Dive Brief:

• Wheelabrator Technologies Inc. plans to increase the height of its landfill, but the company may face an uphill battle with the plan, given a recent Saugus, MA Board of Selectmen vote. The board unanimously approved a policy that calls for decreases in ash disposal and air emissions from the landfill.
• The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection’s 2014 solid waste facility report recommends closing the ash landfill by Dec. 31, 2016. The Saugus selectmen support that goal in their newly adopted policy.
• The policy stipulates the board is against any more types of combustion of solid waste that will result in more ash emissions. 

Dive Insight:

Waste-to-energy is growing in popularity but it has its critics, who point out that incinerating waste can be a dirty enterprise that adversely impacts neighbors.

Town Meeting member Peter Manoogian told the board at a recent meeting that he and other residents want the landfill closed.

"Forty years of ash disposal in Saugus without a liner … This is something that needs to end," he said.