Camden County has the power to steer the county away from burning its trash and to reduce waste significantly. Currently, nearly all of the county's trash is burned in Camden City at Covanta's old incinerator, which is the county's largest industrial air polluter by far -- and will continue to be even if they install the proposed pollution controls they've always been missing. The County has has the power to steer the county's trash away from incineration or, while still using the incinerator, to stop Covanta's life extension plan to start importing and burning profitable liquid industrial waste.
Please join Camden for Clean Air in calling on Camden County to reform their waste contracting to provide flexibility to move away from incineration as soon as possible, and to hire zero waste professionals to guide the county to reduce waste, create jobs, and help us all breathe easier.You can read
our full letter to the County Commissioners. We are calling for Camden County to:
1) Hire a certified Zero Waste consultant to develop a Zero Waste Plan for the County.
2) Remove the language in the county's bid for waste contracts that puts an unfair $5/ton fee on waste crossing a toll bridge. Tolls are per truck, not per ton. This provision prevents out-of-state competition.
3) Issue two bids: one that disallows incineration so that more distant facilities won't avoid bidding if they think they cannot compete due to transportation costs.
4) Issue another bid that allows incineration with no more than one-year contract terms, and only if they do not burn industrial wastes. This would require Covanta not to start burning industrial waste if they want the county's trash. Allow flexibility for the county and its municipalities to opt out of the contract or divert waste elsewhere as options open up.
5) Ask for long-term volume prices from Cumberland and Gloucester County's public landfills to see what deals they'd offer.
