The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is moving fast to remove dumpster fires and plastic incinerators from Section 129 of the Clean Air Act.

Yes, you read that right. Dumpster fires and plastic incinerators.

If this rule is adopted, these toxic incinerators would lose the strong health protections of the Clean Air Act, giving industry a free pass to pollute right in our own backyards.

It’s hard to express how devastating this rule change would be for children, elders, and all adults in our fenceline communities – especially over time. No one, regardless of income, background, or zip code, deserves to breathe hazardous pollution in their own home.

Air Curtain Incinerators (ACIs) are essentially dumpster fires or pit fires that are allegedly only allowed to burn wood and yard waste. But in practice, re-classifying ACIs as something other than solid waste incinerators would allow most materials to be burned unregulated. This would leave stressed communities even more vulnerable, especially in the wake of disasters.

Pyrolysis is the risky process of using heat to break down plastic waste into fuel, which often gets burned again. Industry CEOs want to fool us into thinking this is “chemical recycling” – but does plastic burning sound like recycling to you? Plastic waste is extremely toxic. When burned in incinerators, it can release dioxins, PFAS, benzene, formaldehyde, heavy metals and other toxins. Some of these chemicals are harmful at even a fraction of a gram and have been proven to increase the risk of cancers, cardiovascular problems, birth defects, reproductive system damage, developmental and neurological issues. We need the Clean Air Act and the EPA to protect us from these risks – not give industry permission to ignore them!

But perhaps the worst part of this nightmare rule is that the EPA buried the de-regulation of plastic incinerators in a single paragraph on page 11 and did not properly notify the public. This is a betrayal of the very mission of the Environmental Protection Agency. If they are the ones weakening the Clean Air Act, then who will protect us from the worst polluters? How will we know that our air is safe to breathe?