More than $20 million for military incinerators up in smoke
Every day, U.S. troops stationed at military bases accumulate waste: from Styrofoam packaging, to batteries and used equipment. Despite health warnings, U.S. bases in Afghanistan have been using open-air burn pits to dispose of all this litter.
By 2011, the Department of Defense (DOD) began using other methods, including installing incinerators at some of the military bases. In its latest report on U.S. government spending in Afghanistan, a government watchdog has found that the U.S. military spent over $80 million on incinerators, but at least $20 million of that money was wasted because four bases never used the machines.
The Special Inspector General of Afghanistan Reconstruction [SIGAR] reported Thursday that 23 incinerators were built at nine U.S. military bases across Afghanistan since 2011 at a cost of $81.9 million.
The incinerators, along with landfill operations, were meant to replace the open-air burn pits, but because of inadequate planning, design and construction, four installations costing $20.1 million were never operational.
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