Debates over incineration capacity around the U.S. continue to burn in 2026, with some communities looking to shut down plants while others aim to build new facilities.
Minimizing pollution concerns has long been front and center in these debates. To that end, the U.S. EPA is due to update its emissions rules for several categories of incinerators as soon as this spring, including the large municipal waste combustors that have drawn particular ire from community advocates.
Shutting down a facility can come with its share of challenges if communities haven't identified adequate alternative disposal and recycling capacity.
But the construction of new combustion facilities is often a long and drawn-out process as well, even after contracts are signed. Communities from Anchorage, Alaska, to Miami-Dade County, Florida, are plowing ahead to keep that process moving.
The past week has brought updates from several communities on the state of their incineration plans.
Philadelphia
Philadelphia City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier opted on Thursday to postpone a vote on a bill that would prevent city contractors from incinerating any waste. The Stop Trashing Our Air Act was introduced last year and targets Reworld's Delaware Valley Resource Recovery Facility located in nearby Chester, Pennsylvania.
Community groups have opposed the facility, which opened in 1992, for years. Delaware County, where Chester is located, approved a zero waste plan in September that also called for a move away from incineration. But nearly a third of the waste burned at Reworld's facility comes from Philadelphia, making the city a key partner. Philadelphia sends about 37% of its waste to be burned, according to Gauthier’s office.
Philadelphia's disposal contract with Reworld is set to expire at the end of the city's fiscal year on June 30. The bill halting incineration of the city's trash would go into effect immediately upon passage, per the latest text. It passed the city's environment committee on a 5 to 1 vote in November and currently has five sponsors.
“I am very committed to this,” Gauthier, who chairs the environment committee, said at the city council’s Thursday hearing. “We cannot hold ourselves as the cleanest, greenest city while dumping on cities that are more vulnerable than us.”
Minneapolis
Minnesota’s Public Utilities Commission voted last week to adopt a framework that classifies incineration as carbon free, setting up such facilities for subsidies. The move was opposed by environmental justice advocates in Minneapolis represented by the Zero Burn Coalition, which has been pushing for the closure of the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center located in the city.
County commissioners voted more than two years ago to explore a closure plan for HERC, which first opened in 1989. County Board Chair Irene Fernando publicly advocated for a plan to close the facility by 2030, but in the years since she's noted the need for a new plan to pay for disposal capacity.
“I believe the HERC can conclude waste incineration within this decade, but only with an operational plan for trash and significant investment for zero waste implementation,” Fernando said in a statement on Dec. 3.
Last month, Minneapolis officials also voted to extend the city’s disposal contract with the facility for another two years. Great River Energy signed an operating agreement with Hennepin County to operate the facility in 2018.
Environmental advocates, meanwhile, are threatening to launch a hunger strike in February unless the board schedules a vote to initiate the HERC closure process, creates a community task force to guide the transition and ensures accountability for the coalition's health and safety concerns for the facility’s neighbors and workers.
Miami-Dade County
Officials in Miami-Dade County are still waiting on an updated proposal for the county's planned mass burn combustion facility, they disclosed at a meeting on Wednesday.
FCC Environmental Services and Florida Power & Light lead two rival bidding groups to build the facility, but have been negotiating behind the scenes on a joint proposal since county commissioners asked them to do so late last year.
The county mayor's office also requested additional information on each bid submitted by the two groups. If the bidders can't reach an agreement on a joint proposal, officials want to see additional information on their separate proposals in order to make a final decision, according to the county mayor's most recent status report.
Meanwhile, the county continues to pursue waste diversion initiatives. Recycling guidance app Scrapp recently kicked off a pilot in the county after receiving a grant from the Miami-Dade Innovation Authority. Commissioner Raquel Regalado is also advocating for a “portfolio of options” to build additional waste processing capacity on the planned incinerator campus, such as for sargassum and biosolids.
County officials are still planning to hold a workshop to discuss the proposals, in line with plans discussed at their December meeting.
“I definitely want something at our February meeting,” Miami-Dade County Board Chair Anthony Rodriguez said at the board’s meeting on Wednesday.
