Incinerators (Pro) are better than Landfills (Con)

Rebuttals 1. Con's point here is that landfills are better than incinerators because they create more jobs. However, as mentioned before, jobs are not the important, deciding factor in concluding which form of waste management is better. Using jobs as a point in comparing landfills and incinerators is as ridiculous as using jobs as a point in comparing religions. 2. Con here concedes to Pro by saying "As to your point for landfills needing less land, I see that as a good thing because the less, the less the city has to pay for it and the less citizens complain." 3. Concerning Con's views towards using Hong Kong as an example, I cannot see how it can be irrelevant. Here we are debating about landfills and incinerators in general, not the Pros and Cons they have in a specific region. Using Hong Kong as an example in fact demonstrates an incinerator's advantage of needing less land as Hong Kong is a very crowded metropolitan city with a population density of 6 650 persons per square kilometre, at the same time being a very technologically developed city with the capability to build and maintain an incinerator. 4. Con contradicts himself very often here. He makes his point stating that "Specifically on this point, were talking about which one is more cost effective. Incinerators are more costly than landfills therefore I think this point goes to me. Were not talking about costs". So he says landfills are better because he thinks they cost less, but then cost isn't a point? I also believe that Con has yet again failed to acknowledge the fact that incinerators cost less than landfills in the long term. This is due to a multitude of reasons, such as less land required, less personnel required, etcetera. 5. Con here again contradicts himself. He says that " I didn't ignore your points. I just chose not to care about them because most of the points that "Notyourbusiness" points out are almost meaningless." As long as a point isn't responded to, then it is ignored, no? The Merriam Webster defines "ignore" as "to do nothing about or in response to (something or someone)". Concerning methane, Con has admitted that landfills have methane problems. As for Con's example of flaring, it is irrelevant because we are only discussing incineration and landfills here, not any other form of waste management or disposal. 6. Wate and recycling As I have mentioned previously, according to the waste hierarchy, any sort of recycling, reuse or recovery comes BEFORE mass disposal (landfills and incineration). Thus, landfills do not actually provide an advantage over incinerators concerning recycling. However, the ash from incinerators and scrap metal left can be used to build roads and used in the steel industry respectively. 7. Concerning "forced" contracts Con here states a lot of examples, such as mayors and council members being bought off and large companies threatening countries as a whole. These, however, are unrealistic and fear-mongering claims in general. The first scenario, concerning mayors and council members being bought off, is a complicated matter that involves not only corruption of the government but failure of a system itself. Con is worrying excessively, instead of trusting voters to vote for those they in turn trust to govern their country/city, the core of a democratic system or society. Con also talks about large businesses threatening the economy, which I am very sorry to say will not be true. Incinerator companies don't have that large of an influence. The world's biggest companies (judged by wealth, market value, etc, which means they have more economic power and more influence in economy) are ICBC, China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, JPMorgan Chase...all the way down to Disney (100th), and UNY Group Holdings (1999th). Incinerator companies such as TeamTec, Maguin, Joseph Egli Ag, Winderickx, etc aren't even on the list. Most influential companies in the world are stated as Apple, Unilever, JPMorgan Chase, Walmart, etc, nothing about incinerators. Biggest industries in the work are listed as the alcohol industry, OPEC Revenue, Global Pharma Market, etc. Incineration, again, is not on the list. Incinerator companies do not have the power or ability to threaten an entire country or economy. Con is merely trying to stir up unnecessary fear. Concerning landfills storing waste, this is untrue. Once a day of dumping trash is over, the waste is covered with layers of soil and clay. The waste cannot be dug out to be recycled, reused or processed in any way. It is stated that "Each day, a layer of waste is compacted by heavy machinery and buried under a layer of earth or clean construction debris." 8. As aforementioned, waste cannot be buried in landfills then dug up again. Con here states that landfills can be used to "create" golf courses, parks and airport runways. However, Con has not stated the fact that after a landfill is full, used and sealed up, it still can only be used for purposes not requiring excavation, meaning that anything built on top cannot have steel/concrete bases and thus structures cannot be heavy or tall. This significantly lowers land value and is a perfect example of the non-sustainability of landfills. Once a landfill is full, cities/areas will have to find another area for a new landfill. The previous landfill has very limited land uses with a cap on development. Landfills are not sustainable, but incinerators are. Despite layers of clay and lining or "capturing" of methane gas, water and land pollution from leachate, as well as methane is still a problem, one that is widely acknowledged by governments, scientists and environmental groups (such as WeGreen USA, Green Living, the USA government, the Canadian government...) Thus, it is a scientific fact that land and water pollution along with methane is a problem for landfills, one that incinerators do not have. 9. Youtube video This is just blatant plagiarism. Con cannot simply Copy and Paste a hyperlink then pass off the points in the video as his own. Thus I will not acknowledge the video as part of the debate. My points: I would like to reiterate my points. Incinerators are better than landfills due to the lack of ground and water pollution, lack of methane production, higher level of sustainability, smaller costs in the long term, ability to handle all sorts of waste (Con has not responded to my point concerning medical waste), longer operational hours, lack of pests and lack of "contribution" towards global warming. It should also be noted that incinerators do not cause as much negative effects to its neighbourhood when compared to landfills. Public consensus has long held that landfills are not a favourable usage of land (Carter, 1989; Adeola, 2000; Martynaiak et al, 2007). Landfills come with many problems which greatly impact their neighbourhoods, such as odour and pests. An example would be the "Invasion of flies" in Hong Kong, cited below. Additionally, landfills significantly lower property values in the neighbourhood (A hedonic study of smaller communities in the suburbs of Toledo, OH, found that each addi- tional mile from an active hazardous waste landfill increased property values between 16 and 25% [Smolen et al., 1991]), while incinerators only have moderate effects. The gradient effect of a landfill is $14 016/mile while the gradient effect of an incinerator is $7746/mile, and does not have zonal effects while landfills do. I thank Con for his quick response and look forward to seeing his rebuttals and points. References: http://www.gov.hk... http://www.forbes.com... http://www.merriam-webster.com... http://images.businessweek.com... http://www.therichest.com... http://people.hws.edu... http://www.geowiss.uni-hamburg.de... http://www.ajol.info... http://news.newclear.server279.com... http://www.mcser.org... http://ascelibrary.org... ftp://131.252.97.79/Transfer/ES_Pubs/ESVal/hedonics/farber_98_prophedonic_negexternalities_studyreview.pdf http://www.geowiss.uni-hamburg.de...