In theory, incineration of hazardous waste sounds good. Take a large volume of toxic waste, and burn it up in an incinerator at a very high temperature until it’s gone. However, nothing can ever be destroyed. So, what exactly does “gone” mean in this context?    The United States found out far too late that these monstrous hazardous waste incinerators, which some people thought were a cure-all for our toxic waste disposal problems, have been creating bigger problems the whole time. We now know what they really do to the material that they are fed to destroy. Even as the U.S. moved ahead with these incinerators, there was a large number of  people who said all along the problem really had not been solved and the toxic wastes were not really going away. Time has proven them right. Unfortunately, the people who can actually do something about this will not listen and act.    Since the early 1980s, across the country, the people being poisoned by these incinerators continue pushing and showing evidence these incinerators simply do not work. But, the industry built around these giant toxic waste incinerators is making too much money to give this up easily. When the overwhelming body of evidence is presented to the EPA and other environmental officials showing why these incinerators should be shut down, no action is ever taken, possibly because, in spite of the failures of the method currently in use, they have no alternative.    Hazardous waste incinerators are supposed to destroy 99.99% of the chemicals put in them. That level increases to 99.9999% for the most hazardous toxic chemicals that are put into them. That is the claim: all of them, not just the select few the operators monitor emissions for. The biggest danger of hazardous waste incinerators is that they really do not destroy the toxic materials to the efficiency level that on paper they are supposed to. That leaves a whole lot of those deadly chemicals pouring out of the smokestack into the nearby neighborhoods.    Adding to this problem, there are documented cases of incinerator operators turning off or disconnecting monitoring devices while huge amounts of waste are put into the kiln for destruction. Almost daily, large amounts of deadly chemicals are released from these facilities, and the general public are continually exposed to them.    Besides the release of all the toxic compounds that are not fully destroyed, there is another huge risk: products of incomplete combustion (PICs). When the incompletely destroyed toxic materials leave the combustion chamber of the incinerator and join together with other toxic chemicals that also were not completely destroyed, PICs form new, unknown, and possibly deadlier chemical compounds than those that were originally put in for destruction.    This consequence of hazardous waste incinerators has been known for decades. However, the emissions of PICs happen all the time, and there is nothing at all being done to stop them.    For almost 40 years now, people outside the industry have been calling for monitoring of the full spectrum of waste that is allowed to be burned. It makes sense that efficiency level monitoring takes place for each of the individual chemicals that is put into the facility for destruction, but these facilities are only required to monitor emissions for only a few dozen different chemicals instead of monitoring for each individual chemical placed in the incinerator. This is a pitiful attempt at a serious monitoring program because thousands of different types of chemicals go into these incinerators. If monitoring was expanded to cover all chemicals, incinerators would likely fail miserably and would cease to be an easy way to dump hazardous wastes. It is because of this lack of sufficient oversight, hazardous waste incinerators continue to be as dangerous today as they were 40 years ago.    The permit system as a whole needs to be overhauled.  For instance, the permit application for Heritage Thermal in East Liverpool, Ohio, lists only a couple dozen toxic chemicals in the list of emissions it is going to release annually. This short list alone is frightening. The company will be able to emit 335 pounds of mercury, 4,170 pounds of nickel, 954 pounds of silver, 102 pounds of selenium, and 254 pounds of lead into the town of East Liverpool and the surrounding areas. Any one of these chemicals on its own is so toxic a small amount can cause tremendous damage to the human body. The potential effects of all these combined on the people nearby is unimaginable.    That is just the tip of the iceberg about what will be raining down on the city. The permit allows Heritage to store up to 855,475 pounds of toxic deadly hazardous wastes. In case of accidents, the permit uses terms like “clean up must be at the earliest practical time” or “in as timely a manner as possible.” This, unfortunately, is the standard way these incinerators are allowed to operate by the state environmental agencies and the EPA.    Outside Arkadelphia, Arkansas, there is a huge hazardous waste facility where Alcoa Aluminum disposed of large volumes of toxic waste. Alcoa sold the 1,300 acre facility to the hazardous waste incinerator company Veolia who operates other incinerators in the U.S. and abroad. Veolia has a contract with the Department of Defense to incinerate the toxic chemicals PFAS and PFOA, which are found in water supplies from industrial operations and military bases everywhere. The government has no idea what toxic chemicals are being released from the incineration of PFAS compounds, and the public is trying to halt the incineration of them until further study has been done. As of 2020, the Velolia facility has already received over 121,000 gallons of PFOA and started to incinerate them. The people in Arkadelphia are basically the human guinea pigs subjected to what toxins are being poured out of the smokestacks and into the air they are breathing.    