Who Burns in Chester?

The Reworld Incinerator, formally Covanta and also known as Delaware Valley Resource Recovery Facility, is the largest trash incinerator in the United States. It handles over 1.2 million tons of garbage per year and processes over 3,500 tons of waste per day. Built by Westinghouse in 1991 and operated by Covanta since 1997, this trash incinerator is the biggest polluter in Chester and one of the main polluters in Delaware County. Covanta/Reworld operates 36 total incinerators nationally. Their incinerator in Chester has the least pollution controls when compared to trash incinerators nationally, despite being the largest.

Chester, Pennsylvania is a small city south of Philadelphia and located in Delaware County. The city spans 6.1 square miles with 34,000 residents, while being home to the largest trash incinerator in the country (Covanta/Reworld) and a sewage treatment facility with a sludge incinerator (DELCORA). Chester was previously threatened with a pet crematory, medical waste incinerator, and soil remediation incinerator.

Over a century of systemic racism and political corruption has transformed the historic waterfront city on the Delaware River into a toxic regional waste hub and is recorded as one of the WORST CASES OF ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM IN THE COUNTRY.

Polluting industries have led to devastating consequences on community health and quality of life for the majority low-income black and brown community that lives in Chester.  These companies target low-income areas and communities of color because they are seen as the path of least resistance.

How Does Incineration Pollute Chester?

Facilities like the Covanta plant burn the trash inside combustion chambers and misleadingly call the process “trash-to-steam”, “resource recovery”, or “waste-to-energy” to make it sound “green”. But, burning all that trash releases large amounts of several pollutants, including nitrogen oxides (NO x ), sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ), lead, and particulate matter (PM2.5), which are tiny particles a fraction of the width of a human hair.

Air pollution from these sources are linked with respiratory illnesses like asthma, and puts individuals at higher risk for diseases, including cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and others. It also makes viruses like Covid-19 more dangerous. Children in Chester have asthma rates 5x the national average. (2010 census data from The Asthma Program, PA Dept. of Health- Data provided by Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council).

30% of the burned material becomes toxic ash which is then hauled to Rolling Hills landfill in Berks County, increasing hazards of leachate and making landfills more dangerous.

Chester residents are paying for the region’s trash problems with their lives. Less than 2% of the trash burned at Reworld is from Chester, the rest is from Delaware County, Philadelphia, NYC, NJ and other states. Chester has become the dumping ground for the region and CRCQL is working to change that!

What Can We Do?

CRCQL’s founding in 1992 marked the beginning of our fight against the incinerator’s pollution of our neighborhoods. Over the past 30+ years, we have been focused on driving Reworld out for the sake of our community’s health and well-being.

BAN THE BURN is an initiative that predominantly focuses on shutting down the Reworld Incinerator. For now, this means diverting waste from the incinerator to landfills, which as lower health and environmental costs. However, CRCQL believes in a Zero Waste society, where waste is not produced at all.

CRCQL’s work has resulted in significant strides. Most recently, Delaware County has agreed to divert a quarter million tons of trash from Reworld to Berks County landfill. Further, the result of our work can be seen in Reworld’s rebranding from Covanta; this is a clear and blatant attempt to greenwash their polluting reputation.

See the documentary “Laid to Waste” below to learn about the initial fights in the 1990s.