What do you think about switching from garbage recycling to incinerating?

My community/city is switching from separating out recyclables to putting everything in the trash. We will now be using a Covanta facility. You can watch the animated video to get an idea of the process. The way I understand it the garbage is basically incinerated and the energy produced in the process is sold to local utility companies for electricity, and metals leftover are recycled.

It looks like a good process to me, but I am assuming there must be some negatives. I am curious to know if you have an objection to the process, and what concerns you. The only negative I can come up with is we might be cutting down more trees. Also, if processing new plastics creates pollution, or more pollution than recycling, then that would be bad too, but I have no idea about that process.

What do you think?

It’s certainly easier to just throw everything into one trash container.

Here are some additional videos from the website if you are interested.