Burning Trash Leads to Asthma, Cancer, and Heart Disease. Our neighborhood is within a few miles of a polluting Incinerator. Are we the next “cancer alley?”
No matter our race or what zip code we live in, we all deserve to breathe clean air that won’t make us sick.
Florida has 10 active incinerators and two of those are right in our backyard in Hillsborough County.
- MacKay Bay Refuse-to-Energy Facility at 114 South 34th Street Tampa, FL 33605
- Hillsborough County Resource Recovery Facility at 350 N. Falkenburg Road Tampa, FL 33619
There are alternatives to burning trash that are cleaner, don’t pollute, and protect our health but Hillsborough County and the City of Tampa won’t change unless we show we want it changed.
If the incinerators didn’t cause problems, they’d be built in Hyde Park.
Take the Clean Air survey
MORE INFORMATION
Despite the many euphemisms (“incinerator,” “waste-to-energy,” “resource recovery”, “chemical recycling,” “pyrolysis,” “gasification,” and “cement kilns”), facilities that burn trash as a form of waste management are detrimental to the health of people and the planet. Florida Rising members in Miami-Dade County who have been fighting toxic trashburning know it and so do Hillsborough County residents dealing with the same stink.
Trashburning
Detrimental to human health: Incinerators release many air pollutants, including nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides, particulate matter, lead, mercury, dioxins and furans. These substances are known to have serious public health effects, from increased cancer risk to respiratory illness, cardiac disease and reproductive, developmental and neurological problems. A 2013 study in Italy analyzed the occurrence of miscarriages in women aged 15-49 years residing near seven incinerators in northern Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region, and found that increased particulate emissions from the incinerators was associated with an increased risk of miscarriage.
Worse than coal burning for the planet: Even with pollution controls required of trash incinerators since 2005, compared with coal-burning energy generation, incineration still releases 6.4 times as much of the notoriously toxic pollutant mercury to produce the equivalent amount of energy.
Racially discriminatory: Of Florida’s 10 active incinerators, 9 are in “environmental justice” communities (communities of color and low-income communities disproportionately impacted by environmental burdens and pollutions).
To learn more about the impact of incineration on human health and the planet read our Clean Air on Every Block: A People’s Vision for a Zero Waste Future in Miami-Dade.
*Florida Rising is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to building a state where we can all be healthy, happy, and whole.