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Landfill Mining Conference Launched

The Global Landfill Mining Conference has been launched, and will take place on Thursday 9 October 2008 in London. Conference convenor Dr Robert McCaffrey commented, "This is an event whose time has come. With the cost of commodities soaring, it is time to realise that landfills are no longer liabilities, but are actually enormous resources. Those who grasp this opportunity will see very high returns. The main question is 'when?' This conference and exhibition will help all those involved in the industry to find out the answers to their burning questions, and will allow networking at the highest levels. Anyone and everyone involved in the landfill and landfill remediation business should attend."

14 April 2008 Beneath the boasts
Doubts linger over the waste programme "I believe we can hit the 2013 target [for cutting how much waste goes to landfill]," says John Enright, head of project development on the Waste Infrastructure Delivery Programme. "The challenge is can we deliver the 2020 target."
Councils are bringing forward better waste projects, he says: they're smarter, more flexible and more joined up. Fine, says the industry. But we want reassurance over bid costs and times.
Mr Enright has several reasons to be chirpy. Councils are putting together joint bids, meaning more can move forward more quickly. Problems remain, as years of squabbling between neighbouring local authorities prove. But it gives individual PFI projects a range of locations for treatment plants and saves money.
More flexibility is on the way, too. The environment ministry says that councils coming forward after the formal deadline expired last month will be urged to jump on existing schemes.
The move to disaggregate contracts (effectively limiting PFI to waste treatment plants, rather than bundling in things like collection) also has advantages. Councils can get on with waste minimisation and recycling projects, without waiting for all of the other bits to be agreed.
But the perennial problem remains the time and cost of closing deals, especially as competitive dialogue kicks in. Mr Enright doesn't promise to cut times, but does say that councils are being given more advisers, deals have become more standardised, and so on.
Competitive dialogue, he says, is "here to stay", and could iron out problems earlier on. High costs, meanwhile, simply reflect these deals' complexity.
Currie and Brown's Jim Crossman wants the ministry to be more prescriptive about waste technology, to stop councils "reinventing the wheel" with every project. The ministry, however, says that would be unacceptable in the era of local decision-making.
On planning, the other great bugbear, councils could do more. Eversheds lawyer Peter McCormack says councils need to think about acquiring land for treatment plants early on. But little help can be expected from the government, whose planning reforms are aimed more at power plants than at waste treatment. Things are progressing in waste. But the doubts remain.

11 April 2008 Casella's site assignment of landfill called into question
SOUTHBRIDGE - A lawyer for Southbridge, Sturbridge and Charlton residents is alleging Casella Waste Systems has operated a processing facility for years without the required site assignment from the Board of Health.
Kirstie Pecci has called for the suspension of ongoing public hearings in which the Health Board is considering Casella's application to dump 405,600 tons a year of municipal solid waste from throughout the state into the town-owned landfill.
Ms. Pecci, in her motion received Wednesday by hearing officer Nancy Kaplan, asserts the existing landfill site assignment area is about 53 acres.
Casella is, in essence, expanding the footprint of the site assignment area to 82 acres, Ms. Kaplan summarized at last night's hearing.
Ms. Kaplan said she would consider opposition on the motion from any party by the end of business Monday.
Ms. Kaplan raised questions on whether the current hearing was the correct forum to decide that issue and whether she was the correct person to make that decision.
Reached by telephone yesterday, state Department of Environment Protection spokesman Edmund J. Colletta said the agency had received Ms. Pecci's claim and was considering it.
"We've always understood that the area around the processing facility there was previously site assigned, but in light of the letter that came in and the new request, we're going to be reviewing the material that we have on that," Mr. Colletta said.
Because the state DEP's review will include documentation going back to 1979, Mr. Colletta said, a determination was likely to be made sometime next week.
Asked if the agency would order Casella to shut down the processing facility if it didn't have the appropriate site assignment, Mr. Colletta said, "I don't want to speculate on this particular issue at this point. Let's see what happens. I know in the past at other sites, if there hasn't been a site assignment, then we've required them to shut down until they got one."
Ms. Pecci asserted in a statement that Casella lawyer Robert Kirsch "misrepresented the acreage" in the site assignment on Barefoot Road, the approvals obtained for the processing facility, and the site assignment process itself.
Reached by telephone, Casella Renewable Group President James W. Bohlig said, "We have quite a few number of attorneys involved and everyone has their right to assemble their advocacy and make their pitch. I'm kind of surprised because our application has to do with the landfill. The Board of Health will have to decide where it sits and what (to) do with it."
Mr. Bohlig said he was certain the processing facility has a site assignment, adding, "We can't imagine why anyone in Southbridge would want to shut down a recycling facility that's pulling metal, recyclables, wood and other things out of the waste stream."
Michael Scott, a lawyer for the Board of Health, suggested it was "not uncommon for there to be some ambiguities, irregularities in the site assignment process. I agree with (Ms. Kaplan's) ruling that there should be a briefing on the issue so we can make an informed decision."
Meanwhile, John Gatti of Southbridge discontinued his cross examination of Casella's traffic expert, Robert Nagi of VHB. Mr. Gatti asserted the town's landfill monitor has not sufficiently provided him data he's requested.
"That is inhibiting my ability to ask questions relative to the issue of traffic. As a result of that, I'm going to wait for another witness. I want to state my displeasure," he said, adding he wrote a complaint to acting Town Manager John F. Healey.
Javier Meledez, a student at Bay Path Regional Vocational Technical High School in Charlton, said he intended to show evidence in the form of a video clip of a Casella truck going to the landfill at 5:36 a.m., prior to its allowed opening at 7 a.m.
Sturbridge Board of Health lawyer Nicholas Anastasopoulos challenged Mr. Nagi about traffic safety on Pleasant Street, the road leading to the landfill, which does not have a sidewalk as the road ends near the municipal airport.
Mr. Nagi said he would be concerned if somebody was walking along the street in that area.
The Sturbridge lawyer asked, "Do you have to be in the middle of the street to be concerned for their safety? Is there something magical about that six-inch curb cut that would protect someone on the sidewalk?"

