Detroit recently-ish tore down what had once been the world’s largest garbage inciner-, um, “trash-to-energy” facility. Other states and Detroit’s suburbs had been shipping in their trash to be burned there. Detroiters’ garbage went to landfills.
Turned out the damned thing was constantly exceeding limits for belching toxins, even after the operators were forced to install the smokestack scrubbers they’d “forgotten” during construction. People living for miles around the thing suffered from lung issues, kids got asthma, etc. Their homes - including indoors - and yards often were covered in particulate matter.
Constant complaints to the state and its environmental protection agency re: the overwhelming smell of gathered garbage for miles around, as well as the stink while it was burning, finally moved the state to do something. They told them to immediately clean up their act, doubtless because rich suburbanites were offended by the reek when they’d tried to go to area restaurants and bars.* Local reporters turned up a vast number of public complaints, and the many violations over the decades with which the environmental agency had charged them. The operator’s inaction re: those violations was also exposed. Not long after they finally took care of the piles of stinking garbage, the company said they could no longer afford to run the fucking thing and shut it down.
The city took it back, and began demolition soon after.
The damned thing had been built over the protests of pretty much everyone living within a five-mile radius, as well as everyone who didn’t think anyone should be forced to breathe garbage.
Detroit only recently adopted curbside recycling.
*We saw a Mercedes pull up and park across the street from a well-known bar/restaurant a mile from the incinerator. After a moment, four people emerged. They’d barely closed the doors when they made faces as they looked around. They had a V brief discussion, shook their heads, got back in, and drove away.
