First Global Landfill Mining Conference, 9 October 2008

The first Global Landfill Mining Conference took place at the Royal School of Arts in London on 9 October 2008. Over 100 delegates from nearly 20 countries attended the event, to hear academics and industry participants talk about prospects for landfill mining, and about case studies of pilot projects and successful full-scale industrial proejcts.

Depending on the landfill ("There are landfills and there are landfills" according to conference convenor Robert McCaffrey), it has been shown that integrated landfill mining is economically feasible - although market rates for plastics, metals, land and secondary fuels can also have an impact on potential profitability. A second Global Landfill Mining Conference, which had been scheduled for October 2009, has now been postponed in the wake of a collapse in commodity prices which has made the propsect of economical landfill mining a less feasible prospect in the immediate future.

20 January 2009 Hunt starts for new types of waste to be reused and recycled

80% of compost producers already using guidance, cutting costs and helping the environment The search for additional waste materials that can be reused and recycled, rather than needlessly dumped in landfill, has been launched by the Waste Protocols Project - a joint Environment Agency and WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) initiative.
The Project, set up in 2006 to help industry make better use of waste materials by clarifying in Quality Protocols how and when waste can be freed up from regulations and used with no further risk to the environment, has identified a range of materials that can be turned into new items rather than discarded.
To date 11 materials - including non-packaging plastics such as old drainpipes - and waste cooking oil that can be transformed into biodiesel - have been reviewed by the project.
In total this first wave of protocols, over the next 10 years, are projected to save businesses and industry more than £400 million, create a £280 million market in the materials and divert 17 million tonnes of waste from landfill.
Already a Quality Protocol for compost has been taken up by over 80% of producers and diverted an estimated 2.8million tonnes of waste from landfill.
A protocol for flat glass is also due to be launched later this month which will make it easier to recycle the 6.6 million windows that are replaced in homes across England and Wales every year.
Martin Brocklehurst, the Environment Agency's Head of Environment Protection External Programmes, said: "The Waste Protocol Project is an exciting initiative that is already making a positive impact on both industry and the environment. But we don't want to stop here. There are more types of waste that could be treated as a resource rather than rubbish and because it takes time to develop a Quality Protocol we want to start identifying more potentially suitable materials now.
"For Quality Protocols to be effective and divert waste from landfill, reduce pressure on precious natural resources and reduce businesses' overheads in this tough economic climate, it's vital that industry bring their technical expertise to the table.
We need industry's help to ensure that the waste materials with the greatest potential for recycling and reuse are selected.
Marcus Gover, WRAP's Director of Market Development, said: "Quality Protocols play a key part in developing confidence in a market place because they give clear guidance on when a waste can become a product.
"In many cases the Quality Protocol allows industries to feel confident at requesting a higher specification of material which can lead to higher quality products.
In addition to this there is the removal of some regulations which can help stimulate the market." For a waste to be potentially suitable for a Quality Protocol, it must: · Be processed now - or in the near future - in the UK · Be fully processed and ready to use without further processing at the site of production · Be produced in large tonnages or has a high value and, · Have a market, or potential market and can be used as a direct substitute for a virgin material.
Application forms can be downloaded at www.environment- agency.gov.uk/wasteprotocolsselection and, once completed, submitted to wasteprotocols@wspgroup.com before 12 noon on Wednesday 8 April 2009. Successful applicants will be invited to present their proposal to a Waste Protocols Project Board panel in London on 20 May 2009.
A decision on which new materials are accepted will be made in June 2009.
For further details about the Waste Protocols Project, which is funded by Defra, visit www.environment-agency.gov.uk or www.wrap.org.uk

 

17 September 2008 Powerday and Wates Living Space join forces

London-based recycling firm Powerday and Wates Living Space have signed a five year agreement which will help the construction company move towards their 'zero waste' commitment. In 2006 Wates Living Space signed up to progressive landfill diversion targets, with a target of zero waste to landfill by 2010. This is a tough task and a bold step, but Wates believes it is achievable and is working with Powerday to make it a reality. Powerday, London's largest construction waste recycling company, has recently invested in a major new state of the art recycling facility, full of equipment that will produce high quality recyclable materials and divert up to 100% of construction waste from landfill. Concrete, bricks, packaging, wood, metal and other materials can all be reused, recycled or recovered and Powerday is leading the way in using new technology.

