Hughes Energy is proposing to build a garbage processing “waste-to-energy” facility in the heart of the Catskills, directly adjacent to a highly protected drinking water reservoir.

The proposed facility would would truck in and process up to 175,000 tons of mixed municipal waste per year to be turned into fiber and burnable pellets through an unproven “autoclave” steam process. 

This enormous industrial facility would add traffic, noise, air pollution and water infrastructure burdens to rural communities and fragile ecosystems. Hughes Energy claims this project will mitigate trash accumulations at landfills and therefore reduce methane emissions. They fail to include the greenhouse gas and emissions impact of trucking garbage from a 50-mile radius, or the climate impacts of burning the pellets they hope to manufacture, or the problems with burning toxic substances and PFAs that would be present in their pellets.

This would be the first-ever plant of its kind and scale in the United States. A few garbage processing autoclave facilities have been built and tested in Europe, but based on our research, none of them achieved the intended “recycling” process.

Local residents have formed a grassroots coalition, Don’t Trash the Catskills, to oppose Hughes Energy’s greenwashed proposal.

Our Children’s Earth is supporting, advising, and acting as the fiscal sponsor for this coalition.

Hughes Energy officials have consistently misled the public by making contradictory and untrue statements, such as claiming that the autoclave technology is a form of composting.

This project appears to be a ham-handed attempt to monetize a specific proprietary component of the autoclave process known as the “Wilson System.” Hughes Energy claims it is exploring other sites throughout New York State as well as in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Minnesota. Behind the scenes, Hughes Energy is been pursuing public funding for additional projects in New York State.

Hundreds of citizens have already voiced their concerns at in-person meetings and in written comments to state and local governmental officials.

One concerned resident with a professional background in solid waste policy observed that Hughes Energy’s proposed autoclave technology is a “solution in search of a problem.” Household garbage should be sorted and separated, not trucked to rural areas for industrial processing.