{"id":83038,"date":"2024-12-26T18:00:22","date_gmt":"2024-12-26T18:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/2024\/12\/26\/trash-incinerators-do-most-harm-to-communities-of-color-jacksonville-today\/"},"modified":"2024-12-26T18:15:08","modified_gmt":"2024-12-26T18:15:08","slug":"trash-incinerators-do-most-harm-to-communities-of-color-jacksonville-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tvbrazilusa.com\/pt\/2024\/12\/26\/trash-incinerators-do-most-harm-to-communities-of-color-jacksonville-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Trash incinerators do most harm to communities of color | Jacksonville Today"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/b>\n
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An industrial trash incinerator in Miami-Dade burned down in February 2023, leaving elected officials with the challenge of effectively managing nearly 5 million tons of trash produced each year. | Miami-Dade Fire Rescue<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Covered in ash<\/h3>\nFlorida is one of 23 states that have petitioned the courts to nullify key protections under the Civil Rights Act. The protections prohibit racial discrimination by organizations receiving federal funding and prevent polluting industries from overburdening communities of color.\n\nThose rules ask the states \u201cto engage in racial engineering,\u201d Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody argued in an April 2024 letter to the EPA, co-signed by attorneys general for 22 other states. A federal court in Louisiana, which sued the EPA in May 2023, has since stopped the agency from enforcing the rules against companies doing business in that state.\n\nMiami-Dade\u2019s incinerator, built west of the international airport in 1982, was receiving nearly half the county\u2019s garbage when it burned down in February 2023. Though the facility had pollution control devices, those measures did not always protect nearby residents from the odor, smoke and ash that the incinerator emitted, said Dr. Cheryl Holder, an internal medicine physician who moved into the neighborhood in 1989.\n\nHolder said every morning her car would be covered in ash. Residents persuaded the county, which owned the facility, to install \u201cscrubbers\u201d that trapped the ash in the smokestack. But the odor persisted, she said, describing it as \u201ca strange chemical \u2014 faint bleach\/vinegar mixed with garbage dump smell\u201d \u2014 that often occurred in the late evening and early morning.\n\nHolder still started a family in the community, but by 2000 they moved, out of concern that pollution from the incinerator was affecting their health.\n\n\u201cMy son ended up with asthma \u2026 and nobody in my family has asthma,\u201d said Holder, who in 2018 helped found Florida Clinicians for Climate Action, a group focused on the health harms of climate change. Though she cannot prove that incinerator pollution caused her son\u2019s illness \u2014 the freeways, airport and landfill nearby also emit toxic substances \u2014 she remains convinced it was at least a contributing factor.\n\nMany South Florida residents are concerned about the health effects of burning trash, despite assurances from Miami-Dade Mayor Cava and the county\u2019s environmental consultants that modern incinerators are safe.\n\nCava\u2019s office did not respond to KFF Health News\u2019 inquiries about the incinerator. She has said in public meetings and a September memo to county commissioners that the health and ecological danger from the new incinerator would be minimal. She cited an environmental consultant\u2019s assessment that the health risk is \u201cbelow the risk posed by simply walking down the street and breathing air that includes car exhaust.\u201d\n\nBut some environmental health experts say it\u2019s not only a facility\u2019s day-to-day operations that are cause for concern. Unplanned events, such as the fire that destroyed Miami-Dade\u2019s incinerator, can cause environmental catastrophes.\n\n\u201cIt might not be part of their regular operations,\u201d said Amy Stuart, a professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of South Florida\u2019s College of Public Health. \u201cBut it happens every once in a while. And it hasn\u2019t been that well regulated.\u201d\n\n<\/b>\n
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South Florida residents have organized against Miami-Dade County\u2019s plan to build the nation\u2019s largest trash incinerator near their communities. At a meeting of the county\u2019s board of commissioners in September, many protesters dressed in green T-shirts with a simple message printed in white, \u201cMiramar says no to incinerator.\u201d | Daniel Chang, KFF Health News<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

No easy solutions<\/h3>\nIn addition to Miami-Dade\u2019s planned incinerator, three other facilities have been proposed<\/a> in the state in Lee, Palm Beach and Pasco counties, according to Energy Justice Network and news reports.\n\nState lawmakers adopted a law in 2022 that awards grants for expansions of existing trash incinerators and financial help for waste management companies losing revenue on the sale of the electricity their facilities generate.\n\nA bill filed in the Legislature<\/a> by Democrats this year would have required an assessment of a facility\u2019s impact on minority communities before the state provided financial incentives. The legislation died in committee.\n\nAs local governments in Florida and elsewhere turn to incineration to manage waste, the industry has argued that burning trash is better than burying it in a landfill.\n\nKilsheimer, whose group represents the incinerator industry, said Miami-Dade has no room to build another landfill, though the toxic ash left behind from burning trash must be disposed of in a landfill somewhere.\n\n\u201cThis is the best solution we have for the conditions that we have to operate in,\u201d he said.\n\nBut USF\u2019s Stuart said that burning trash isn\u2019t the only option and that the government should not ignore historical and environmental racism. The antidote cannot be to put more incinerators and other polluting facilities in majority-white neighborhoods, she said.\n\nThe focus of public money instead should be on reducing waste altogether to eliminate the need for incinerators and landfills, Stuart said, by reducing communities\u2019 consumption and increasing recycling, repurposing, and composting of refuse.\n\nKFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF \u2014 an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism.\u00a0<\/i>\n

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