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Residents and environmental advocates urge county to consider alternatives to incineration
Summary
Public commenters at the Sullivan County Legislature meeting urged the county to avoid building an incinerator and suggested in-house waste management, dual-stream recycling and anaerobic digestion as lower-cost, lower-pollution options.
Several residents and environmental advocates used the public-comment period at the Sullivan County Legislature meeting to urge officials not to pursue incineration as a waste-management option and to explore alternative strategies.
Star Hesse said a trash incinerator would “pollute and destroy most of the things that make people want to come here,” and asked legislators to consider the fiscal harm of undermining tourism attractions. "If you're giving people money to encourage tourists to come, don't turn around and kill the golden goose and put up something that's going to pollute and destroy," Hesse said.
Rebecca Kreshkoff, from the town of Delaware, proposed bringing waste management in-house to eliminate private-sector markups and to enable programs such as dual-stream recycling, local baling, a materials-recovery facility, anaerobic digestion followed by aerobic composting, and regional landfilling of stabilized residuals. "Bringing our waste management in house would save money and might even make money," Kreshkoff said, adding that such an approach could create jobs and better align with the proximity principle of managing waste close to where it is produced.
Eric Feinblatt summarized findings from a 2025 report (commissioned by a Florida law firm) that, according to his reading, concluded modern incinerators produce toxic ash requiring landfilling and large shares of mercury emissions tied to fish-consumption advisories. "For every 100 tons of waste burned, about 30 tons of toxic ash are produced," Feinblatt said, and he warned that incineration could worsen local health statistics.
Commenters asked the legislature to prioritize waste-management options that are quicker to design and build than an incinerator and that reduce odor and volume while recovering marketable recyclables. No formal action on waste management was recorded at the meeting; public comment was presented for the record.
The public record shows county residents linked waste-policy choices to broader economic development goals, arguing that choices that reduce air and water quality would harm tourism and local quality of life.
