Many old apartment buildings used to have incinerators. They would have a chute that ran through each floor. A door would open to the chute on each floor, and the fire would be at the lowest level of the building. Visible black or white unfiltered smoke would leave the building through a chimney.

That is how things were done in the beginning of the last century. These building incinerators were wide spread through the 1960s. Then, government started to learn that the practice is unhealthy and most of the old apartment building incinerators were shut down.

Today, an apartment building owner would have to obtain an expensive air pollution permit to run an incinerator, and for the most part it would not be cost effective to do so. While many of these building incinerators are now shut down, many larger scale incinerators are still around and are still polluting the air . Since we all must share the air, we should share concern about these incinerators.

Who still incinerates? Many local governments still incinerate the household waste that they collect from our communities each day. And many businesses are still permitted to incinerate their industrial waste. Some hospitals are even allowed to burn their medical waste. There are health problems associated with incineration and for the most part, we would all be better off if many of these incinerators were closed as well. Certainly the less of these the better.

While they have government permits allowing burning, this does not mean that no harmful materials are released from them at all. In fact, and most people do not realize this, the government permits are permits to pollute the air.

You see, air pollution permits do not prohibit the release of all pollution. Rather, they actually "permit" releases of various harmful substances, up to specified permit levels. This means that these incinerators are allowed, by law, to release noxious substances into the air, so long as they do not exceed the levels set forth in their permits. The idea is that these incinerators are a necessary evil, and the environment can absorb limited amounts of pollution. That's the idea, at least.

But even with the most state of the art emissions devices in place, incinerators still release pollution into the air. Many former municipal incinerator sites have now become federal Superfund cleanup sites. What does that tell you about the safety of these operations? And if you look at what now has to be cleaned up, a list that usually includes lots of lead, other metals, pesticides, and harmful chemicals, you get a sense of the types of wastes that are often released into the environment.

Industrial incinerators have their own lists of wastes, some of which are also harmful. And medical waste can really be noxious - especially if you think about what they burn at hospitals.

In addition, just as does a fireplace, incinerators leave an ash after the burning. And theash can be very toxic. Often the ash waste is brought to landfills, from where it can, and often does drain into surface and ground water. That's the same water that we ultimately consume.

To be clear, incinerators are much cleaner than they used to be. But they do have an adverse combined effect on our environment. While some incineration may be a necessary evil to dispose of all of this waste, the less of these that are out there, the better off we all are.

What can you do? New incinerators and proposed incinerator expansions require permits, which usually require, in turn, public notice. Often the public may comment at public hearings. If you oppose additional incineration, use these opportunities to be heard.

The information provided in this column is written by Stuart Lieberman,a practicing environmental attorney, and is for general information purposes only. It is not legal advice and should not be used in place of legal advice.

Stuart Lieberman, Esq., and IRED.Com, Inc., will not accept any responsibilty for any reliance on the information in this column or any damages whatsoever resulting from reading this column.