Waste Incineration and Environmental Justice in Baltimore
With the amount of waste generated by humans increasing at a seemingly exponential rate, solving the logistical problem of disposal is a key concern for many city governments. Baltimore, Maryland, as a large municipality, is no exception to the struggle of waste management and has turned to incineration as a favorable solution to addressing the city’s garbage instead of landfilling. Baltimore is home to multiple waste incinerators, the largest of which is the Wheelabrator facility, a waste-to-energy incineration plant responsible for generating 64 MW of electricity to power 40,000 homes. Incineration has become a lucrative business in Baltimore since the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978, with corporations like Wheelabrator earning large amounts of profit. This Act began allowing waste-to-energy incineration plants to sell electricity to the public grid, encouraging many companies to capitalize on this new avenue of economic possibility.
Consequently, the practice of waste incineration has transformed from one of logistical necessity to a profitable business model, dependent on a continual stream of municipal waste to operate. Implicated in the city government’s support for incineration is the Treadmill of Production Theory (TOP), which describes the consequences caused by growing human consumption of products that quickly turn to waste. Due to Baltimore’s unique position as a former industrial center, revitalization of the local economy is a key objective of city leadership, and the prioritization of economic growth can be best understood by considering the TOP lens. This theory explains that social and ecological problems arise from a structure of “industrial capitalism [which] privileges the needs of an economic system organized around profit maximization and economic growth,” a description eerily representative of Baltimore’s economic structure. The prioritization of the economy over social concerns is evident in the classification of incineration as a renewable energy, as this designation asserts that waste will remain a steady input to a system that generates profit at the expense of the environment.
When Maryland’s Renewable Energy Portfolio was created in 2004, waste incineration was listed as a transitional renewable energy that would be phased out over time, but in 2011 after the issuance of a new incineration permit, the governor and state legislature redesignated incineration as a “Tier 1” renewable, equivalent to wind and solar. After this change, the Baltimore city government began subsidies to the Wheelabrator facilities rather than truly renewable energy sources, and developed a waste management structure that depends on incineration. As a Baltimore Clean Water Action advocate explains, industry members saw this action as “a sort of blessing from the state of Maryland” to ensure the operation of incineration plants. The Baltimore City Department of Public Works now relies on the Wheelabrator facility to divert city waste from landfills for power generation and covers most of the operating costs of the facility. Unsurprisingly, conflict surrounds the operation of this incinerator, mainly between the residents of the local Westport neighborhood in which the incinerator lies and the city government, who differ in their perceived value of these facilities.
While waste-to-energy incineration plants have the potential to generate electricity and reduce the amount of garbage destined for landfills, numerous environmental concerns render this technology less promising and even harmful. The Wheelabrator facility is Baltimore’s largest standing source of air pollution and emitter of dangerous gasses. Responding to reports of the facility’s pollution, environmental activist and community member Shashawnda Campbell, a high school student at the time, co-founded a Baltimore youth activist group Free Your Voice in 2012. Out of the entirety of Baltimore, this incineration facility emits more nitrogen oxide than any other source and is a major source of sulfur oxides, all while being located within a residential neighborhood in the city. Moreover, retrofitting older incinerators like Wheelabrator with new technologies to curb pollution is quite challenging, with many of them emitting high quantities of harmful substances.
Opposing these findings, a report prepared for Wheelabrator stated that the plant’s contribution to average air concentrations of pollutants were “negligible compared to the monitored background concentrations.” However, according to an independent analysis by the Environmental Integrity Project, the Wheelabrator incinerator produced an average of more than 33 times more mercury per unit of energy in 2018 than the average amount produced by Maryland’s four largest coal plants. The environmental implications of pollution generated by the Wheelabrator incinerator are vast and extremely alarming, but its location generates even more cause for concern.
In addition to the serious environmental hazards stemming from the operation of any waste incinerator, due to Wheelabrator’s proximity to homes, there are large implications for this facility’s impact on the health of Westport residents. For example, the health impacts of incinerator generated pollution are serious as there is strong scientific evidence supporting the idea that this type of air pollution can damage and inflame the airways causing asthma attacks. Specifically, nitrogen oxide can aggravate respiratory illnesses and lead to the development of asthma, and the Wheelabrator incinerator is Baltimore’s largest emitter of this toxic gas. However, this finding is much more than just a theoretical issue; Baltimore’s rate of asthma-related hospitalizations is almost three times higher than the national average and more than two times higher than the state average.
