Delaware County Environmental Justice

Fighting for Environmental Justice in Chester City & Delaware County, Pennsylvania

  • Hey, Delco County Council! Hear Us!

    We’re calling on everyone in Delco to raise up their voices to tell County Council to:

    • Dial back use of the incinerator to zero as rapidly as possible.
    • Fund the Delco Solid Waste Authority and municipalities to implement the Delco Zero Waste Plan.
    • Work with DCSWA to ensure that they save the county’s Rolling Hills Landfill space for (unburned) Delco trash.

    Check out our most recent presentation on incineration and the harms it causes for our environment and our communities:

    https://www.delcoej.org/pdf/2025incinerationppt.pdf

    DCSWA is intentionally trying to fill the county landfill as fast as possible to get back in better financial shape, and it keeps taking incinerator ash (mostly from burning NON-Delco waste), plus trash and industrial wastes from Berks and Montgomery Counties, and industrial wastes from New Jersey.

    This landfill space is PRECIOUS and the price DCSWA sells it for now is far less than what the county will have to start paying for private landfills once Rolling Hills Landfill fills up.

    Only County Council can stop DCSWA from squandering this county resource for short-term financial considerations.

    Let’s speak up! Contact us and contact members of Council today!

Who We Are

Delco Environmental Justice is working to end waste incineration in Delaware County, PA and to win environmental justice in Chester City and nearby riverfront communities by preventing new industrial polluters from locating here.  In the course of these efforts, we advocate for a just transition to clean energy and zero waste solutions.

We started in 2007 as DelCo Alliance for Environmental Justice.  In our first six months, with help from Energy Justice Network, we defeated plans for the Israeli company, Koach Energy, to build the world’s largest tires-to-oil refinery in Chester.

Our primary concern is the Reworld (formerly Covanta) trash incinerator in Chester City.  It is the nation’s largest waste incinerator with the fewest pollution controls, and is the #1 industrial air polluter in the City of Chester, and in the entire county and Philadelphia region.  It drives up the high asthma and cancer rates in Chester and the region.

We are currently focused on on three goals:

  1. Finalizing Delaware County’s Zero Waste Plan and getting it adopted, funded and implemented to stop the county’s waste from being incinerated in Chester (or anywhere) and to reduce waste in order to create jobs and preserve valuable space at Delaware County Solid Waste Authority’s Rolling Hills Landfill in Berks County.
  2. Ending DELCORA’s use of incineration for the sewage sludge generated at their Western Regional Treatment Plant, a sewage treatment plant in Chester, and to transition to anaerobic digesters to biologically stabilize the sludge before landfilling it.  We also aim to have DELCORA stop accepting toxic industrial wastes such as landfill leachate.
  3. Supporting residents of Chester in their efforts to close the filthy crematory at Lewis M. Hunt-Irving Funeral Home.

Join us!  You can get involved or simply sign up for updates using this involvement form.

Recent Presentations

Why & How to End Incineration in Delco

Link to slides: Chester-DelCo

Zero Waste in Delco

Link to slides: NL2W-Delco-Zero-Waste-Presentation