But the purification we seek has proven illusory. Landfills leak into our drinking water and their toxins return in fish.
Incinerators belch hazardous gases and concentrate hazardous residues in their ash.
The hinterlands protest against or charge heavily for burying foreign garbage. Turned away at every port, it returned from exile, its cargo back in the Big Apple. The trash languished for four more months in Brooklyn before a final incineration and burial. They promote the latest in pyrolysis, the clean burn that destroys dioxins and furans, and point to new devices to limit harmful fly ash from spreading over the neighborhood. Garbage is no longer evil, they hard sell, but a new-found fuel, a resource for the creation of energy and electricity.