11 April 2008 Taking the Guesswork Out of Recycling ; Beginning April 22, Earth Day, SF Recycling Companies Will Accept Plastic Cups, Containers, and Toys in Blue Carts Remember: No Styrofoam, Film Plastic or Plastic Bags
SAN FRANCISCO The days of looking for the chasing arrows symbol on the bottom of plastic cups and containers and trying to remember which numbers are OK to recycle are about to end.
Effective Tuesday, April 22, 2008 (Earth Day) the curbside recycling program will expand to include all “rigid” (stiff) plastics.
Residents and businesses will be encouraged to recycle all plastic tubs and lids, yogurt and clamshell containers (clean, without food or liquids), cups, buckets, plant containers, and other non-film plastics.
As long as an item is made only of rigid plastic – not a plastic bag or other film plastic – it can go into in the blue recycling cart.
Plastic toys will be accepted as long as they have no metal parts, batteries, circuit boards or wiring.
Plastic film of any kind, such as plastic bags and plastic wrap, will not be accepted. Styrofoam will also not be accepted.
Sunset Scavenger Co. and Golden Gate Disposal & Recycling Co. collect bottles, cans, paper, (and now rigid plastics) that residents and businesses place together in blue recycling carts and deliver the co-mingled materials to Recycle Central, the modern sorting plant operated by SF Recycling, Inc. on Pier 96.
Upgrading the blue cart program to accept more plastics is part of ongoing efforts by the City’s recycling companies to help San Francisco divert 75 percent of resources away from landfill disposal by 2010 and to help achieve what the City calls “zero waste” by 2020.
By placing more rigid plastics in the blue cart, residents and businesses will help provide additional opportunities for recycling workers to recover plastic items that can be recycled and made into new products. In this way the efforts of residents, businesses, and recycling sorters combine to reduce landfill disposal.
Unfortunately, plastics are pervasive in our society and recycling markets do not exist for all types of plastic. Many items made from plastic (hairclips, pens, lipstick tubes, straws, etc.) are so small they either fall through recycling equipment or cannot be picked up by sorters wearing protective gloves.
Also, manufacturing facilities using recycled plastic do not accept all types, grades, and colors of plastic. Therefore, not all plastics tossed in the blue cart will be recycled. But most of them will.
Plastic bags and other film plastics get tangled in recycling equipment, including conveyer belts, and plastic bags that get past recycling equipment contaminate paper bales. So, please, never put plastic bags or other film-based plastics in the blue cart.
Sunset, Golden Gate, and SF Recycling work closely with the City agencies including the Department of the Environment, the Department of Public Works, and the City Administrator’s Office to design and implement programs that make recycling easy and convenient for residents and businesses.
Toys with metal parts or wiring and other electronic products are not accepted in the curbside recycling program.

11 April 2008 Waste Management Inc - Breaks Ground on New Landfill Gas to Energy Facility in Ottawa
Waste Management broke ground on its new landfill gas to energy (LFGTE) facility in Ottawa, Ontario to-day which will produce up to 6.4 megawatts of energy - enough to power more than 6,400 homes in the area. It is expected the facility will deliver electricity to Ontario's transmission grid in the fall of 2008.
Our facility will benefit the local environment and economy because it will help offset the need for non-renewable resources such as coal, natural gas and oil," says Ross Wallace, Site Manager for Ottawa Waste Management Facility. "Waste Management is proud to be building this facility and combined with our existing waste management operations, demonstrates our company's dedication to fulfilling the needs of the community. We think it's a model that communities across Canada should consider."
"As Member of Parliament for Ottawa West-Nepean and Minister of the Environment, to-day's announcement is good news for our community," says John Baird. "Our Government recognizes the important effort of companies like Waste Management to help take action in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and to provide clean energy to Ottawa residents."
The Ottawa facility will be the company's second landfill gas to energy facility in Canada after the one in Ste. Sophie, Quebec, which delivers gas to the nearby Cascades paper mill. Waste Management also has plans to develop a similar energy project at its soon to be expanded Warwick landfill near Watford, Ontario as well as investigating the possibility of building another project at its landfill in Petrolia, Ontario.
The Ottawa LFGTE plant is part of Waste Management's corporate initiative to build 60 new renewable energy facilities by 2012. In 2008, Waste Management plans to bring 10 LFGTE facilities on line and begin development of an additional 10 new sites. These will be in addition to the more than 100 that are in operation at its landfill sites and third party sites across North America. It is also a key component of the company's environmental sustainability initiative to increase its waste-based energy production. To-day, Waste Management creates enough energy for the equivalent of 1 million homes each year. By 2020, it expects to double that output, producing enough energy for the equivalent of more than 2 million homes.
A pioneer in LFGTE projects, Waste Management designed and operated its first facility in the United States more than 20 years ago. With 277 landfills, Waste Management is North America's largest landfill operator and is in a unique position to expand waste-based renewable power generation across the country. The company is also exploring partnerships to expand its landfill gas-to-energy technology to other private and municipal landfills.
"This initiative is a major step in Waste Management's ongoing efforts to implement sustainable business practices across the company," says Wallace. "Landfill gas to energy projects provide an important contribution to our regional, provincial and national renewable energy portfolio."
Landfill gas, produced when microorganisms break down organic material in the landfill, is comprised of approximately 50-60 per cent methane and 40-50 per cent carbon dioxide. At most landfills in North America, these greenhouse gases are simply burned off or "flared." However, Waste Management sites with LFGTE facilities collect the methane and use it to fuel onsite engines or turbines, generating electricity to power surrounding homes and neighbourhoods while creating a new revenue stream for the landfills. By building LFGTE facilities, Waste Management reduces greenhouse gases by offsetting the use of fossil fuel at the utility power plants.

