Well, imagine you have 500 wooden chairs, lightly contaminated. If you incinerate them carefully (running all waste gases through filters before being released

Well, imagine you have 500 wooden chairs, lightly contaminated. If you incinerate them carefully (running all waste gases through filters before being released to the atmosphere), you can convert 500 wooden chairs into a couple pounds of contaminated ashes and filters. Which are much easier and cheaper to dispose of.