Waste Disposal + Recycling
SCA’s Position on Montgomery County’s Trash Overhaul Plans
Updated May 14, 2026
On May 6, the Montgomery County Council voted to postpone until late summer or early fall any discussion and decision to stop burning the Montgomery County’s trash and instead transport it to well-vetted landfills.
The proposal was communicated to the County Council in November and the full plan was presented to them in March by County Executive Marc Elrich in his annual budget proposal.
Council President Natali Fani-Gonzalez spearheaded the delay. She argued that the Council needs more (and more “independent”) information about the transition to landfills and could not focus on the details of the issue amid contentious budget decisions on other matters.
We appreciate that this year’s county budget deliberations are particularly fraught. But we do not agree with Ms. Fani-Gonzalez that a delay was necessary on the waste management decision. Indeed, we support Mr. Elrich’s plan and budget proposal for the waste transition. That plan was formulated after almost two years of detailed analysis by the County’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).
The core of the plan is simple: over a period of six to nine months Montgomery County would stop burning its non-recyclable trash (600,000 tons a year) and instead truck that trash to out of state landfills that meet a host of environmental and safety requirements. The actual hauling would be done by a private waste management company. DEP put out an RFP (request for proposal) from such companies in September 2025; it received several replies in November. But any contract awaits a final decision by the Council as to the budget for this sizable project.
Truck hauling of trash to the nation’s roughly 3,000 landfills is by far the most common waste management system in the U.S. It accounts for the disposal of 65% of trash after recyclable and compostable material is diverted from the “waste stream.” The technology has vastly improved over the past decade, by all accounts, though landfills differ from one another in how they operate.
Under Elrich’s plan, Reworld, the private company that operates the incinerator (located in Dickerson), would have been informed in July that the facility would be shuttered by the end of December. (That 6-month notice is required under the facility’s contract.)
Why does the incinerator need to be closed?
Because it’s the largest single source of pollution—including climate-altering greenhouse gases—in the county. And has been for years.
Because we have been dumping 150,000 tons the toxic ash from the incinerator on a majority Black community in Virginia—putting them at far greater risk than if we landfilled our unburned trash in one of the vetted landfills the County has chosen.
Because it’s 30 years old and has begun to require costly maintenance; most incinerators are shuttered after about 25 years. And most have been shut down nationwide over the last three decades with only one new one built.
And because serious problems have recently occurred. In September 2025, an annual emissions test revealed that the incinerator had been emitting nearly double the permitted limit—and 21 times more than in tests a year ago—of the deadliest chemicals known to science, dioxin and furans. In December, a second breakdown occurred, releasing 50 times the already toxic emissions. There’s no safe emissions limit established for these chemicals. (See links below to our press releases on this issue.)
Immediate Closure of Montgomery County’s Aging Trash Incinerator Demanded Following Disclosure of Additional Dioxin Leak
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 26, 2026
Media Contact:
Lauren Greenberger
Vice President, Sugarloaf Citizens Association
lgreenberger@hotmail.com
Immediate Closure of Montgomery County’s Aging Trash Incinerator Demanded Following Disclosure of Additional Dioxin Leak
DICKERSON, Md.— Following our February 20, 2026, press release on the topic, Sugarloaf Citizens Association received notification that a second and more hazardous dioxin and furan discharge occurred at the Montgomery County waste incinerator in Dickerson, MD.
The Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection has released two statements about this leak: Feb 20, 2026 and Dec 17, 2025. The most recent test results show Unit 3 total dioxins and furans discharged averaged 54.8 ng/dscm at 7% oxygen, exceeding the limit of 30 ng/dscm at 7% oxygen.
This discharge is nearly double the allowable limit and 30 times greater than the average annual stack test results (2.6ng/dscm) for the past 3 years, according to data reported on the County website. There are no established safe limits for dioxin emissions. We are not aware of any similar testing done yet on the third operating boiler, Unit 1.
The incinerator, operated by Reworld, is currently the endpoint for all the county’s non-recyclable solid waste.
Given this updated and highly concerning test result, Sugarloaf Citizen Association urgently calls on Montgomery County leadership to act:
We ask the County Executive and his Department of Environmental Protection for immediate closure of the waste incinerator as a response to this emergency and temporarily haul the county’s trash by truck to an interim landfill site.
