Incinerator Opponents Can Fight City Hall

9-22-97
University Park, Pa. -- Grassroots resistance to big companies with major resources has a good chance of success, as shown by community efforts to block construction of incinerators, according to authors of a new book.

"Ordinary people increasingly confront large bureaucracies over which they feel they have little or no control," says Dr. Edward J. Walsh, associate professor of sociology at Penn State. "Our evidence shows, however, that corporate power is more fragile than many citizens imagine. This was demonstrated dramatically by our study of eight attempts to locate incinerators in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey in the late 1980s."

Of the eight attempted sitings, grassroots opposition defeated five of them, located in Broome and St. Lawrence Counties, N.Y.; Cape May County, N.J.; and Lackawanna and Philadelphia Counties in Pennsylvania. The three efforts in Delaware, Montgomery and York Counties in Pennsylvania were approved by county governments.

"For groups opposed to incinerator sitings, the key to success is the ability to mobilize widespread county support and shed the parochial NIMBY ("not in my back yard") image," notes Dr. Rex Warland, professor of rural sociology at Penn State.

Walsh, Warland and Dr. D. Clayton Smith, a recent Penn State Ph.D. graduate and now a data analyst with the Kentucky Department of Education, are co-authors of a new book, "Don't Burn It Here: Grassroots Challenges To Trash Incinerators," published by Penn State Press.

"When first proposed in the United States during the 1970s, waste-to-energy (WTE) incinerators appeared to be ideal solutions to the growing mounds of trash in our `throw-away' society," Warland says.

Incinerators promised to convert useless garbage into electricity while saving precious landfill space, according to Warland. Within a decade, however, activists had united against them, forming a vibrant grassroots effort as an offshoot of the environmental movement.

"Grassroots resistance to government and corporation-sponsored projects is not for the fainthearted," Walsh says. "Our research reveals that many people are still intimidated by societal elites and modern technologies. Because they perceive themselves, families or friends as vulnerable to economic retaliation, they can easily succumb to fear and cynicism during times of heated debate and name-calling."

"Once elected county or municipal officials support a corporation in promoting an incinerator project, widespread grassroots organization is necessary to stop the project," Warland says. "It helps if project challengers can create or encourage division among elected officials by, for instance, winning over the mayor against city council or vice versa."

While lawsuits can be an effective secondary tactic, this is usually true when they are used in conjunction with countywide political organizing, he adds.

"Grassroots opponents to incinerators can increase their chances of success by widening their political base of support as much as possible," notes Walsh. "This has obvious benefits, since outside support can bring additional expertise, experience and political clout."

Furthermore, broad support enables citizen challengers to evade demeaning corporate accusations that they are NIMBYs ("Not-in-my-backyarders") or BANANAS ("Build-absolutely-nothing-anywhere-near-anythings"). Instead, they can portray themselves as legitimate defenders of a common good being threatened by corporate shortsightedness.

"Grassroots activists also have to marshal all the available scientific facts about incinerators," Warland says. "Their most cogent argument is that some familiar waste stream materials, such as papers and plastics, create furans and dioxins when trash is improperly burned. Harmful emissions also result from trying to burn heavy metals contained in batteries or used as additives in household items."

Incinerator opponents can capitalize on the fact, that despite multimillion dollar budgets and claims to scientific truth, some new technologies are shortsighted and have serious flaws, Walsh says.

He notes, "To know the environmental facts and make them known is a far better tactic than depicting builders of proposed incinerators as greedy, diabolical incarnations, instead of as business people trying to find financially profitable solutions to challenging technical and political problems."

Established in 1956, Penn State Press is a university press specializing in art history, Black studies, general interest, history, literary studies, philosophy, political science, religion, regional studies, sociology and women's studies. To order the book, contact your local bookstore or Penn State Press, 820 North University Drive, University Park, PA 16802 or at 1-800-326-9180.

EDITORS: Dr. Walsh is at (814) 865-1694 (office) or at e1w@psu.edu by email. Dr. Warland is at (814) 863-8640 (office) or at rhw2@psu.edu by email. For media review copies, contact Janet Armstrong, Penn State Press, at (814) 865-1327.

**pab**

Contact:
Paul Blaum 814-865-9481 (o), e-mail: pab15@psu.edu
Vicki Fong 814-865-9481 (o), e-mail: vyf1@psu.edu