Mick Crossan, Powerday's Managing Director, said: 'Wates Living Space is one of the first companies to have the foresight to move away from relying on Victorian methods of waste disposal. At Powerday we're really pleased to be working on such an important - and deliverable project. Our aim is 100% resource recovery, and no less.'

John Walsh, Operations Director at Wates Living Space, said: 'The target of zero waste to landfill is challenging. But our partnership with Powerday means we're already well on our way to meeting our objectives, setting new standards for the construction industry and reducing our carbon footprint.'

The ground-breaking partnership will not only provide Wates' London region operations with a one-stop-shop for recycling. Data provided by Powerday on the composition of waste received from different construction sites will mean Wates can monitor progress on waste reduction, and training will be provided using Powerday's fully accredited on-site education centre. Powerday's main recycling facility is located at Willesden Junction, north London. It benefits from road, rail and canal access and is one of only a handful of locations in the country that provide inter-modal facilities.

17 September 2008 £2m plan for plastic bottle recycling plant

THE first company in the UK capable of recycling waste plastic bottles back into food packaging material is investing nearly £2m in a new plant on Deeside, with the creation of 50 jobs. Closed Loop Recycling opened its revolutionary first plant in London in June, and the move to open the second plant is backed by private equity investment from the Foresight Group and about £m in public sector funding from the Welsh Assembly Government. The new recycling plant on Deeside will each year take 50,000 tonnes of water, milk and other soft drinks bottles which would otherwise end up in landfill sites and turn them back into recycled raw material for new food and drink packaging.

Managing director Chris Dow said the plant will allow the firm to make a real impact on plastic recycling rates in the North West of England and North Wales. "This new venture is further evidence the UK is undergoing a recycling revolution. Until we started operations, there was no facility to recycle plastic bottles back into plastic food packaging," he said. "Now that we provide that facility, the industry is beginning to view recycled plastic in a new light. It's no longer waste. It's becoming a valuable resource. We believe we are pioneering the future in packaging solutions."

15 September 2008 Textile reuse helps landfill

Every year Santa Barbara County residents throw away more than 11 million pounds of usable clothing and household textiles into very limited local landfill space. Through a grant funded by the California Integrated Waste Management Board, the City of Santa Maria and its partner, Textile Waste Solutions, Inc., provide a solution for the community to significantly reduce textile waste. Used clothing that would otherwise be discarded at the Santa Maria Regional Landfill is diverted through a collaborative effort with local non-profit organizations and thrift stores.

Clothing, bedding, belts, shoes, towels, and soft toys - virtually anything made from fabric - can get a second lease on life. They can be reused for people in need within the community. Textile recycling companies around the country work closely with thrift stores and charitable institutions to find new homes and uses for old clothing and fabric items that cannot be sold, freeing up clothing for those less fortunate. Through collaboration between the City of Santa Maria, Textile Waste Solutions, and local thrift stores, the community has significantly reduced the volume of textiles that would otherwise have ended up in the landfill. The City staff want to achieve increased textile diversion and inspire neighboring communities to do the same.

Every bit of clothing counts! Clothing with missing buttons, zippers, and holes can be reused for rags that are sold to help pay local workers and to fund the expense of transporting usable clothing. Donate to local thrift stores or bring used clothing to the Utilities Department drop site at the landfill. For more information, call the City of Santa Maria Utilities Department at 925-0951, ext. 7270. Funding provided by a Grant from the California Integrated Waste Management Board. Zero Waste - You Make It Happen!"