11 April 2008 Waste works win funding

DEFRA has announced pounds 310 million funding for four organisations to improve waste management projects.
Suffolk County Council will receive pounds 102 million with the Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham Partnership getting pounds 77.3 million, Leeds City Council pounds 68.6 million and Bradford City Council pounds 62.1 million.
The EU landfill directive requires the UK to reduce the volume of biodegradable municipal waste sent to landfill to 75 per cent of 1995 levels by 2010, 50 per cent by 2013 and 35 per cent by 2020. Councils that fail to meet the targets are set to receive fines.
But Bradford head of waste management Ian Bairstow said the funding still only represents a small proportion of the increasing cost of waste treatment. 'The council will face a huge increase in the cost of dealing with waste as it meets increasing levels of taxation and is forced into using new technologies,' he added.
Suffolk said the subsidy will be used to pay half the cost of building an energy from waste facility, its current preferred option. Contractors will now be asked to submit tenders for building and operating the facility. The county remains open to other technologies, it said.
Other authorities are yet to decide on a preferred method. Leeds said its facility is unlikely to be operational before April 2014.
Council executive member for environmental services Steve Smith said: 'Given the advances in treatment technologies, we feel that a decision should not be taken until after the evaluation of all potential solutions.'

9 April 2008 LANDFILL FIRE IN SAMUT PRAKAN; Days of danger at the dump
It is hard to imagine how tough and uncomplaining these people are, working in the summer heat and the public spotlight to extinguish the fires burning under the piles of garbage at the dump in Samut Prakan.
But these obstacles mean nothing to the small group of disaster relief and prevention officials who voluntarily offer their help in battling the flames.
Pritanong Tangwong is a 38-year-old steel worker and a member of the Sam Yak-Wong Wian 22 South 21 volunteer group for disaster relief and prevention.
He began his first, tough lesson at the burning 80-rai landfill site.
"I had never thought I would encounter something like this," he openly admits.
"I've been here for four days, starting on Saturday. When my chief ordered me there I thought it would take only two or three hours to finish the job.
"The reality was completely different."
He said they were well trained to protect themselves from accidents and the exposure to possibly toxic waste.
He was equipped with fire-resistant boots, protective clothing and hoses with variable nozzles that could spray water to clear the smoke away or inject water into holes dug deep into the garbage.
With the protective gear they are issued, and by bowing their body or standing high against the wind, he and his team were safe from the polluted air hanging above the burning dump.
"I can say that it is the toughest job I have ever done," he said.
"But it is worth it, because I am helping save hundreds of people from the haze and air pollution."
Sam Yak-Wong Wian 22 South 21 is one of more than 20 teams totalling over 100 volunteers which have joined the professional firefighters of Samut Prakan in battling the fires.
Chairote Tangchitratiang, the volunteer group chief, admitted some of the volunteers have become ill, with sore eyes, coughs, headaches and breathing problems.
"We understand that we can't avoid health problems. If we are too concerned about our health then we can't do this kind of job because we are dealing with the burning garbage," Mr Chairote said.
"We try to protect ourselves by drinking a lot of soda water to clear toxic gas from our bodies, but the fact is we can't always deal with it."
The dump site was once flood land, which means the surface of the rubbish they were walking on was not stable.
There was a danger of sinking into the muck and maybe not being pulled out in time. So he had provided a bamboo raft they could use to test whether the area was strong enough to hold their weight.
The volunteer group received a call for assistance from local radio and rushed to the scene on Saturday. They spent four days at the site, in the heat and the smoke, and finally withdrew yesterday, confident the local authorities could now handle the situation without their help.
"But we're ready to return if the situation gets worse," he added.
Senior assistant district chief Weerapan Dee-On voiced his admiration for the volunteer teams, saying they were well trained and knew exactly how to deal with the situation.
The local authorities also learned from the volunteers, he said. Close cooperation and a good management plan were they key factors in overcoming the crisis.

