ONE PERSON’S TRASH, ANOTHER PERSON’S RENEWABLE ENERGY? CREATING A CLEANER, MORE JUST RENEWABLE PORTFOLIO STANDARD IN PENNSYLVANIA BY REVOKING MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE’S ALTERNATIVE ENERGY DESIGNATION
Volume 94, No. 3, Spring 2022
Consider for a moment the life of a piece of trash. It may be a water bottle or a paper towel or a banana peel, but regardless of its identity, it goes somewhere after it has been thrown into a trashcan. The question is, where? Depending on its material composition, it may be recycled or composted, but more often than not, it will be whisked away by a garbage truck and deposited into one of the United States’ 1,269 landfills. It is also possible, however, that it finds its way to a waste incineration facility where it undergoes a combustion process that converts waste into electricity used to power homes and businesses across the country.