Yale burns trash in face of Conn. landfill crisis

Connecticut is almost out of room for trash in its existing landfills, and there is little remaining land for the establishment of new garbage dumps. "In general, Connecticut is facing a landfill crisis," Katharine Dion, JE '02, who spent the summer researching disposal of waste from construction sites, said. "There just physically isn't enough space."

DREW RUSSELL/YH As Connecticut faces a landfill crisis, the majority of Yale's trash finds its way to energy-producing incinerators.

In such a small but densely populated state, space for landfills is hard to come by. According to Yale Recycling Coordinator C. J. May, other states such as New Jersey and Rhode Island face similar problems.

The Connecticut State Legislature, anticipating this problem, passed a law in 1987 that promoted recycling and incinerating waste over dumping the trash in landfills.

Connecticut now burns a greater percentage of its trash than any other state, as approximately two-thirds of Connecticut's municipal waste is incinerated, a process that converts garbage into ash, greatly reducing its volume.

Joining this trend is Yale, as the University has responded to the landfill crisis by incinerating most of its trash and recycling a small percentage. But, while incineration turns trash into electricity, and such a policy falls in line with state laws, its overall benefit to the environment is still unknown.

Following Connecticut's guidelines, the University sends its municipal waste to garbage incineration facilities in Bridgeport and Longford.

In addition to converting trash to ash, both facilities produce electricity from incineration. But May said that the cost of power from waste incineration is more expensive than that from more traditional power sources.

And despite its space-saving and energy-producing benefits, incineration creates some environmental dangers that landfills do not. "It's not a straightforward question whether burning trash is good or bad," Yale Student Environmental Organization member Billy Parish, MC '04, said. However, he said that he believes "that the current trend nationally is away from trash burning."

Though Yale waste is not brought directly to landfills, the ash produced by incinerators must still be stored in special ash landfills. Such ash, according to Parish, is potentially toxic because it contains metals such as mercury, lead, and cadmium that are not biodegradable.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 80 percent of the dioxin in air is produced from municipal and hazardous waste incinerators. When dioxin, an organic solid, enters the water supply, it can cause a variety of health problems, including liver disorders, damage to glands, birth defects, or cancer.

Neither incineration nor landfills may ultimately be the best destination for Yale and Connecticut trash. According to May, the University pays a much smaller fee for recycling cans, bottles, newspapers, and office paper than for shipping out trash. The Marcus Paper Company actually pays Yale for its cardboard, which totaled 264 tons in 2000.

However, according to May, Yale only recycled 19 percent of its waste in 2000, compared to Harvard, which recycled 31 percent of its trash last year, and Brown, which recycled 35 percent.

Why is Yale recycling so little, and incinerating a much higher percentage of its waste? "Yale's architecture makes it difficult to recycle," May explained. Only three recycling stations exist on all of Old Campus. Most colleges only have one or two recycling locations, and no room is available in entryways for cans. "Yale students are extremely busy, so busy being Blue they don't have time to be Green," May said.

Back to News...