6 April 2008 City Hall Has Lost the War Against Garbage.
The Nairobi City Council has revised its by-laws to allow private operators to take control of garbage collection in the city. Plans are also under way to mechanise the council's cleaning services.
"This is meant to ensure sustainable waste management," said Mario Kainga, the council's assistant director of environment. "The polluter has to participate and take responsibility for pollution. That is the trend all over the world - there must be support from stakeholders, and they should participate in garbage collection."
Mr Kainga said the new garbage companies have helped Nairobi residents to avoid having to create illegal dumpsites. The council, he said, still participates in garbage management, only now it cannot meet the ever-increasing demand for removal service, and that is the main reason it has involved the residents. But the city, which produces 1,310 tonnes of garbage a day, has yet to fix its refuse-handling crisis.
From the 1960s through the 1980s, Nairobi was regarded as one of the cleanest cities in Kenya. Its neighbourhoods were quiet, and there were no stinking heaps of uncollected garbage on its clean streets.
The cleanliness made Nairobi a pleasant destination for both local and international visitors.
But today the presence of litter in the streets and the heaps of garbage in some of the neighbourhoods stand in deep contrast to the Nairobi in the 1970s when Mr Fred Mumbo lived and went to school in the Eastlands neighbourhood of Maringo.
"It is worse today. At that time, the population was low, and this made garbage collection easier to manage," he said. "My neighbourhood of Maringo was very clean and there were few slums at that time."
Nairobi began to experience problems with garbage collection in the early 1990s as more and more people moved to the city to escape rural poverty, and the city council could not cope with the demand for increased services.
Faced with this lack of response, private operators began to collect garbage for a fee at the city's estates, and some neighbourhood groups organised their own garbage collection. Fees range from Sh100 to Sh200 a month in Eastlands to Sh750 a month in the upmarket neighbourhoods.
The efficient municipal garbage collection system, whose trucks, known as kamero, were a welcome sight, made the neighbourhood rounds a thing of the past as are the Sh25 city council dustbins.
Yassin Omar, now 33, remembers when he used to hitch rides on the trucks as a teenager. In the absence of dustbins, the city council environment department recommends that people pack their garbage for pickup in polythene bags.
Despite 2005 by-laws prohibiting littering, the city still faces challenges in refuse management. But the city inspectorate has created an anti-dumping squad to arrest anyone found littering. Although the Dandora dumpsite remains the official landfill for waste disposal, plans are under way to relocate to proposed sites such as Ruai.
Nairobi is not the only city with garbage management problems. Earlier this year, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi ordered schools in the city of Naples to reopen despite the fear of disease caused by stinking mounds of garbage in the streets. More than 100,000 tonnes of garbage was left to rot on the roadsides of the southern city after garbage trucks could not operate because the landfills were full.
"We can't say that we have achieved our objective. The residents are the generators of waste, and it is problematic," said Mr Kainga, adding that Kibera, the city's largest slum, also leads in the garbage crisis.

3 April 2008 Georgia Power, Georgia Waste To Energy Strike Deal on Electricity Produced from Landfill Waste

Georgia Power and Georgia Waste To Energy Cedar Grove LLC, in partnership with America's Waste To Energy, penned a 10-year deal for electricity that will be generated from everyday household trash. The power will come from the Cedar Grove gasification facility in Barnesville, Ga. The material used to make electricity will come from household garbage delivered to the Lamar County Regional Solid Waste Landfill.

The Cedar Grove facility initially will produce six megawatts of renewable energy annually and plans to expand its generation capacity to 18 megawatts within the year. Under the contract, Georgia Power will purchase 100 percent of the plant's capacity. One megawatt is enough energy to supply a Super Target store or approximately 250 Georgia residences.

This marks the first contract Georgia Power has signed for electricity generated through a gasification process. Gasification is the process in which a carbon-based, high-caloric material also known as "municipal solid waste" (MSW) (i.e., anything other than glass, masonry, or metals) goes through a thermal transformation process in an oxygen-deprived environment and is then converted into a variety of products such as inert ash, various chemicals, synthesis gas (syngas) and steam. This process will not only produce renewable generation, it will also clean the existing landfill.

"By tapping into the power of biomass gasification to make electricity, Georgia Power is not only doing what's good for the environment but is also continuing to diversify its expanding renewable portfolio throughout the state," said Jeff Burleson, director of Resource Policy and Planning.

"This agreement essentially allows us to market the Biosphere system directly to cities, counties and governmental entities that are interested in landfill reclamation and utility generation," said Douglas Scott, managing member of GW2E. "The product's ability to create a zero waste environment will give municipalities the ability to solve their environmental concerns while providing clean water and electricity to their communities."

Georgia Power also currently purchases approximately 22,500 annual megawatt-hours from a landfill methane gas plant in DeKalb County that produces electricity from household waste, nearly 90 percent of which has become part of the company's Green Energy program.

With the addition of this contract, Georgia Power's energy portfolio includes contracts with seven qualified biomass and renewable facilities throughout the state that will generate 136 megawatts of capacity, or enough renewable energy to power more than 34,000 homes. These contracts include electricity generated from wood waste, landfill methane gas and hydro. Georgia Power also buys energy from eight other renewable sources when available.

AMERICA'S WASTE TO ENERGY partner, Global Environmental Energy Corp. (GEECF), is a fully integrated energy company whose interests include electrical power generation, oil and gas exploration and production, clean coal and waste management technologies. GEECF is publicly traded in Europe and the United States (Deutsche Borse: GLI, OTC Bulletin Board: GEECF) and maintains a Web site at www.geecf.ru .

Georgia Power is working to increase its renewable energy portfolio both through the purchase of energy from renewable generators and through investments in self-owned renewable generation. Additionally, Georgia Power will invest $43 million annually in 18 different demand response and energy efficiency programs, including six new programs recently approved by the Georgia Public Service Commission. These programs are expected to reduce electricity demand by 1,000 megawatts by 2010.

Over the past two years, through promotion of the Change a Light campaign, Georgia Power has distributed more than 200,000 compact fluorescent light bulbs to consumers across Georgia who have pledged to change at least one standard light bulb in their home to a compact fluorescent bulb. As a leader in the nation for ENERGY STAR Change a Light pledges, Georgia Power received the 2007 Excellence in ENERGY STAR Promotion Award.

