Burning trash in the Coronavirus era

With the deadly airborne Coronavirus having killed 1,200 Floridians to date, one would think that having clean air in Florida is at the very top everyone list, right?

Apparently, county officials in Pasco County, Florida believe that burning their trash won’t add to air pollution and are looking to spend $525 million to draft up, build and operate an expanded garbage incinerator instead of sending the waste to a landfill.

According to Pasco County’s Shady Hills “resource recovery facility,” aka garbage dump, it can process 950 tons of garbage every day, but at least 1,100 tons of waste is produced, so the trash keeps piling up and must be buried.

Once the new incinerator becomes operational, it will be able to handle an additional 550 tons of waste every day, which the county believes will reduce the necessity to send the excess waste to a landfill.

But while some Americans believe that burning trash is somehow good for the environment, scientists are singing a different tune about the action.

Can anyone say global warming or climate change? Anyone? Anyone?

According to a story in the Energy Justice Network, which cites the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) national database,  “trash incineration is incredibly bad for the climate, releasing 2.5 times as much carbon dioxide CO2 to make the same amount of electricity as a coal power plant.

“Smoldering garbage turns out to be a significant source of the greenhouse gases causing climate change.”-Scientific American

Coronavirus + Carbon Dioxide = ?