15 September 2008 Plans to incinerate rubbish

Two incinerators designed to convert rubbish into energy instead of burying it could be built in any of 11 locations on Merseyside. A long list of sites deemed suitable for "thermal treatments" of waste has been drawn up following a trawl of the city-region. Burning rubbish and turning the heat into electricity is being considered as a solution to the region's over-dependence on landfill, whichwill soon be subject to prohibitive taxes. The listwas drawn up by Alan Jemmett, director of Merseyside Environmental Advisory Service (MEAS). Three of the sites are in Wirral, two each are in Liverpool, Knowsley and Halton, and St Helens and Sefton have one each. They include sites in Bootle, Widnes, and a number in Birkenhead.

Pre-empting calls for incinerators to be built, Knowsley and Liverpool councils have already passed resolutions against such developments, but suitable sites have been identified in both boroughs. MEAS was asked by Merseyside's borough councils to draw up an overarching Waste Development Plan Document. It identifies sites across the region that will be most suitable for newfacilities to deal with the city-region's six million- tonne rubbish mountain. In Mr Jemmett's latest report - sent to each council's planning committee and decision-making cabinets - he asks councils to agree to start consultation with the public and key bodies about the list. On the 11 so-called "sub-regional sites", Mr Jemmett writes: "These larger sites are the most likely to be the most suitable locations for larger waste management and treatment facilities."

12 September 2008 Casella opponents move against landfill ; Company seeks appeal dismissal

A lawyer representing 280 residents of Southbridge, Sturbridge and Charlton filed a motion in Worcester Superior Court this week fighting Casella Waste Systems' effort to dismiss an appeal of a decision to bring more household waste into the town landfill. Casella and the Board of Health are defendants in the case. The board voted, 3-2, in June to allow the company to bring more municipal solid waste into the landfill on Barefoot Road. The Casella motion argues that the plaintiffs lack standing to appeal the decision and failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.

Kirstie L. Pecci, the residents' lawyer, said, "Any parties to the site assignment hearings have the right to appeal. I'm pretty sure we're not going to be knocked out by this motion to dismiss." Casella seeks state permits to modify the allowed disposal rate at the town-owned landfill to 405,600 tons per year, or 1,500 tons per day on average. It would be allowed to accept any combination of processing facility residue and solid waste without regard to geographic origin. Until now, the company has mostly received and recycled construction waste at the landfill, and 24,960 tons a year of municipal solid waste only from Southbridge.

Last year, it accepted more than 147,000 tons of waste, and more than 116,000 tons in 2006. Ms. Pecci said this week the next phase is to determine what information from the months-long site assignment hearings should be included in the appeal. The citizens, Casella and the Board of Health will each have a point of view on the information that helps their case. She said she hopes to have a judge's ruling within about eight months. The Sturbridge Board of Health recently withdrew an appeal after reaching a settlement with Casella that included Casella installing up to three groundwater monitoring wells and paying Sturbridge $50,000 for testing the sentinel well. Ms. Pecci said Casella hasn't made the citizens' group a settlement offer.

Casella Vice President Joseph Fusco said yesterday, "The company is always open to discussing settlement of outstanding litigation. Beyond that, I can't be more specific." In the end, Ms. Pecci said, the Sturbridge Board of Health "made a bad decision" because the $50,000 is "not going to go very far toward helping the situation when the contamination starts rolling down the hill." She said residents in the three towns are unified on this issue, regardless of past politics, because they "realize landfills are a dinosaur." "We have to recycle our resources," Ms. Pecci said. "Burying them doesn't make any sense; it's just too wasteful and too dangerous."

Casella officials contend the permitted changes will double waste recovery and efficiency rates at the landfill, from 30 percent to 60 percent. Casella is constructing a gas-to-energy plant near the landfill, for which it already has permits, and hopes to have it online by the end of the year. High-quality methane gas from garbage will double the amount of energy available in the next few years, John L. Schwalbe, director of landfill operations for Casella, said recently. The 51-acre landfill has a remaining 20-acre to 25-acre footprint to build out over the next 20 years, he said.

