Waste to Energy: Environmental and Local Government Concerns

Authors

Kelly Outten, University of Richmond

Abstract

"The problem we are confronting here is immense-literally mountains of trash and garbage." With these words, Representative William S. Moorhead accurately described a current American dilemma-what to do with the four billion tons of solid waste annually produced by Americans. Concurrent with the problem of increasing quantities of waste are the problems of decreasing availability of land fill space and an ever-rising demand for energy. The existence of these problems is leading federal, state, and local governments to take a second look at their municipal solid waste and to realize that "waste is something more than an undesirable by-product of urban life which is to be dumped as quickly as possible." One solution to their problems could be a program of "resource recovery,"' accomplished by a facility which converts waste to energy.

Recommended Citation

Kelly Outten, Waste to Energy: Environmental and Local Government Concerns, 19 U. Rich. L. Rev. 373 (1985).
Available at: https://scholarship.richmond.edu/lawreview/vol19/iss2/10