Broward Trash Hauler Gets the Best Compliments Money Can Buy

By Thomas Francis Thu., Mar. 4 2010 at 2:05 PM

Categories: Broward, Business, Environment

Flickr

The view from inside one of Wheelabrator's incinerators, where your trash goes up in smoke at considerable expense.

Wheelabrator, the division of trash-hauling giant Waste Management that owns Broward County's two mammoth incinerators, is desperate to persuade cities to renew a contract for dumping waste at their facilities. But that's a tough sell, especially if you read articles like the one I wrote in September 2008, in which we revealed that those contracts have been a monumental ripoff for taxpayers. They also create a disincentive for Broward cities to recycle, which makes them trash for the environment.

So the corporation will have pay for a new, less-informed narrative. Enter Amie Vaccaro, a writer for the website Triple Pundit. Wednesday, she published this post, which raves about Waste Management execs and Broward politicians teaming up to create "quite possibly the most advanced and integrated waste management systems in the country."

She was dazzled by

her tour of the Wheelabrator incinerator -- the same one that the company told me was strictly off-limits.

Buried at the bottom of this drivel, you'll find this very telling caveat:

In the interest of full disclosure, WM (Waste Management) has covered Amie's travel expenses to the Florida summit.

Now there's a waste industry investment that actually paid off! Too bad the taxpayers' multibillion-dollar investment in the incinerators didn't turn out as well.