We ask Montgomery County Council members to approve the County Executive’s FY27 budget that will include permanently shuttering the incinerator, ending toxic ash dumping on a community in Virginia, hauling what we can't recycle to a well-vetted landfill, and initiating robust food-scrap composting, and other well-studied waste reduction strategies.
Dioxin Leak at Dickerson Incinerator Prompts Call for Closure
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 20, 2026
Media Contact:
Lauren Greenberger
Vice President, Sugarloaf Citizens Association
lgreenberger@hotmail.com
Dioxin Leak Adds Urgency to Shuttering Montgomery County’s Aging Trash Incinerator
DICKERSON, Md. — Alarmed by reports of a recent massive dioxin leak at the aging Montgomery County trash incinerator in Dickerson, MD, Sugarloaf Citizens Association (SCA) urges the Montgomery County Council to move forward expeditiously with plans to end trash burning and haul the county’s waste to vetted landfills outside the County.
The incinerator, operated by Reworld, is currently the endpoint for all the county’s non-recyclable solid waste.
In November 2025, a report by the county’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) revealed that the incinerator was emitting nearly double the permitted limit—and 21 times more dioxin and furans than the last test in 2024. There is no safe emissions limit established for these toxic chemicals.
The dioxin leak from the 30-year-old incinerator comes amid longstanding concerns about health hazards to the community and local agriculture associated with trash incineration, which also produces other toxic chemical emissions such as mercury, sulfur dioxide, arsenic, beryllium, lead, nitrogen oxides and fine particulate matter into the region’s air.
“Further delay by DEP or the County Council is unacceptable,” says Lauren Greenberger, SCA vice president. “We have advocated for an alternative to incineration for more than a decade, given the incinerator’s profile as the worst single source of air pollution and greenhouse gases in Montgomery County. This recent leak is yet more evidence that this aging facility is a continuing dire public health threat.”
Reworld estimated in 2025 that it would cost from $50 million to $100 million to keep the facility operating safely and efficiently for another 7 to 10 years. More recently, DEP cited potential costs as high as $365 million in that timeframe. Most trash incinerators are decommissioned after approximately 22 to 27 years of use.
Read Article: Maryland county may spend $57 million on incinerator it wants to close
Updated June 4, 2025
In case you missed it, an article published in The Washington Post on Monday June 2 covers machinations around the Dickerson incinerator. SCA is quoted. Read the full article: Maryland county may spend $57 million on incinerator it wants to close. For those who may not have access to The Washington Post, click here to read a PDF of the full article.
Trash Burning No Longer Considered “Renewable Energy” in Maryland
April 10, 2025
Maryland lawmakers enacted legislation on April 7 ending Maryland’s classification of trash incineration as “renewable energy.”
It’s been considered that since 2011, as part of the state’s “renewable portfolio standard” program. As such, the energy generated in “waste-to-energy” (or “refuse-derived fuel) facilities, such as the one in Dickerson, was treated the same as energy produced by solar and wind facilities. That included subsidies to help promote renewable energy sources.
Thus, incinerators effectively took money out of the pockets of solar, wind and other clean energy companies—even as incinerators polluted the air and generated greenhouse gases. Since 2011, Maryland consumers have supported the Dickerson incinerator to the tune of around $30 million.
The new law is a huge win for environmental, civic and energy justice groups—includingSCA—which have been pushing this outcome for years.
Maryland is now the second state, after California, to delete trash incineration from its renewable energy portfolio.
“It’s about time,” said Lauren Greenberger, SCA’s vice president and main advocate on the issue. “It’s been such a ‘waste’ of money—pun intended—and has helped prop up the remaining incinerators in the state, which are too old, inefficient, and produce dirty energy.”
Added Jennifer Kunze, Maryland Program Director with Clean Water Action: “This action will help support the development of zero waste infrastructure by making it easier for composting, reuse and recycling, and other healthier solid waste management practices to compete without fighting uphill against state subsidies supporting the worst solid waste management option.”
