MONTICELLO, NY — Sullivan County officials recently toured the Reworld incinerator plant on Long Island to see if a similar waste-to-energy system could help manage trash back home.

Josh Potosek, the county manager, said in his July newsletter that the county pays about $9.5 million annually to ship its waste upstate.

“Every year, we truck 100,000 tons of municipal solid waste 200 miles away to Seneca Meadows Landfill in the Finger Lakes,” he said. “It costs us $95 a ton, so taxpayers and local waste haulers are collectively paying nearly $10 million a year to remove our garbage. The state permit for that landfill, by the way, may or may not be renewed in the coming years, so for these reasons alone, we need to explore alternatives.”

Potosek said a waste-to-energy system, one of the alternatives under consideration, creates electricity through the “clean burning of trash.”

He noted that Reworld operates without a problem in the middle of densely populated Long Island. “It opened our eyes to the possibilities,” he said.

Concerns about waste-to-energy systems have centered around toxic emissions, but modern systems must meet stringent environmental standards.

Reworld still produces ash, which it forms into bricks. It must now ship the ash to a landfill hundreds of miles away because the one it had been using, Brookhaven Landfill, is closing, according to a report by Newsday.

In addition, Covanta—the company’s name until its rebrand to Reworld in April—and Brookhaven are looking to settle a whistleblower’s lawsuit over the ash sent to the landfill, which the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation found contained hazardous amounts of the heavy metals lead and cadmium, according to Newsday.