Georgia Power is the largest subsidiary of Southern Company, one of the nation's largest generators of electricity. The company is an investor-owned, tax-paying utility with rates well below the national average. Georgia Power serves 2.3 million customers in all but four of Georgia's 159 counties.

2 April 2008 Waste Management Opens New WTE Facility
Houston-based Waste Management has opened a waste-to-energy facility at the company’s Austin Community Landfill in Austin, Texas. The facility will generate electricity that will power more than 40 percent of the Dell Inc. headquarters in Round Rock, Texas.
“Taking landfill gas and converting it to green power is a buried treasure for the community,” says Don Smith, general manager for Waste Management Central Texas, in a press release. “We take a once-wasted commodity and turn it into a long-term, reliable source of renewable energy, which is a major environmental plus for the Austin community and one of its major employers, Dell.”
The new facility is the ninth such facility for Waste Management in Texas.

1 April 2008 Utah company wants Italian waste.
EnergySolutions, a Utah-based company that provides technology and services to manage and treat hazardous waste, has applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to import 20,000 tons--the largest ever--of low-level radioactive waste from Italy over five years. Italy has no permanent repository to bury low-level atomic waste and has been looking overseas for help. Since closing its nuclear power industry two decades age, the country has stored the waste temporarily at power plants and other sites.
The Utah-based company plans to receive the waste at ports in New Orleans and Charleston, S.C., then transport it by truck, rail or barge to a facility in Tennessee for processing, burning and recycling. About 1,600 tons of remaining waste would then be sent to Clive, Utah, for final disposal at an EnergySolutions facility.
Federal and state lawmakers are concerned that the origin of the waste from Italy is not certain and the radioactive composition will not be known until it reaches U.S. ports. It is also uncertain whether the resulting waste, after being processed in Tennessee, will meet acceptance requirements at the Utah facility. "I'm not concerned about where it comes from," says Utah Senator Curt Bramble, "I'm concerned about them meeting state statutes."
EnergySolutions officials say they have addressed these concerns with a request to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that waste be sent back to Italy if it does not meet U.S. and Utah standards.
Although the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has administered import licenses in the past, it accepted public comments and requests for hearings specific to the Italian waste issue through early March and is expected to release a decision very soon.
Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. has stated that whatever waste is accepted must fit within the state's radiation limits and not exceed the one-square mile of land allocated for disposal at the site. In response to lawmakers' concerns about space for U.S. waste, EnergySolutions Chief Executive Officer Steve Creamer says there is capacity at the Utah landfill for another 35 years.

29 March 2008 Thermal plant backers want to persuade Vancouver to send garbage their way
The proponents of a $300-million thermal power plant soon to be built on Vancouver Island are optimistic that they can persuade Metro Vancouver leaders to send garbage to their facility, despite a declared interest yesterday in exporting it to a landfill in the United States.
Green Island Power spokesman Bruce Clark said his company would approach the Greater Vancouver Regional District “in the coming weeks” in a renewed bid to attract Lower Mainland refuse to the power plant in the tiny community of Gold River.
The village's former pulp mill is to be converted into a two-boiler, 90-megawatt system that could power up to 140,000 homes on Vancouver Island. The power plant would burn organic waste brought in by barges to a deep-sea dock nearby.
Mr. Clark said he hopes Great Vancouver will be one of its biggest waste suppliers.
Green Island was unsuccessful a year ago in persuading the GVRD to use Gold River because the region was concerned about the strength of the consortium that was building the power plant.
“They wondered what would happen with any investment or commitment if the Gold River plant didn't get built,” he said.
Two weeks ago, Green Island announced a new formal development partnership in the plant with New Jersey-based Covanta Energy. Covanta operates 34 similar facilities around North America
“We think that now Covanta has joined our team, we are much stronger. These folks really do know what they are doing,” Mr. Clark said.
Unrecyclable paper, construction debris and wood waste would comprise the main part of the refuse derived fuel (RDF), as it is known, to be burned at Gold River. It would be taken from sorted home and industrial waste.
The GVRD has estimated that it would cost $12-million to build the infrastructure for separating and barging RDF to Gold River.
The burning would not create toxic smoke because the plant would be carefully filtered, Mr. Clark said. There would be total savings of 2.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, he added.
“We're cleaner, faster and cheaper [than shipping it to the U.S.], so I am assuming that these smart folks who are local government mayors are going to take a serious look at it again,” he added.
Mr. Clark, who was at the meeting yesterday when the GVRD decided to seek provincial government permission to export the garbage, said almost every director didn't want to send waste to the United States.
“I believe the community leaders want something sustainable and good for the province. What they decided at the meeting is simply a back-up plan,” he said.
Mr. Clark responded to concern about garbage being moved by barge by stating that rail and road have a worse safety record when it comes to shipping refuse.
“They still want to advance zero waste and more energy recovery from waste, and those are things we can offer to them,” he said.
Green Island is one of 38 independent power projects given B.C. Hydro contracts in 2006, and is expected to come on stream in 2010.

23 March 2008 Overpeck's 'world-class' park closer to fruition ; Capping of landfill to start next month

Bergen County officials are making good on a 57-year-old promise amid piles of dirt and dredge spoils along Route 95.Engineering crews at the site of the former Overpeck Landfill are about to cap a decades-old garbage dump spanning Ridgefield Park and Teaneck, laying the groundwork for the creation of the world-class park that Bergen County officials promised back in 1951. The Bergen County freeholders approved a $5.5 million contract Wednesday to Montana Construction Group of Lodi, which will install a drainage and pipe system to collect and divert the liquid runoff known as leachate from the 400-acre landfill site. That's the final step before engineers can cap the dump with a 2- to 4-foot frosting of dredged sediment and sand on which a 120-acre park can be built.

