University of Virginia Library

Researcher Claims Profit
Pollution Control Possible

Local Virginia governments may
be able to save money while
simultaneously solving many pollution
problems if they follow
European examples of solid waste
disposal, says a University researcher.

Methods of solid waste collection
and disposal in the United
States have changed very little over
the past 25 years, according to
Thomas J. Mayes, writing in the
January issue of "Virginia Town
and City."

Urban areas alone produce
480,000 tons of solid waste each
day and this figure may double by
the year 2000, he says. Only half of
the American cities and towns with
populations over 2,500 dispose of
their solid wastes by relatively
pollution-free methods.

"Still extensively used, in fact,
are open dumps that pollute the air
and provide spawning grounds for
rats, files and microscopic vermin.
Poorly designed incinerators that
are still operational are the greatest
air polluters among all solid waste
disposal methods. Many sanitary
landfills are sanitary in name only
and a sizeable number have deteriorated
to the extent that they
pollute ground water supplies. Even
adequate ground for burying wastes
grows safer in urban areas," says
Mr. Mayes, a researcher for the
University's Institute of Government.

U.S. Public Health Service engineers
have recently traveled to
Europe to learn some new approaches
to the growing problem of
disposing of the tons of solid waste
accumulated daily in the United
States.

"The European experience,
however, has been much different
and seems to offer fruitful lessons
for Americans to consider," says
Mr. Mayes. "Europe has long had a
greater population density than the
United States and has not enjoyed
the luxury of unused land for
dumping purposes."

The conversion of solid wastes
into usable products has been one
successful European approach, says
Mr. Mayes. Plants in the German
cities of Rosenheim and Munich,
the Netherlands' Amsterdam and
Rotterdam and Milan, Italy, daily
convert tons of solid waste into
steam and electric power. The
windowless, odorless and smokeless
Rosenheim plant, for example,
products 35 million kilowatt hours
of electricity annually in addition
to supplying steam heat to most of
the city's downtown area, says
Mayes.