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Protect Communities From Toxic Burning Trash

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Sponsor: The Rainforest Site

Trash incinerators release dangerous air pollution into nearby communities. EPA must require the strongest protections the law allows.

A woman holding a small child looks out over a town blanketed in haze, with a smoking industrial plant in the distance against mountain slopes.

Trash incinerators burn municipal waste and release air pollution into nearby communities. EPA finalized new standards for large municipal waste combustors in 2026, but community and environmental groups say the rule still falls far short of what modern pollution controls can achieve.4

Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity Project filed a lawsuit challenging EPA’s standards, arguing the agency failed to meet the Clean Air Act’s requirements for strong pollution limits.1,2 The groups warn that weak rules allow incinerators to continue emitting cancer-causing and development-harming pollutants into communities that have often carried pollution burdens for decades.

Incinerator Pollution Is A Public Health Issue

Large municipal waste combustors can emit pollutants such as particulate matter, lead, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, acid gases, mercury, dioxins, and other harmful contaminants. EPA’s own fact sheet says the final rule strengthens emission standards and will reduce regulated pollutants, but the lawsuit argues the rule should have gone much further.4

The challenged rule is less stringent than EPA’s 2024 proposal, even though more protective standards were on the table.3 The Federal Register notice says EPA estimates the final rule will reduce regulated pollutants from existing sources by 3,269 tons per year.5 Advocates argue communities deserve the maximum reductions the law requires, not weaker limits.

The lawsuit could affect pollution standards for incinerators serving communities in New Jersey, the Hudson Valley, and Long Island, including Newark residents already facing serious environmental burdens.6

EPA Must Use The Strongest Legal Protections

The Clean Air Act requires EPA to set strong pollution standards for incinerators. EPA must not choose weaker controls when better pollution reduction is achievable. Communities near waste burners need continuous monitoring, enforceable limits, transparent data, and real penalties when facilities violate standards.

The EPA Administrator has authority to strengthen these rules and return EPA to its public health mission. The agency should revise the rule, require the strongest emissions controls supported by current technology, eliminate loopholes, expand monitoring, and prioritize communities that already face cumulative pollution.

No neighborhood should be treated as a dumping ground for toxic air. Burning trash should not mean exposing children, pregnant people, older adults, and families to avoidable pollution.

Sign now to urge EPA to strengthen trash incinerator pollution rules and protect frontline communities from toxic emissions.

More on this issue:

  1. Earthjustice, Earthjustice (11 May 2026), "Zeldin’s EPA Is Letting Trash Incinerators Poison Children. Now It’s Being Sued."
  2. Environmental Integrity Project, Environmental Integrity Project (11 May 2026), "EIP and Allies Sue Zeldin’s EPA for Excessive Trash Incinerator Pollution."
  3. Waste Dive Staff, Waste Dive (26 May 2026), "Community groups sue EPA to tighten its incinerator rules."
  4. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA (March 2026), "Fact Sheet: Final Standards of Performance for New Stationary Sources and Emission Guidelines for Existing Sources: Large Municipal Waste Combustors."
  5. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Register (10 March 2026), "Standards of Performance for New Stationary Sources and Emission Guidelines for Existing Sources: Large Municipal Waste Combustors."
  6. Gothamist Staff, Gothamist (17 May 2026), "Environmentalists hope lawsuit tightens polluting rules for Newark incinerator."

The Petition

To the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency,

I urge the Environmental Protection Agency to strengthen federal trash incinerator pollution rules and require the strongest emissions limits achievable under the Clean Air Act.

Large municipal waste combustors can release harmful pollutants into nearby communities, including particulate matter, lead, mercury, acid gases, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and dioxins. Many facilities operate near communities that already face disproportionate environmental and public health burdens.

EPA finalized new standards for large municipal waste combustors in March 2026, but community and environmental groups have sued, arguing the rule fails to require the strongest pollution controls the law demands. They warn that the final standards are weaker than what modern technology can achieve and weaker than EPA’s own earlier proposal.

Communities near incinerators should not have to accept avoidable pollution because EPA chose less protective limits. Children, pregnant people, older adults, people with asthma, and families living near these facilities deserve clean air protections based on current technology and public health need.

EPA should revise the rule to require the strongest legally required pollution limits, eliminate loopholes, mandate continuous monitoring where feasible, publish accessible emissions data, strengthen enforcement, and prioritize communities with cumulative pollution burdens.

Waste management policy cannot rely on burning trash while ignoring the people who breathe the emissions. EPA’s mission is to protect human health and the environment. That mission requires more than modest improvement. It requires the strongest standards the law allows.

Please strengthen federal trash incinerator rules and protect frontline communities from toxic air pollution.

Sincerely,

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