The capping will start next month, said Bashar Assadi, the project director from PMK Group, the engineers hired for the landfill reclamation project "The intent is to meet the schedule," Assadi said. Bergen County faces a court-imposed deadline to cap the landfill and complete the park by Sept. 30, 2009. The $45 million project began in earnest in 2005, when about 350 trucks per day began arriving at the site to pour recycled concrete, rock and soil into the landfill, creating a buffer between the garbage and the eventual park.

The deadline is tight, Assadi said. So contractors are multitasking to find ways to beat the clock: The final layers of sediment and sand are already piled at the site, ready to be spread immediately after the leachate collection systems are in place. And for several months last year, when the number of trucks bearing clean fill slowed to a trickle, county officials waived the $3 per cubic yard fee they charged construction companies to dump the materials at the site. "We needed the fill at a certain time," Assadi said. The eventual park will include two baseball fields, two soccer fields, six tennis courts, a "great lawn," a 3,000-seat amphitheater, a boat launch, and trails for hiking, biking and horseback riding. Construction of that phase must begin in early summer, Assadi said.

"We trust that everything's going well," said Martin Durkin, an attorney for Ridgefield Park, which along with Teaneck sued the county over the landfill. Ridgefield Park and Teaneck, along with other towns, ceded land to the county in 1951 for the creation of a signature park. The county, however, created a landfill on a portion of the property, and accepted refuse there until 1975. "I hope that the height [of the fill] will come down somewhat," Durkin said. "When you look at it from the Ridgefield Park side, I was a little surprised."

Crews working at the landfill have piled from 7 to 18 feet more fill than is needed for the park, so that the added weight will compress the garbage to prevent structures atop it from sinking, Assadi said. In the coming weeks, crews will remove that "surcharge," he said, making the plateau less prominent.

Ridgefield Park officials have been insisting that the park be built exactly as promised decades ago including a pedestrian bridge over what is now the New Jersey Turnpike. The New Jersey Turnpike Authority rejected that option last week, saying a footbridge across 12 lanes of highway so close to the George Washington Bridge would "invite safety, security and liability risks," according to a letter sent Tuesday to Ridgefield Park Mayor George Fosdick. Fosdick said he the topic was still up for negotiation. "We expect it, and we will have it," he said of the footbridge

24 March 2008 Carbon credits for Missouri landfill
Thanks to the work of Environmental Credit Corp. (ECC), a leading supplier of environmental credits to global financial markets, the biogas collection system that is back online at the Newton-McDonald County Landfill in Neosho, Missouri, is generating carbon credits.
The system will collect and combust the landfill gas (LFG) to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions equivalent to roughly 40,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually for the next ten years. This yearly GHG reduction is equivalent to taking 7,275 passenger cars off the road in the U.S. annually.
The Newton-McDonald County Landfill began its operations in 1974, reaching capacity and ceasing collection of additional waste material in 1997. Previous owners installed the LFG collection system in an effort to reduce GHG emissions, but the system was shut down when it became too expensive to maintain. Since then, the landfill has been releasing GHG into the atmosphere.
With the system back up, the new owners, Solid Waste Properties, turned to ECC for help in converting the captured LFG emissions into carbon credits. Revenue from the sale of carbon credits provides the income required to keep the emissions capture system up and running.
The credits are sold through the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), the world's first and North America's largest GHG emissions registry and trading system. Following the rules outlined by CCX, the landfill operates a pipeline network that collects LFG. After the gas is collected and purified, it is flared and metered according to the CCX program guidelines. The Newton-McDonald project will continue through 2018.
"This project is a win-win for the landfill owners and the Neosho community, because it solves the problem of reducing biogas emissions from a closed landfill site while generating the funds to implement this reduction," said Ed Heslop, ECC chief executive officer. "This is an excellent example of the ability of environmental credits not only to reduce emissions, but to fund the methods through which facility owners can make changes to their operations that make these reductions possible."
ECC develops projects that reduce GHG emissions from agriculture, waste management, energy and other industries, creating carbon credits for sale into rapidly growing emissions trading markets in the United States and abroad. A CCX member as an offset aggregator, ECC markets carbon credits through CCX as well as directly to buyers.

19 March 2008 Cement plant eyes Iloilo plastic garbage as alternative fuel
A big cement manufacturing firm based in Iligan City is eyeing plastic wastes dumped at the Calajunan dumpsite in Mandurriao district here as important alternative fuel for the processing of cement.
This was announced by city department of public services chief Engr. Raul Gallo Tuesday, after representatives of Holcim Philippines paid a visit here last week to discuss possible cooperation and partnership on the elimination of plastic garbage at the city dumpsite.
Gallo said a pre-test run will be conducted after rebagging some 20 tons of garbage from the dumpsite starting March 22 until the end of the month.
The bags supplied by Holcim will be stored at the plants storehouse in Lapuz area and will be shipped by a Holcim vessel to Iligan starting April 1.
If the plastic discards are found suitable as alternative fuel, the city government, Holcim and GTZ will draw up a memorandum of understanding for a 100-day partnership for the shipment of plastic wastes taken from Calajunan to the Iligan cement plant.
The fuel test is slated on Aril 4 at the Holcim plant and samples have to pass quality standards.
Gallo said the city dumpsite is receiving some 150 to 170 metric tons of garbage every day collected from public markets, shopping malls and residences here. Plastic wastes are made up of more than 50 percent of the collected garbage.
He said the pilot project is expected to decrease the volume of collected garbage at Calajunan as the city is preparing to enforce the rehabilitation and closure plan of the old dumpsite in preparation for full implementation of a sanitary landfill in the area.
Gallo added that the dumpsite will be covered with soil taken from the Iloilo floodcontrol project site in Jaro and will be developed like rice terraces planted to trees and flowers to become later as an eco-tourism site.
The city government constructed a perimeter fence at the dumpsite and has effected an assistance loan of P90 million from the World Bank to buy heavy equipment such as two units of dumptruck and one unit backhoe excavator.
They are also going to buy two units of bulldozer compactor and a weighbridge.
The Holcim team who visited Calajunan recently is headed by Ernesto C. Paredes, head of the Alternative Fuels and Raw Materials and Ma. Rosario Chan, AVP-Technology Manager of the Alternative Fuels and Raw Materials.

