Title: For Air Pollution, Trash Is a Burning Problem | Climate Central
Headings: For Air Pollution, Trash Is a Burning Problem
For Air Pollution, Trash Is a Burning Problem
‘First Best Guess’
What’s in the Emissions
Just a Starting Point

Content: Ted Christian
Or, as Wiedinmyer puts it, “it was my first best guess.” What’s in the Emissions
What she found was that some 1.1 billion tons of waste, more than 40 percent of the world’s garbage, is burned in open piles, contributing more emissions than is shown in regional and global inventories. An estimated 40 to 50 percent of the garbage is made up of carbon by mass, which means that carbon dioxide is the major gas emitted by trash burning. Those emissions are dwarfed by others sources on the global scale, such as cars and power plants, amounting to just 5 percent of total global carbon dioxide emissions. But the carbon dioxide that comes from trash burning can be a significant source in some countries and regions, and it is one not reflected in the official greenhouse gas inventories for those places. The more interesting and concerning story to Wiedinmyer are the other pollutants, which accounted for far bigger percentages of global emissions. For example, as much as 29 percent of global anthropogenic emissions of small particulate matter (tiny solid particles and liquid droplets from dust to metals that can penetrate deep into the lungs) come from trash fires, she estimates. About 10 percent of mercury emissions come from open burning, as well as 40 percent of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Such pollution can cause lung and neurological diseases, and have been linked to heart attacks and some cancers. “I was really surprised at the magnitude” of some of these pollutants coming from trash burning, Wiedinmyer said.