HB 413 was signed into law recently. This bill and the 2019 HB 617 highlight the current and future severe shortage of landfill capacity in New Hampshire, New England and the U.S. I urge the new Solid Waste Working Group to consider incineration of municipal solid waste to create electricity as one option to reduce the volume of material that goes into the very limited landfill space.
Several pulp burning facilities have closed recently, partially because their subsidies for creating electricity were eliminated. It would require legislation, subsidies and effort but some of these facilities might be able to be upgraded to meet reasonable air quality standards while burning municipal solid waste or even construction demolition to create electricity. The ash would be disposed in an appropriate landfill instead of the much larger volume of un-incinerated MSW or construction demolition.
Everyone is going to pay increasing costs for landfill disposal. A subsidy to encourage incineration to create electricity might be better than just dumping large volumes of waste in a landfill. The new Solid Waste Working Group could interview existing incinerators in the area including Penacook, Haverhill and Holyoke, Mass. to get their perspective on incineration challenges and their thoughts on preserving our limited landfill capacity. I also request that the Solid Waste Working Group explore options of working with Canada for landfill capacity and for possibly sending some NH waste to Canada for incineration or for landfill disposal.
Richard Moore
Chichester