17 March 2008 Waste Services sold to neighbor
Waste Services Inc. is selling its Jacksonville, Fla., area operations, and it didn't have to go far to find a buyer.
Advanced Disposal Services Inc., based in Jacksonville, is buying the waste hauling and recycling businesses along with a construction and demolition debris landfill for $57.5 million.
Waste Services, based in Burlington, Ontario, decided to sell after being unable to integrate the Jacksonville operations into a landfill near Orlando.
Waste Services plans to use $42.5 million for debt and $15 million for operations. The deal brings more than 80 employees and three locations to Advanced Disposal's Jacksonville-area businesses.
Advanced Disposal is owned by investment firm AIG Highstar Capital and has operations in Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. AIG Highstar also owns North East Waste Services Inc. of Carlisle, Pa., and Interstate Waste Services of Sloatsburg, N.Y.
Waste Services, meanwhile, also reported that revenue grew by nearly 25 percent last year, due in large part to higher prices and new business from acquisitions.
Internal revenue growth for the year was 5.5 percent, including 4.7 percent from higher prices, 0.5 percent from fuel surcharges and 0.3 percent from higher volume. Acquisitions, after accounting for divestitures, brought in $72.8 million.
The company narrowed its loss in 2007 to $23.1 million, or 50 cents per diluted share, on revenue of $488.3 million. That compares with a loss of $48.5 million, or $1.37 per diluted share, on revenue of $391.4 million in 2006.
Waste Services also narrowed its fourth-quarter loss to $12,000, or zero cents per diluted share, on revenue of $130.1 million. That compares with a net loss of $10.1 million, or 27 cents per diluted share, on revenue of $99.7 million in 2006.
Internal revenue growth during the fourth quarter totaled 6.8 percent, including 4.3 percent from higher prices, 1.4 percent from fuel surcharges and 1.1 percent from higher volume. Acquisitions, after accounting for divestitures, brought in $21 million.

13 March 2008 Governor closes open-air landfill in Buenos Aires
The governor of Argentine province Buenos Aires, Daniel Scioli, has shut down an open-air landfill located in district General San Martín, the government reported in a release.
The landfill's existence was brought into question by authorities and local inhabitants, as trucks transporting hazardous waste were allowed to access the area and dump residues, said Scioli, adding that authorities decided to take control of this situation.
Scioli made a call to "care for the earth, air and our waters," adding that growth without environmental responsibility "brings bread for today and hunger for tomorrow."
The official is preparing to send a bill proposal to the provincial legislature to pass a law calling for the elimination of plastic bags, replacing them with bio-degradable ones, according to the release.
This is the sixth landfill closed down by authorities. The ones previously shut down were in districts Tigre, Florencio Varela, Quilmes, Ensenada and Tres de Febrero.

12 March 2008 Old nylon causes run to recycler's shares; Poly-Pacific; Promising results from holes drilled at landfill site
Nylon that would have made stocking back in the 1970s caused quite a run yesterday in the share price of Poly-Pacific International Inc.
With a more than a tenfold increase in its six-month trading volume, shares in Poly-Pacific (PMB/TSX-V) rose more than 20%, to 12¢, on 1.9 million shares after the company announced positive results from the latest borehole investigations at the McAdoo's Lane landfill site in Kingston, Ont.
Headquartered in Edmonton, Poly-Pacific provides "eco-friendly solutions" to industrial waste byproducts. It is actively pursuing the reclamation of industrial polymer fibre, or nylon, throughout North American landfill sites.
At the Kingston West (McAdoo) landfill in mid-February, drilling investigations, conducted on behalf of Poly Pacific by local engineering firm XCG Consultants Ltd., found nylon in six of the eight boreholes drilled.
The company says the decision on where to place the boreholes, in the north and central areas of the landfill, was based on information from an individual who had been involved in the hauling of the waste nylon to the site in the 1970s.
Four of the six boreholes encountered nylon at 1.5 metres below the surface, reaching depths of 10 metres. The remaining two boreholes encountered nylon at 4.5 and 7.5 metres, respectively.
"I am extremely pleased with the results of our drilling program," Rick Gliege, head of operations with Poly-Pacific, said in a news release. "To have encountered nylon so near the surface and continue to depths of over 10 metres has exceeded our expectations."
According to the company's Web site, North American landfill sites contain vast quantities of commercial-grade nylon as the result of overproduction by various manufacturers during the 1950s, '60s and '70s. Nylon takes up to 100 years to decompose and nylon deposited underground 30 to 40 years ago will still retain most of its commercial value.
Poly-Pacific says nylon demand is estimated to increase by 40% by 2015, with advances in the automotive industry fuelling the rise. The company said it will sell the reclaimed nylon primarily into the Chinese market.
The price for recycled nylon is rising steadily. Poly-Pacific cites Global Recycling Network, an electronic information exchange that specializes in the trade of recyclables reclaimed in municipal solid waste streams. It indicates the spot market price for Nylon Type 6/6, "a very disirable commodity," has remained very stable during the past year. and is "now starting to increase in value."
Clean Scrap Nylon 6/6 has a current spot price of US$.77 per pound, Reground Nylon Type 6/6 has a spot price of US$.99 per pound, while pelletized, or Repro Nylon Type 6/6, has a current spot price of US$1.24 per pound.
While tests must still be done, indications are that the nylon found at the McAdoo site is indeed Nylon Type 6/6. The same nylon was found at the nearby McKendry landfill back in 2007, and Poly-Pacific says it is known that the manufacturer, Dupont, sent waste nylon to both sites. (The nylon found at the Mc-Kendry site has been mostly reclaimed.)
The reason waste nylon is found in landfills in large quantities is that machines that produced the product during this manufacturing era were not made to be shut off. "Doing so required a very lengthy process of shut down and start up," the company Web site says, and "it was simply more economical to keep the machines running and producing nylon than turning them off."
The company also announced this week that it closed a non-brokered private placement of units subject to regulatory approval, raising $149,000. Poly-Pacific will issue 1,862,500 units at 8¢ per unit with each unit consisting of one common share and one common share purchase warrant. Each warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one additional common share for a price of 15¢ per share until 5 p.m., twenty-four months from the closing date.