At Veolia’s Sauget, Illinois, hazardous waste incinerator, community members are  outraged that the EPA is loosening the permit requirements in order to allow toxic waste to be incinerated without monitoring for many of the hazardous metals that are commonly emitted. The equipment previously used for monitoring those emissions is being eliminated by the company so no information will be available on those emissions. The EPA points at the new permit in which pollution control devices and monitoring for mercury is now required. The community responded that mercury had been emitted into their neighborhoods for years poisoning them while the EPA did nothing all of that time.    Environmental groups and residents want to have the emissions of toxic metals monitored and have some standard set for the emissions the incinerator must comply with. The spokesperson for Veolia claims the technology is still unproven; the metals can’t be successfully monitored for, so in the meantime they refuse to install the equipment. This response is another example of how dangerous these facilities are. There is technology available, but because the industry convinces the EPA it is not yet proven, the incinerator gets a pass.    Most of the commercial hazardous waste incinerators currently operating are used by all types of industrial waste producers in many different states. There are no restrictions on who can use the incinerators. Therefore the incinerators take in wastes from any customer who needs a disposal company. However, there are some large producers of hazardous wastes big enough to operate their own incinerator on the property.    Much remains unknown about the practices of these private incinerators. Some of the time, people living in the area have no idea these incinerators are even there and even less of an idea what they are burning. There are instances of these private incinerators being manipulated to bypass emission controls and log books with falsified records to mimic compliance.    In Waterford, New York, a hazardous waste incinerator operated by General Electric was cited for air pollution exceeding their permits. The excess releases at the plant potentially included cancer-causing chemicals such as dioxins and furans.    The federal complaint stated General Electric manipulated the controls of the incinerator to allow hazardous wastes to continue burning even when the incinerator had exceeded automatic emissions cutoff levels. In a six-month period, employees overrode the cutoff system at least 1,859 times. During those times, excessive emissions were continually released from the plant in clear violation of permits.    In addition, records were falsified for pollution control entries almost 1,000 times during that period as well. There was some evidence of the possibility the incinerator’s automatic shut-off system may have been regularly disabled thousands of times over a 15 year period leading up the federal complaint. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation stated they did not have health studies on the residents affected as the incidents happened long before knowledge of the incidents was known. The DEC did state that there were cancer-causing chemicals released; however, conclusions with any present day issues could not be definitively made.   At the DuPont Experimental Station a few miles outside of Wilmington, Delaware, the company operated its own hazardous waste incinerator. Many other household names such as Kodak, Dow Chemical, 3M Corp, and Monsanto all operated private hazardous waste incinerators at facilities. According to the EPA records, every one of these facilities had at least one serious accident in addition to regular daily operations that had all the same issues as every other hazardous waste incinerator, private or not.    The business of hazardous waste incineration is worth millions every year in disposal fees. One company taking advantage of the potential for profit in the hazardous waste disposal industry is Clean Harbors. They claim to be a complete waste disposal solution company, doing everything from transporting the waste to disposing of it. Clean Harbors operates facilities across the country. They recently built a third incinerator at their El Dorado, Arkansas, site alongside the two older units. Environmentalists had hoped the two older incinerators would close, but Clean Harbors would have been foolish to do that. Because of EPA loopholes, those two incinerators can continue to emit hazardous chemicals at much higher levels than the new one. The savings from not having to improve emissions on the older units will help offset the costs of the new incinerator.    In addition to the hazards of emissions themselves, there is the danger of possible explosions of stored materials awaiting destruction. In the past, there have even been major explosions of hundreds of 55-gallon drums of toxic waste and ensuing deadly fires forcing evacuations of thousands of people surrounding these facilities.   In Elizabeth, New Jersey, a hazardous waste disposal company called Chemical Control had one of the most deadly toxic chemical accidents in history. A fire fueled by an estimated 50,000-60,000 drums of toxic waste exploded into flames. Millions of gallons of water used to fight the fire were contaminated with toxic waste and washed through local neighborhoods into the river. This was over 35 years ago, and the site still remains on the Superfund list.   More recently, in El Dorado, Arkansas, employees at the hazardous waste facility operated by Clean Harbors were transferring waste from a larger drum into a smaller drum. According to a spokesman for the company, they were following standard procedures when, suddenly, the waste spontaneously burst into flames. The fire created by the hazardous waste was unable to be controlled by company staff, and the area was evacuated. A nearby college was evacuated, and residents were told to stay where they were while toxic smoke drifted into some of the surrounding neighborhoods. The company placed the blame for the fire on a customer they said did not accurately disclose the hazardous waste they sent for disposal. Regardless of who was to blame, this incident shows a gaping hole in the procedures the company uses to ensure the safety of the operation and the health of the people in the community.    