After reading Incinerators in Disguise, we have come to an understanding that numerous waste treatment projects were essentially failures, whether it was shot down during the late proposal stages or others after it tried to manage, unsuccessfully, for several years. We can conclude that many projects are just claims. These projects that can benefit or negatively affect millions of people, have not been analyzed down to the microscopic details such as equipment failure or protection. How do you feel about proposals for solid waste management technologies in New York City? Do you trust the Department of Sanitation and mayor Bloomberg and the rest to inspect proposals and choose a technology that will really actually benefit our community, and in a city with such a large population, what waste management method and location will work into our city’s infrastructure without the people intervening negatively?

Several of the proposals for incineration facilities disclosed in “Incinerators in Disguise,” were challenged by the residents and environmental justice groups of the community, as they formed coalitions against the waste-treatment companies’ claims of “zero emissions,” until they were rejected. The New York City Department of Sanitation’s Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Plan for 2006-2025 seeks to reduce NYC’s reliance on “out-of-City landfill disposal options” and explores the possibility of new and emerging technologies being sited in New York City. Although case studies have proven that waste-treatment facilities falsely claim that their technology is “pollution-free,” and has “no emissions,” do you think an incineration facility, promoting technologies such as pyrolysis, gasification, plasma arc, and catalytic cracking, is capable of operating pollution-free? And if an incinerator such as the one mentioned by the DSNY were sited in New York City, how do you think residents of NYC would respond? How would you respond to an emerging incinerator in your community?