11 March 2008 AERT and Cherokee Nation To Break Ground on New Recycling Facility
Advanced Environmental Recycling Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ CM: AERT):, a leading manufacturer of green building materials, today announced the commencement of construction for its new state-of-the art recycling plant in Watts, OK. AERT’s new facility, funded and developed with the support of the Cherokee Nation and the State of Oklahoma, will reclaim post-industrial plastic materials for use in the Company’s building products. Company officials will host a ground breaking ceremony at the Watts High School Auditorium on Friday, March 14(th) at 1:30pm. Honored guests will include Chad Smith, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation as well as officials from the State of Oklahoma.
Members of the public interested in joining AERT for the ceremony and ground breaking should contact Sarah Piazza no later than Tuesday, March 11(th) at (479) 203-5084 or sarahpiazza@aert.com.
Benefits of the plant include providing AERT with low-cost raw materials, creating over 200 jobs in an area of high Native American unemployment, and reducing Oklahoma’s carbon footprint by reusing landfill waste. The project is designed for LEED certification making this facility a national example of green redemption and manufacturing.
The plant will be located on property where a large hog feed lot and finishing facility once operated. AERT plans to retrofit the wastewater and manure pits to pre-treat the effluent from the recycling process before it is discharged into the municipal system. AERT will be taking green to the next level by enhancing the mining and reclamation process with an end result of zero discharge from the Watts plant.

10 March 2008 Businessmen transform dump, burn biogas
A group of businessmen in México state's (Edomex) Tultitlán municipality are transforming a city dump into a sanitary landfill to burn biogas, president of Edomex industrial association (AIEM) Rafael Carmona was quoted as saying in an interview with paper Milenio.
According to Carmona, Tultitlán is now one of the few Mexican cities using the most advanced technology in the world, along with states Aguascalientes and Nuevo León. The latter was the first to promote the use of technology for solid waste treatment and the state is already generating electricity from the burning of biogas.
The AIEM president explained how the businessmen installed the technology to avoid adding to the greenhouse effect, as the gas is burned and is not released into the atmosphere. A second stage in the project is the generation of electricity, according to the report.
The businessmen have strategic alliances with companies like General Electric, which provided the equipment, and English firm Cometan that helps with the technology to burn biogas, according to the report.
"Just because it is garbage doesn't mean it doesn't have any value," Carmona was quoted as saying, adding that it only needed a little technology and materials to transform the dump.

5 March 2008Lebedinskiy GOK puts landfill into operation
Lebedinskiy GOK (Ukraine) put into operation a landfill of 5.9 ha. Construction of the waste disposal site came in at more than RUR20mln, the company said in a statement.

1 March 2008 Toronto solid waste shipments to MI on the decline
Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality's annual report of solid waste landfilled in Michigan, issued in January, reflects a reduction of solid waste shipments from Canada.
In response to this report, the City of Toronto has met and slightly exceeded its 2007 target to reduce waste shipments to Michigan. The City of Toronto's solid waste and wastewater byproducts shipments have decreased by 27% since the 2005 baseline was established between the Province of Ontario and Michigan's two US Senators.
At its peak in 2003, Toronto shipped 142 truckloads of waste per day to Michigan. Currently, Toronto averages 80 truck shipments daily. Waste landfilled in Michigan by Toronto is shipped to a single landfill, the Carleton Farms landfill in western Wayne County.
Toronto has taken two key steps to ensure that all of its shipments of waste will stop by 2010 and continue to be reduced annually in the interim. In April 2007, Toronto finalized its purchase of the Green Lane Landfill, located within Ontario, thereby securing a local Canadian solution to its landfill needs. The Green Lane Landfill will continue to meet Toronto's disposal needs after 2010.
In June 2007, Toronto's City Council passed a Target70 Plan, endorsing a target goal of 70% diversion of waste from landfill by 2010. This plan will result in continued reductions in cross-border waste shipments from 2008 to 2010. It commits an additional $540 million to new waste diversion efforts over the next decade.