In upstate New York, the city of Cohoes is home to a hazardous waste incinerator run by Norlite. The incinerator facility is located in a densely populated area and is right next to a large public housing complex. A recent 2020 investigation by Bennington College in Vermont discovered the facility was emitting PFAS chemicals it was supposedly destroying in the incinerator. A spokesperson from the college said soil and water testing nearby the plant indicated it was not effective at destroying the compounds but was emitting them into the surrounding communities. A former EPA regional administrator said it was very troubling since the plant has been allowed to bun these compounds since 2018. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation allowed the burning to start without stack testing. He went on to say the residents of the surrounding affected communities should not be exposed to unknown hazards while the incinerator company rakes in money.    In East Liverpool, Ohio, a hazardous waste incinerator operated by Heritage Thermal Services exploded in 2013. The explosion sent gas and toxic ash into the surrounding neighborhoods. Several fires also started as a result of the explosion. Shockingly enough, an elementary school was less than 1,200 feet away from the incinerator. There was an emergency plan the teachers were supposed to follow in the event of a situation at the nearby incinerator. They were told to close the windows and doors to the school and throw wet towels and blankets over the windows. That was supposed to be adequate in the event the toxic waste incinerator blew up. Unfortunately, the incinerator did just that. No report was available on the effects experienced by the school.   The incinerator, which had been operating for over 30 years, was known for numerous emissions of toxic pollutants. According to a report issued by the EPA, the incinerator in East Liverpool continuously emitted toxins to contaminate the air in the neighborhood over a four year period. The emissions exposed residents to chemicals linked to cancer, spontaneous abortions, miscarriages, and early death.  In 2015 the EPA sent correspondence to the company outlining separate violations it had committed. The incinerator was charged with emitting high levels of toxic chemicals 195 times in a 175 day period between November 2010 and December 2014. In spite of the toxic waste incinerator being classified as a high priority violator, very little happened in the way of enforcement. The people living and going to school near the incinerator see the lack of action as the EPA condoning the violations.    In 2017 a study was conducted on children in the East Liverpool area. The results showed the presence of high levels of manganese. The manganese was also present in the area around the hazardous waste incinerator. The study results also showed a correlation between the high levels of the neurotoxin and lower IQ scores on tests. The area children also had a higher proportion of needing special education schooling.    In West Carrollton, Ohio, an explosion and subsequent fire at the Veolia ES Technical Solutions facility, seriously injured two workers and damaged 20 nearby houses and five businesses. The federal government’s Chemical Safety Board conducted an investigation and concluded the accident never should have happened. OSHA cited the company for improper safety management practices but no other consequences followed.   Hazardous waste incineration is one area Tony and I have spent quite a bit of time on over the years. Actually, almost 30 years has passed since we first were drawn to this topic. If we believed this method actually was a safe working solution for disposing of hazardous wastes, we would be two of its biggest advocates. Instead, the actual results of incinerating these wastes only concentrates and creates new and more horrendous toxins. The industry, however, points at the reduction in volume and calls that a successful treatment method. The communities where these incinerators have set up shop have become, in a sense, a laboratory experiment, and the people living there the rats. The communities certainly feel that way.    These incinerators still operate in the face of scientific evidence showing their failures. Ultimately, these incinerators continue to operate because of the money involved in both the hazardous waste industry and especially the industries that create all of the waste that needs to be disposed of in the first place. There remain many unknowns about what exactly happens in the combustion chamber and in the smokestack, but so much of what is emitted can neither be measured or monitored. No sane person can look at the evidence compiled over the decades and say hazardous waste incinerators are remotely safe or destroy the wastes even close to how they initially were supposed to.    These incinerators are among the most dangerous hazards anywhere. It continues to amaze me that the agencies set up to protect the health of the people and of the environment only require minimal monitoring of such a limited number of toxic chemicals and let so many operating malfunctions to continue. There are only a handful of industrial operations Tony and I consider to be unsafe to be operated at all and should have been closed long ago. These hazardous waste incinerators are one of those few. Studies from every operating facility in the United States across the board have come to the same conclusion.    Choosing a safe distance to be from one of these facilities is difficult as the constant toxic emissions travel at minimum several miles from the smokestack. They travel even further when they are in greater quantities and the winds are blowing. If it is within your power to do so, at an absolute minimum, keep five miles away from any hazardous waste incinerator regardless of any information saying closer is safe.