For taking in more trash, the town will get a benefits package estimated at $106 million to $150 million over the next 20 years, including more than $60 million in royalty payments. The host community agreement, which took effect in May, includes 20 years of free curbside trash collection. Southbridge used more than $2 million of a dissolved landfill enterprise fund to supplement its fiscal 2009 budget, which was headed for layoffs. The new arrangement allowed for the release of money that the state constrained for closing and capping the landfill.

11 September 2008 Japan's hi-tech tips are golden

Japan's hi-tech rubbish dumps -- the vast ``urban mines'' of landfill outside every big city -- have grown so huge that the country now ranks among the biggest natural resource nations in the world. Tens of millions of defunct mobile phones, discarded televisions, PCs and MP3 players conceal a ``virtual lode'' of hundreds of tonnes of precious metals. An even greater seam may be lurking forgotten -- but not yet discarded -- in Japan's attics and garages.

According to new calculations by the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) in Tsukuba, Japan has unwittingly accumulated three times as much gold, silver and indium than the entire world uses or buys in a year. In the case of platinum, Japan's urban mines may contain six times the annual global consumption. The institute's leading urban mine expert said that if these electronics-rich treasure troves were properly tapped, supposedly resource-poor Japan would suddenly join the likes of Australia, Canada and Brazil in the top five producers of some elements. The mines have been accumulated because of the extraordinarily high speed at which Japanese consumers replace gadgets. Of these, the 20 million mobile phones replaced by the Japanese each year are especially attractive ``ores'' for urban miners. Only 13 per cent, about 550 tonnes a year, are recycled, with the remainder thrown away or stored in drawers and cupboards. The circuit boards of each phone contain a smorgasbord of precious metals: in minute quantities there are silver, lead, zinc, copper, tin, gold, palladium and titanium.

Although other developed countries -- particularly the US and Britain -- are thought to have very substantial untapped urban mines of their own, Japan leads the world as an assessor of what its dumps and attics contain in the way of metal resources. Koumei Harada, the director of the institute's strategic use of elements division, has pioneered the calculation of Japan's potential urban mine resources. By comparing the quantities of metals imported over the past 60 years with what has left Japan inside its electronics, cars and other exported goods, Professor Harada arrived at basic reserves. From this were subtracted theoretical quantities of metal that remain in use. According to the professor, decades at the forefront of the global consumer electronics industry had left Japan with a tantalising legacy: it has invisibly accumulated stocks of some metals to rival proven worldwide reserves in the ground, but it knows where only about half of it is. Worse, that half is difficult to process.

Now the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is pushing for nationwide collections of old electronics from homes and for ideas about how best to excavate the landfill. Companies such as Asahi Pretec already run urban mines at various plants in Japan. One of its plants retrieved about 15 tonnes of gold last year from a variety of industrial waste. Professor Harada is part of a team working on establishing ``artificial ore'' factories at Japan's waste dumps and landfill sites. By his estimates, a tonne of ore from a real goldmine might produce only 5g of actual gold, while a tonne of artificial ore made from reduced mobile phones would yield about 150g.

9 September 2008 U.S. Patents Awarded to Inventors in Vermont (Sept. 9)

John Schwalbe of Rutland, Vt., has developed a landfill with waste. According to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Embodiments of the invention provide systems and methods for creating, managing and staging aerobic and/or anaerobic landfills. Embodiments of the invention provide systems and methods for collecting liquids from and recirculating liquids into landfills and systems and methods for collecting gases from and introducing gases into landfills. Embodiments of the invention also provide a novel conduit for conveying liquids and gases which comprises a first pipe coaxially disposed within a second pipe." The inventor was issued U.S. Patent No. 7,422,393 on Sept. 9. The patent has been assigned to Casella Waste Systems Inc., Ruthland.

