obtaining a sustainable world, people

would compost, recycle, and re-use materials. Ideally, materials in our society would be like

the forests which have no waste. As an illustration, ten companies are relentlessly

determined to follow a zero-waste policy. Ercolini remains the leader. Although there are

problem to this solution, zero-waste attempts to deal with the growing piles of trash.

Another solution is landfills, but there are many pros and cons to piling rubbish. In other

words, landfills create and leak methane, which is thirty-four times the power of carbon

dioxide. Notably, a solution is burning the waste, but some people may argue that burning is

a solution while others say it is more of a pollution. Sweden has a solution. Being a

commendable example, Sweden essentially solves their problem by banning landfills and

instead of recycling just burn the waste. Investing in solutions, the Green Climate Fund aids
by providing money for the sorting before burning the trash. Since they use filters, the PM is

removed through high temperature and just a low amounts of ash is left. The many cons to

landfills make the waste-to-energy an attractive solution.

Overwhelmingly, waste-to-energy is a satisfactory solution to garbage. Waste-to-energy

is better than landfills which impact the greenhouse gases. Having many explicit pros,

waste-to-energy saves land and produces and provides clean power. Since waste-to-energy

creates power without using or burning coal, this solution has a positive effect on the

environment. If we do burn a ton of garbage, we save half a ton of carbon dioxide. Burn that

garbage. By moving away from fossil fuels, this is a creative and intelligent solution to

garbage, but the issue eventually needs to be further re-searched because it is still not without

problems.

Ultimately, should garbage be burned or not? The problems with zero-waste is that their

impossible and un-realistic of the money needed to re-design every product. Landfills create

pollution because they take up land which is a precious and decreasing resource. The most

important aspect is that waste-to-energy solve many of our trash problem. It saves space. It

produces energy. It decreases greenhouse gas. Waste-to-energy is the solution of the future.