A New Hampshire Senate Bill would allow up to 10,000 tons of “wood residue” to be burned at “any municipal waste combuster,” a report from the Concord Monitor says. The bill has passed the Senate and is being considered by the House Science, Technology and Energy Committee. The committee’s website states it will be out of committee on May 5.
New Hampshire banned C&D; incineration in 2007 over concerns of toxins that are associated with it, the report says. This includes the lead in old paint and arsenic in wood preservatives. These toxins can be emitted in chimney vapor or ash.
The Wheelabrator Technologies plant, the state’s only waste to energy facility, located in Penacook, New Hampshire, separates the painted and treated wood before grinding it into a material that would be used for incineration, the company told the Concord Monitor.
The company said in the report that it would use the wood during winter months when curbside waste is too wet to burn. It would also monitor emissions to ensure that adding wood won’t produce too much pollution by placing emission controls on the smokestacks and testing the ash regularly under a New Hampshire Department of Environmental Sciences license.