5 September 2008 DC Casebook: Waste management - Extra waste disposal found unnecessary

Permission to tip additional construction waste at a former landfill site in Durham has been dismissed, an inspector finding no evidence to demonstrate that the scheme was necessary to improve the quality of the land. The site comprised a former landfill that had been restored and was being used to graze cattle and horses. The appellants contended that the land surface was uneven because of differential subsidence and that it was poorly drained. They stated that it was not possible to cut the grass for hay using large machinery as a result of shallow soil, while noxious weeds had to be kept under control through the use of herbicides. They maintained that tipping a further 2m of construction waste would improve the site's drainage and allow its continued use for agriculture and woodland along with the introduction of new bridleways and cycle paths.

The inspector was not persuaded that further tipping was justified. The appellants had not evaluated other methods for improving the agricultural quality of the land and a much smaller scheme involving localised improvements to hollows in the site appeared to be possible, she concluded. There was no evidence that the site was significantly contaminated or in need of capping, while any environmental benefits to its appearance would be offset by the four years required to complete the tipping, she opined.

She also agreed with the local planning authority that other sites were capable of accommodating the waste generated by the appellants. Because these were closer to the source of the waste generated, they accorded with government policy aimed at limiting the distance travelled by waste between generation and disposal. The likely adverse impact on the amenity of local residents through tipping work also weighed in favour of dismissing the appeal, she decided.

3 September 2008 Waste firm wins £1.5m Vietnam deal

Saltash waste management specialists Gar-Tech have won a £1.5 million contract to supply Vietnam with state-of-the-art processing systems. The contract is the second success for the company in Far East markets this year. In June Gar-Tech signed a deal with Korea to supply a similar waste processing system. At the heart of the system is the Gar-Tech Recyclone Eliminator which is capable of recycling at least 500 tonnes of municipal solid waste to produce 150,000 litres of premium diesel.

Derek Reffell, Gar-Tech managing director, said: "The system for Vietnam is a world first. It takes, bagged, mixed municipal solid waste and turns it into useful, useable commodities, leaving nothing to go to landfill. "The Gar-Tech Eliminator has a unique capability and is essential to this process which for the first time offers a complete environmentally-friendly and profitable solution to the worldwide problem of waste management."

3 September 2008 Asians hankering for a scrap

One man's junk is certainly another man's treasure when it comes to Victorian exports of wastepaper, pulp, old plastics and scrap metal. Items which at another time would have gone to landfill are attracting strong demand from recyclers in Asia. They now rate among the state's 10 biggest export commodities, according to figures released yesterday by the Port of Melbourne Corporation. Scrap metal rated third behind timber and cereal grains as the biggest growth export, rising 28 per cent during the year to June 30. ``What went into the Springvale tip 10 years ago is being containerised and exported now,'' said port chief executive Stephen Bradbury. He said Chinese recyclers and factories elsewhere in Asia were keen buyers of wastepaper and used plastics which they converted into other products.

``The biggest containerised export in the US is wastepaper and waste plastic, and we are following the same trend,'' Mr Bradbury said, noting that what was happening was good for the environment and ``good for our community''. Export volumes of wine, dairy products and fruit and vegetables were drought-affected but remained earnings positive for the port body. ``To have these exports still in positive territory is a good sign for Victoria,'' Mr Bradbury said, adding that the 17th consecutive year of port container growth had produced ``an excellent financial result''.


2 September 2008 USA Gypsum; USA Gypsum Drywall Recycling Exceeds 10 Million lb Milestone in the Philadelphia Metro Area

In the last year, USA Gypsum has recycled over 10 million pounds of drywall scraps from the Philadelphia metropolitan area; 10 million pounds being equivalent to drywall scrap from 5,000 single family homes. This means over 900 roll off waste trucks diverted from land fill! They have provided drywall recycling services for several large construction projects in Philadelphia including the Microsoft School of the Future, which featured a green building (2006) and the Comcast Center building. The waste from the Comcast Center was removed co-mingled with other construction waste by the Richard C Burns Company. The mixed waste was transported to Burns facility in Philadelphia, separated, and the drywall from the waste stream was forwarded to them for recycling (2007-2008).

