A BURNING PROBLEM

Burning trash in your back yard or woodstove may seem like no big deal. After all, most municipal garbage is eventually incinerated. Burning trash on your own, however, is especially bad for the environment because it releases a large quantity of highly toxic pollutants. Also, it is illegal.

Municipal waste incinerators, like Penobscot Energy Recovery Co. in Orrington, have pollution-control equipment to capture soot and chemicals. The remaining emissions are sent high into the air where they are mostly dispersed into the atmosphere. According to a study by environmental officials in New York, burning 10 pounds of garbage in a backyard barrel produces the same amount of air pollution as burning 400,000 pounds of trash in a modern incinerator.

According to a 1998 survey by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, nearly 2 percent of the state’s population disposes of its trash through backyard burning. They burn 21 tons of trash a day. That equals as much pollution as from 840,000 tons of trash burned in a waste incinerator, more than four times what is burned in Maine incinerators during an entire year. Worse, the pollutants remain at ground level where they are more concentrated and dangerous.

In addition, municipal incinerators burn trash at a very high temperature with a precise balance of oxygen to maximize combustion. Backyard burning is at low temperatures with no oxygen control allowing toxic chemicals to remain intact.

When PVC, also called No. 3 plastic, which is found in bottles and jugs, children’s toys, flooring and siding materials and vinyl fabrics, is burned the smoke contains dioxin and furans, chemicals that contribute to cancer. A recent study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that, in the last two years, more dioxins and furans were produced by backyard trash burning than from all other sources combined, including from paper mills, vehicles, electric utilities and municipal incinerators.

When some types of pressure-treated lumber are burned, arsenic and chromium are released. Burning of some bleached papers, synthetic paints and dyes, batteries and small electronics releases heavy metals such as mercury, lead and cadmium, which can contaminate groundwater and the air. To avoid this problem, ash from municipal incinerators can only be disposed of in highly regulated landfills.

The DEP is joining with other state and federal environmental officials in the Northeast to educate the public about the dangers of backyard burning. The “Don’t Trash Our Air” campaign aims to alert people to the dangers of backyard burning, and to remind that in many places, including Maine, it is against the law.

Those who live in remote areas may grumble about having to haul their trash all the way to the dump or a designated drop-off point far from their homes. Those trips to take out the trash are much less troublesome than poisoning your family and neighbors with a potpourri of chemicals from a backyard burn barrel.