Philadelphia used to be littered with at least six trash incinerators, with the last two closing in 1988. That same year, construction began on a municipal waste incinerator in Chester, Pennsylvania, that was supposed to reignite the local economy. That facility became the largest municipal solid waste incinerator in the country and would come to define the environmental racism taking place in Chester, a currently bankrupt municipality with a 27 percent pediatric asthma rate that is more than four times the national average .

Councilperson Jamie Gauthier’s new bill, the Stop Trashing Our Air Act , can finally end the dangerous practice of incinerating Philadelphia’s trash and usher in an era of more responsible waste management.

Philadelphia sends about one-third of its trash to

See Full Page