Like many booming metros, Tampa is finding that more people equals more garbage. In response, officials there are leaning into an approach popular in Florida: Set it on fire. “All areas that are experiencing growth are going to find issues of capacity” for managing waste, said Jack Mariano, the commissioner of Pasco County, just north of Tampa’s Hillsborough County.
In New York, state environmental authorities are investigating accusations that Covanta’s incinerator in Hempstead, on Long Island, for years dumped toxic ash into a landfill near a predominantly Black neighborhood, with some residents claiming health impacts, Newsday has reported. The area’s school district also faces a wrongful death lawsuit filed this month by a family alleging the plant contributed to their son contracting lymphoma after starting middle school there. He died last year.