There are several benefits contractors can receive from utilizing USA Gypsum drywall recycling services. First, it is cost effective and affordable, allowing contractors to save money on waste removal or have more removed for their dollar. Second, sending drywall scrap to them for recycling is quick, easy, and alleviates the need for extra dumpsters that take up space on the work site. USA Gypsum has developed multiple services for the Philadelphia area including scrap removal and pick up service, roll off containers, and several drop off points. These choices offer convenience for a variety of construction types.

They not only service the Philadelphia area but they offer service throughout the Northeast ranging from New York City to Pittsburgh to Washington D.C. USA Gypsum recycles 100% of drywall received into agricultural products. For ten years, USA Gypsum has been revolutionizing the recycling business, even before the boom in the green industry. There are so many benefits to be had through this process like conserving natural gypsum resources, reducing deforestation, reducing landfill waste, and reducing energy costs by eliminating the need to import gypsum to the northeast from Canada, Mexico, and Spain.

27 August 2008 Moving mountains for Fred

Fred the tortoise from Margate, Kent was accidentally put out with the rubbish but staff at Canterbury landfill site worked their way through thousands of bags of stinky waste until they found him, unscathed apart from a couple of chips to his shell.


25 August 2008 World Bank pledges $5.52 million for carbon finance project

The World Bank will provide $5.524 million (of which $2.869 million long-term debt) to proposed Carbon Finance project "Lahore Composting" (Saif Group, Pakistan, the sole owner of Lahore Compost Ltd-LCL) to avoid generation of methane emission from biodegradable wastes and improve cultivated land by using compost as a natural soil conditioner. In an Integrated Safeguards Datasheet of Lahore Composting, Project Task Team Leader and World Bank expert Mihaly Kopanyi said that the Carbon Finance project will provide additional support for achieving the following objectives and benefits, namely to reduce carbon emission in a financially sustainable way, to promote and provide organic conditioner for agriculture; to increase recycling of valuable materials; to reduce health hazard by overall reduction of waste disposed off in landfills; and reduce the demand for landfill capacity.

This carbon finance project will purchase Emergency Recovery Plants (ERs) from the composting plant located in Mehmood Booti area of Lahore city. The program shall be financed by Lahore Compost Ltd through both equity and long-term owners-loan provided by the Saif Group, the sole owner of LCL. The operational cost will be covered and borrowing will be repaid through sales revenues and future carbon finance payments.

The plant managed by LCL has been operating on a pilot basis since March 31, 2006. The experience has been very positive so far and the quality of the compost is high. The LCL follows standard operation procedures for an aerobic windrow type technology; the plant is technically sustainable and in compliance with the Pakistan national environmental quality standards. The plant is currently operating with a 300 ton per day (TPD) capacity, but plans to expand to 1,000 TPD by 2009. All these expansions can materialise within the present premises of LCL.

Mihaly Kopanyi said that the expansion of the composting capacity will require both civil works and purchasing additional equipment. Both local and imported technology will be used for the composting plant. Specific equipment eg turner, screener, sorters have been and will be imported from a reputable producer of composting machinery.

Commenting over the "Key Safeguard Policy Issues and their Management", Mihaly Kopanyi said that the project does not envisage any large scale, significant or irreversible environmental impacts. The environmental and social impacts of the project are primarily positive, since composting will substantially reduce the waste dumped to the landfill, cut down the green house gas emissions to the atmosphere, provide jobs for both skilled and unskilled workers with a better work environment than a landfill; and does not require displacing people. The LCL has undertaken an environmental and social impact assessment in harmony with the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act, 1997, and World Bank's Safeguard policies, he added

An Environmental management Plan (EMP) prepared under the project Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) will be implemented during the project construction/expansion and operation phases to ensure that there are no adverse environmental impacts; rather potential environmental benefits are enhanced, he said. Mihaly Kopanyi also mentioned that the communities in the project area are likely to benefit from the project with potential skilled and unskilled jobs with a better work environment than a landfill and potential health and environmental benefits due to reduction in the amount of waste dumped in the existing unsanitary landfill. The project will also contribute towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions, thereby supporting and contributing to the global efforts towards minimising climate changes.

