Neighbors Against the Burner

In the fall of 2006, some residents of Merriam Park heard that there were plans to build an incinerator at the nearby Rock-Tenn paper recyling plant which would be burning RDF (refuse-derived fuel, i.e. chopped-up garbage) and polluting the air in the heart of St. Paul and surrounding neighborhoods. These neighbors began to discuss what could be done by community members to halt this assault on public health. The group called themselves Neighbors Against the Burner and began to reach out to other neighbors, putting up yard signs, educating citizens at block parties and community festivals, and holding meetings to talk about the threat of garbage incineration to the quality of our air and health. NAB has been working hard to educate itself about clean and viable energy alternatives for the Rock-Tenn plant. Today NAB continues its campaign of community education and contacts legislators at city, county, and state levels to express concerns about the dangers of incinerating solid fuels and wastes. NAB members have been attending the St. Paul Port Authority's Rock-Tenn Community Advisory Panel meetings to help represent community opinion and to ensure that RCAP members have the opportunity to consider as broad and long-range a view as possible of the solution to Rock-Tenn's energy needs while at the same time protecting the health and quality of life of Rock-Tenn's neighbors.

Neighbors Against the Burner Mission Statement

Neighbors Against the Burner speaks with a community voice to protect the people and natural resources of Minnesota by supporting sustainable, safe, and clean energy production and rejecting unsafe, polluting, and outdated technologies such as incineration. 

Neighbors Against the Burner Supports:

1. conservation, the cleanest source of energy, and proposes that public funds be spent to achieve this
2. a safe and clean source of energy for the Rock-Tenn paper recycling plant as the Minnesota Legislature has mandated
3. an energy facility designed to meet the needs of the Rock-Tenn plant, rather than a larger facility
4. job retention represented by a collective bargaining unit at Rock-Tenn because good jobs, a strong economy and a healthy environment can coexist and are not mutually exclusive
5. requiring a commitment from Rock-Tenn’s parent company to stay in Minnesota at their current size during the life of public subsidies provided to them
6. the indisputable assurance that emissions will not adversely affect human health before permitting is approved
7. the use of clean, renewable and sustainable energy such as wind, solar, geothermal and other emerging technologies that do not include the use of solid fuel incineration
8. the use of natural gas with the use of state-of-the-art energy efficient burners as the least harmful or objectionable fuel if no renewable solution is deemed viable
9. Zero Waste initiatives that include recycling, reusing, composting and the reduction of packaging as a basic solution to waste management
10. public subsidies for sustainable and renewable energy production which meets the goal of cleaner air, water and land for the state of Minnesota

Neighbors Against the Burner Opposes:

1. the burning and/or incineration of solid fuels and wastes
2. public subsidies for garbage generation and burning
3. diminished air quality that threatens the health of the citizens of Minnesota