Regarding the air quality impacts of incineration, activist Campbell stated that it “didn’t sit right with [them] as youth,” and that young members of the community “knew that [they] had to do something” to protect each other from this pollution. Differences in air pollution across the state of Maryland can be traced to point sources like incinerators, with one of the most pollution-concentrated areas being Baltimore. Clearly, there are health concerns associated with the operation of the Wheelabrator incinerator, and the disproportionate rate of pollution exposure for the surrounding Westport neighborhood raises equity concerns.
Moreover, the demographics of surrounding neighborhoods like Westport raise concerns over unequal environmental impacts on specific communities, as 50% of the population within a three-mile radius of Wheelabrator is below the poverty line, and 66% of the population is non-white. Considering the racial composition of the communities most impacted by the Wheelabrator incinerator, it is minority populations that are disproportionately subjected to hazardous emissions and the accompanying health problems. As Campbell explains, these communities impacted by incineration pollution are “predominantly people of color, and of low income,” and that local residents are “tired of people dying in [their] communities from illnesses that are produced from these industries”. While some may question whether this unequal impact along racial lines is simply a coincidence, it is a conscious decision by city officials to operate the incineration plant in a predominantly minority community.
To understand the unequal distribution of environmental hazards caused by the waste incinerator, the concept of environmental justice can be useful. As David Schlosberg explains in his book Defining Environmental Justice, this frame is centered around the movement against environmental racism and focuses on environmental issues as they impact communities of color in a disproportionate manner. In this specific case, distributive environmental justice, which concentrates on undoing the disproportionate hazards present in these communities, is at the core of the issue. The framework of distributive environmental justice regarding Baltimore encompasses both state-sponsored violence and institutionalized white supremacy, two issues heavily intertwined with the operation of the Wheelabrator plant. Institutionalized white supremacy is a form of racism ingrained into the laws or regulations of society, and appears as discriminatory practices in areas such as the justice system, housing, healthcare, and political representation. This concept surrounds how governments and corporations make decisions that continually oppress people along racial lines, and in Baltimore, it is most apparent in the city’s housing options for black residents. Moreover, state-sponsored violence, in a sociological context, can be broadly defined as ranging from direct violence and genocide in a literal sense to the exit of the state from the provision of social services. Essentially, state-sponsored violence includes maltreatment of individuals with either direct or implied support from the government.
Environmental justice is a key concern regarding the continued operation of the waste-to-energy incinerator, and decisions made by both the Baltimore City Department of Public Works and the Wheelabrator corporation can be best understood through this lens. The ongoing burden of hazardous pollution is not placed on black residents by accident or coincidence. The city government and public works department are more than complicit in allowing negative health impacts on the communities surrounding Wheelabrator since they subsidize its operation with their renewable energy budget. The fact that the city government subsidizes this facility, despite it being known to be the largest air pollution source in Baltimore, makes it a stark example of state-supported violence towards the surrounding communities. It cannot even be said that there are no alternatives to incineration.
Community activists argue that the same reductions in landfill waste could be achieved through governmental recycling programs that eliminate the negative side effects accompanying burning waste. For example, environmental advocate Jennifer Kunze believes that “Maryland has really failed at supporting composting and other methods that would accomplish what incineration is claiming that they accomplish.” Instead of these cleaner options, the city has decided to keep the status quo of incineration, regardless of opponents’ concerns. There is even evidence to suggest that since the Wheelabrator facility requires a steady supply of trash to continue operating, recycling and composting rates are significantly lower than other parts of the country. As an exit from providing sanitation social services, the city government’s lack of alternative waste management strategies can be understood as state-sponsored violence. With this practice, the city’s public works department has implied that the generation of energy and diversion of waste from landfills is more important than the respiratory health of Baltimore residents.
In an attempt to confront this violence, Westport residents have raised concerns about the hazardous nature of the plant and advocated for the city’s adoption of Baltimore’s Clean Air Act, a bill that would impose strict regulations on the incinerator’s emissions and require more active emissions monitoring. Grassroots organization Clean Air Baltimore incorporated local residents and other environmental groups into their campaign for the passage of this bill, but were met with stark opposition from city government officials as well as industry leaders.
