flowerbug
Garden Master
Trash is pollution. Burning trash releases compounds with high global warming potentials. Landfills release greenhouse gasses. It is connected.
i'd say some trash can be pollution, but not all... depends upon how it is treated. in the type of incinerators that most people use to burn trash the temperatures are very high to reduce or eliminate many of the problem compounds that happen. for your typical back yard burner of trash they rarely accomplish this kind of burn and it does release a lot of crud that is better off not done.
the landfills that release a lot of methane can be capped and that methane collected and burned as source of heat/energy/electricity.
i think the practice of landfilling is very wrong like many of our current practices... instead we should be requiring packaging to be 100% compostible and all products to be recyclable. tax things to the extent that they are not recyclable and put that money into developing the production chain needed to reduce and eliminate the trash completely. it can be done - just has to be a will to do it.