No More Carbon Credits for Incinerators and Landfills

The Clean Development Mechanism, the carbon market arm of the Kyoto Protocol, has been issuing carbon credits to landfills and incinerators on the belief that they reduce greenhouse gas emissions from waste! In fact, incinerators and landfills generate significant greenhouse gas emissions and undermine alternatives, such as recycling and composting, that genuinely reduce emissions. When incinerators and landfills replace recycling, not only does the environment suffer but millions of informal sector recyclers are thrown out of work and further impoverished.

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The CDM now has an opportunity to stop this crazy practice. At its next meeting, from 16-20 July 2012, the Executive Board will re-consider the rules that apply to landfills and incinerators. Now is the time for them to clearly say: no more support for incinerators and landfills!

Subject:

Your Letter:

Dear member of the CDM Executive Board,

As you consider revisions to the waste methodology AM0025, I urge you to categorically exclude incinerators and landfills from eligibility for carbon credits. These waste disposal methods, which destroy precious resources and generate significant toxic and greenhouse gas emissions, have no place in the CDM. They compete with waste reduction, reuse, recycling, and composting -- all of which are, according to the waste hierarchy, to be preferred over landfilling and incineration.

Moreover, CDM-backed landfills and incinerators are responsible for the displacement of the informal recycling sector, who recover recyclable material from the waste stream and provide a triple benefit to society: the municipality saves significant waste management costs, greenhouse gases and toxic pollution are dramatically reduced, and large numbers of the urban poor who would otherwise be destitute earn a living. Several CDM projects have been protested by waste pickers and resident communities without their demands being ever considered.

It is time for the CDM to recognize that it cannot ensure the environmental integrity of incinerators and landfills, nor eliminate the social harm that they cause. Rather than continuing to support projects with negative social and environmental outcomes, the CDM should cease issuing CERs to solid waste disposal projects, including incinerators and landfills.

Sincerely,