Waste is trucked in before being going into a boiler and being converted into energy at the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center, or HERC, Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023 in Minneapolis, Minn. The 2040 clean energy bill changed that, and activists who argue the air pollution burden from the facility ends up impacting north Minneapolis see an opportunity to finally push the county to shut it down. Some county commissioners are on board too. But the question remains: what to do with all the trash that is burned there? (David Joles, Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

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I am generally disinclined to lecture people who by any objective measure know more about a topic than I. This includes rejecting their professional opinions on solutions to a problem. Thus I found disturbing “Critics seek faster closure of Hennepin incinerator” (Feb. 8), which describes a push by “environmental and social justice activists” to close the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC) without a viable alternative.

There is no argument that our lifestyle is generating too much waste. We can also agree that too little of that material is being recycled, reused or composted. But what to do with all the rest? Tons and tons of trash, millions of cubic yards. Environmental engineers and others who study this issue currently advocate for “waste to energy” facilities such as HERC.

An inelegant solution, perhaps, but given a cost-benefit analysis of all current alternatives, the best option. Burning reduces to a fraction the garbage’s volume while providing electricity and heat for much of downtown Minneapolis (which needs that energy and would get it by some other means absent HERC). Critically, it prevents all that waste from going to landfills. The “going to” would require fleets of trucks, and all the pollution associated with them, driving to the exurbs or beyond. Burning at HERC does release greenhouse gases, but fewer than burying, and no methane, which is produced by decomposition at landfills and is among the most potent of greenhouse gases. At HERC the combustion process is modified to minimize the nitrogen oxide emissions, and scrubbers, particulate filters and other pollution control devices are employed to make the gases released as clean as current technology allows. All well below limits set by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, the federal Environmental Protection Agency, and even the more stringent European standards.

Is it perfect? No, burning things is clearly not good. However, given the scale of the problem and the alternatives, is it the best we can do at present? Nearly all experts agree that it is. The sad fact is we generate too much trash. No magic happy-think will make it go away. Closing HERC solves nothing, just pushes it to landfills with all their inherent problems, some described above and a long list of others not included here.

The solution ultimately is to reduce the volume of trash produced in Hennepin County and burned at HERC. Among appropriate actions would be further education to promote more recycling, composting and reuse of waste. Additionally, legislation to ban or limit single use plastics, junk mail, e-commerce packaging and many of the other materials in the waste stream would also help.

What will not help is people rejecting the science and risk-benefit analyses supporting the current use of waste-to-energy conversion and bullying county commissioners to close HERC without any coherent alternative. I would encourage the commissioners to follow the advice of those who have a far more comprehensive understanding of this issue than themselves or the activists pounding on their door.

John Severson lives in Minneapolis.