Our Position on the County’s “Zero Waste” Plans
Updated February 7, 2025
On Jan. 28, SCA shared its perspective on the County’s waste management plans at a briefing before the County Council. At the invitation from the Council’s new president, Kate Stewart, we shared the floor with the County’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).
It was a welcome opportunity to again state our opposition to the County Executive’s and DEP’s plan, announced on Nov. 25, 2024, to continue burning trash at the County’s incinerator in Dickerson for up to eight more years—rather than shutting the incinerator down in April 2026 as has been pledged for some years.
At the same time, we restated our strong support for DEP’s overall initiative to remake its waste management systems over the next decade. That initiative includes enhanced recycling, an effort to compost all the county’s food scraps (commercial and home), a simultaneous roll out of unit pricing for residential trash (pay only for what you throw away), and new processes and technologies to reduce the amount of garbage currently being burned in the trash incinerator in Dickerson.
On Nov. 25, County officials said they have authorized the Northeast Maryland Waste Disposal Authority (an entity that manages the County’s waste disposal) to extend for 5 years (from April 2026 to April 2031, and on an “emergency” basis) its contract with the private company Reworld (formerly known as Covanta), which operates the incinerator.
The announcement states that the County has the “option for early termination” of the contract. A planning timeline on the county website indicates, however, that decommissioning would not begin until 2030 with full closure not until 2031 or even 2032. DEP officials on Jan 28 affirmed that timeline to the Council. (SCA has not been granted access to the terms of the contract or the clause/section that would allow early termination.)
County officials say the main reason for extending the contract is that trash incineration cannot be terminated until (a) waste reduction strategies, (b) technological enhancements and (c) alternatives means of trash disposal, such as landfilling are substantially built-out and fully implemented. DEP claims that would take a minimum 5 years and more likely 6 to 7 years.
County Enhances Food Compost Effort
November 15, 2024
This month, Montgomery County launched the latest phase of its initiative to reduce food waste by encouraging businesses and residents to compost instead of discarding food scraps in the trash. (See a short video later in this article.)
Food scraps account for about one-quarter of the county's total trash volume. In 2023, the county estimates that approximately 90,000 tons of food waste ended up in the trash, most of which was incinerated at the county's facility in Dickerson.
Composting food scraps is an environmentally beneficial practice (and thus, a no-brainer), but it requires significant changes in behavior for households and businesses, as well as adaptations to the county’s waste management systems. The county has been running a pilot composting program for several years and now plans to increase participation and enhance its infrastructure.
Part of this effort includes allowing residents to “recycle” food scraps at the curbside, just as they do with glass, plastic, paper, and cardboard. The collected scraps would be transported to a central location, likely the Dickerson yard trim compost facility.
Click “Read More” to go to the full article and watch a short YouTube video of the County’s recent ceremony on the composting initiative.
Closing the Dickerson Incinerator Is an Environmental Justice Issue
Updated July 23, 2026
On Tuesday, July 28, the Montgomery County Council will consider options for how we manage our waste disposal. Just months ago, the County’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) presented a comprehensive and visionary waste management plan to the County Council. This plan would close the Dickerson Incinerator and end burning of nearly 600,000 tons per year of non-recyclable trash— the single largest source of pollution in the County.
Importantly, the closure will:
End the practice of dumping incinerator ash on a majority Black community in Virginia,
Implement significant waste reduction strategies like food, scrap composting countywide, and
Send our residual trash to an out-of-state landfill that meets strict environmental justice criteria, thus no longer harming the population that lives in the community.
SCA is concerned that several County Council Members have these facts confused.
This plan is a win-win solution--for Montgomery County, for waste disposal, and for communities of color affected by current practice
Have a look at the video produced by Zero Waste Montgomery County, one of the advocacy groups with which SCA works closely on these issues.
The video highlights County Council members criticizing the DEP plan because they claim it would hurt communities of color.
The opposite is true. Our current system--burning the trash and dumping its ash has been harming a majority black community for 30 years
The plan proposed by DEP is a far safer and forward-looking solution—for all of us. The current system promulgates environmental racism.
Please contact your County Council members and demand they accept and implement the plan designed by DEP. Close the Dickerson Incinerator now.