The then-Baltimore City Council President and Mayor of Baltimore, Jack Young, both accepted campaign contributions from the Wheelabrator company, and subsequently attempted to kill its momentum. Defending his opposition to the Act, Mayor Young stated that “[his] father died from lung cancer, so [he] understands all of this…but [Baltimore has] to have somewhere to send [their] trash.” In spite of these opposing efforts, the Act was passed unanimously; however, it was recently struck down in federal court, meaning the stricter regulations do not apply and the city can continue to send waste to Wheelabrator.
Residents of Westport view the dismissal of the Act as a disregard for their unequal exposure to emissions and the city government’s active support for the hazardous practice of waste incineration. Following the Act’s denial, Clean Air Baltimore and allied groups staged a “die-in” on Earth Day in front of the incinerator to urge the appeal of the federal court’s decision. Later, they discovered that Mayor Young had begun the appeal process, but soon after engaged in private conversations with the Wheelabrator company to settle the lawsuit and dismiss the bill permanently4. A few months later, the city settled and approved a new contract instead of allowing it to terminate at the end of 2021. Mayor Young stated that the approval of the contract was “a fair balance between fiscal prudence and social responsibility,” even though numerous environmental impacts make the opposite case. In addition to disregarding public outcry, the approval also violated city competitive bidding requirements, demonstrating waste incineration is more important than the democratic process. Although the city government is not directly harming residents, by definition, their exit from providing social services regarding air quality management is an example of state-sponsored violence. Essentially, in continuing subsidization of the incineration plant and denial of stricter regulations, the state sponsors violence toward surrounding residential communities in the form of air pollution.
Institutionalized white supremacy regarding the environmental impacts of incineration is apparent in considering the racism present in the city’s housing regulations. For example, as explained in the Johns Hopkins Urban Health summary report on structural racism in the city, after the civil rights movement, Baltimore’s predominantly black neighborhoods bore the brunt of multiple decades of restructuring and political divestment, which led them to be stuck in the same neighborhoods post-segregation. Supporting this claim, specific legislation points to the fact that de facto segregation continues to be a major issue in Baltimore, as a 2005 federal district court decision stated that the housing and urban development department had violated the Fair Housing Act by unfairly concentrating black individuals in the most impoverished areas.
The Wheelabrator facility was built in the 1980s in heavily-segregated Baltimore, and its proximate siting in the center of the city was done so when the area was mainly composed of minority residents. Again it could be possible to write this off as a previous unjust action and say that the city government actively implements desegregation tactics, but this is far from the case. The Baltimore city government continues to place black low-income individuals in state-sponsored residential housing that surrounds the incinerator, while the same cannot be said for their white counterparts. Baltimore has areas of public housing projects, which can be obtained through Section 8 housing vouchers. Within the confines of Baltimore City, housing secured through vouchers is primarily given to black residents, while white voucher users are commonly placed in housing located in the five surrounding counties and not in the city itself. Remembering that institutionalized white supremacy manifests as racism ingrained into laws such as housing, and considering the fact that the Wheelabrator incinerator and other sources of pollution are located within the city, it is clear that the ongoing burden of hazardous pollution is not placed on black residents by accident; rather the city housing project system continues Baltimore’s legacy of segregation and racial injustice by purposely constructing black communities around the incinerator.
Due to the city government’s de facto segregation through housing inequalities and the Wheelabrator company’s lenient regulations on emissions, both are active participants in a form of institutionalized white supremacy, as their decisions continue to harm non-white individuals disproportionately. Possibly the most damaging decision made by these parties was Baltimore’s ten-year renewal of Wheelabrator’s contract in 2020. Even when faced with strong opposition from Westport residents and scientific evidence pointing to the incinerator’s role in increasing asthma hospitalizations due to air pollution, the city government still chose to move forward with the renewal. By encouraging incineration and committing to ten more years of Wheelabrator’s operation, the Baltimore public works department has created a waste management system that relies on the oppression of minority communities.
In an attempt to generate electricity from municipal waste through incineration, the city government of Baltimore has explicitly supported the disproportionate exposure of non-white communities to hazardous emissions and ignored the equity concerns of its actions. Issues regarding environmental justice are implicated as state-sponsored violence through the subsidization of waste-to-energy incineration and the institutionalized white supremacy apparent in the city’s decision-making history are key parts of this case. While there is cause for concern over the increasing amounts of municipal waste and the need for management, applying a framework of environmental justice demonstrates the consequences of turning to incineration for disposal and the system of oppression on which it relies.
By: Eva Fenningdorf
