{"id":159890,"date":"2026-04-07T22:35:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T22:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/159890\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T22:35:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T22:35:07","slug":"philly-trash-incineration-city-could-extend-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/159890\/","title":{"rendered":"Philly trash incineration: city could extend contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story is part of the WHYY News Climate Desk<\/a>, bringing you news and solutions for our changing region.\n<\/p>\n

From the Poconos to the Jersey Shore to the mouth of the Delaware Bay, what do you want to know about climate change? What would you like us to cover? Get in touch<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

Philadelphia could extend its controversial contract with a Delaware County trash incinerator for an additional year. The move comes as some members of City Council are pushing to end the city\u2019s practice of burning trash, and instead send it to landfills.\n<\/p>\n

Carlton Williams, director of Philadelphia\u2019s Office of Clean and Green Initiatives, told council members during a budget hearing Tuesday that the city may extend its current waste disposal contracts by one year, if the city is not able to sign new contracts before the current ones expire at the end of June.\n <\/p>\n

The delay would be caused by the process of evaluating and approving the next contracts, Williams said. First, city consultants need to complete a study comparing the environmental impacts of landfilling and incineration<\/a>, he said. The city\u2019s Sanitation Department also needs to evaluate and negotiate bids from waste disposal companies vying for the next contracts, and Council must approve them. Williams said the city hopes to complete this process by early this summer, but if the city needs more time to review bids, it will look to extend its current contracts.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make sure that we get it right,\u201d Williams said. \u201cWe certainly don\u2019t want to rush it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The city can extend its current seven-year contracts with WM, formerly Waste Management, and Reworld by up to one year beyond June 30 without Council approval, said Ava Schwemler, a spokesperson for the city Law Department. Schwemler said the city has not yet asked WM and Reworld for this extension.\n<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s possible extension comes as Council considers a bill sponsored by Councilmember Jamie Gauthier that would ban the city from signing new deals for waste incineration<\/a>. Currently, about 40% of the city\u2019s garbage is burned at incinerators, most of it at Reworld\u2019s incinerator in Chester.\n<\/p>\n

Environmental and health advocates say air pollution from this incinerator degrades Chester\u2019s air quality<\/a> and puts residents\u2019 health at risk. The facility releases pollutants known to make conditions like asthma worse.\n<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Reworld has ramped up its lobbying of Council and Mayor Cherelle Parker\u2019s administration.<\/a> The company, formerly known as Covanta, was among the biggest spenders on lobbying in the city during the last quarter of 2025, spending $45,000 on lobbying council members and the Sanitation Department. The company\u2019s political action committee also donated $3,700 to Parker\u2019s campaign in December, although she will not face reelection until next year.\n<\/p>\n

Reworld did not respond to a request for comment. The company has said its incinerators are sustainable alternatives to landfills that produce electricity from trash while avoiding landfill emissions of planet-warming gases.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story is part of the WHYY News Climate Desk, bringing you news and solutions for our changing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[72288,69,71,70,60124,5206],"class_list":["post-159890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-clean-and-green","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-trash-incineration","tag-whyy-news-climate-desk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}