In the absence of the project, Mihaly Kopanyi said the waste will be dumped in the unsanitary landfill site. The City District Government Lahore (CDGL) considered incineration as a potential alternative to the project but eventually rejected it due to its adverse environmental impacts and non-feasibility based on the characteristics of the solid waste. Further, LCL has developed standard operating procedures based on the best available practices to ensure that there are no adverse environmental impacts; rather potential environmental benefits are enhanced, he added.

 

19 August 2008 GNDSWMA to invite bids for solid waste management consultancy

The Grenada Solid Waste Management Authority (GNDSWMA) will invite bids on a consultancy to implement a solid waste management project on the island, the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) reported on its website. The consultancy includes the examination of technical and financial options to restore operations at Perseverance landfill, serving capital St George, and closing down two adjacent disposal sites, the report said. In addition, services include developing a 25-year national solid waste disposal strategy.

The invitation is open to interested firms or joint ventures from CDB member countries, which are required to send their submissions to the GNDSWMA and CDB offices in St George by September 30. Submissions will be assessed based on technical competence, qualifications and experience, regional experience on similar assignments, financial capability, the extent of prior commitments and proficiency in English. Following the assessment of submissions, a shortlist of 3-6 firms will be invited to submit technical and financial proposals.

19 August 2008 New methane rules called too costly for landfills

Two landfills in the Peace River Regional District could face costly upgrades to capture methane gas if the province introduces regulations intended to protect the environment. But regional directors say it doesn't make economic sense to include the Fort St. John and Bessborough landfills because they're too small. The new regulations would require landfills that accept more than 10,000 tonnes of garbage a year to be audited so the amount of methane gas they produce can be gauged. Expensive upgrades would be needed if a landfill emits more than a thousand tonnes of methane annually, but regional director Larry Houley says the 10k-tonne threshold is too low.

15 August 2008 Landfill bid refused at Flintshire quarry

Flintshire County Council has refused landfill plans at a former quarry near Buckley ahead of a public inquiry due in November. Its planning committee this week rejected officers' advice that it should tell the Welsh Assembly that it does not oppose a tip at Parry's Quarry in principle. In February, members deferred a vote on construction group Robin Jones & Sons' scheme because of a lack of information. But the applicant appealed and now a public inquiry will explore whether permission should be granted for the tip, which could take up to 2.3 million tonnes of waste over the next 20 years. Flintshire minerals and waste team leader Gary Nancarrow said councillors want to see other applications for landfill before they decide which one to back.

Another application for a landfill site opposite Parry's Quarry at Alltami Quarry has been proposed by council-owned AD Waste. Nancarrow insisted that the delay in processing AD Waste's application is due to its submission a year later than Robin Jones's plans Councillors are also unconvinced by landfill waste estimates from the north Wales regional waste plan. Despite using hi-tech methods to divert the majority of waste away from landfill, the plan says hundreds of thousands of tonnes will still need to be disposed of in this way. Flintshire has joined forces with five other north Wales authorities to pool capital to meet landfill diversion targets and avoid fines.

12 August 2008 Austrian waste management company to invest in Dzerzhinsk landfill

Austrian company A.S.A. will invest RUR4.248bn ($180.7mn, or EUR116.5mn) in a waste management project in the Nizhni Novgorod Region. It has won the contract to design, build and operate a municipal solid waste landfill Igumnovo, near Dzerzhinsk.

12 August 2008 Mining Muck

Any old iron? The plaintive Steptoe cry has echoed through Britain's streets for generations. Give us your tired bedsprings, your poor plumbing, the wretched refuse of your teeming homes, and, for a few coppers, the cart will take them away to be smelted. Nowadays the local council Steptoes are calling out for more than iron: newspapers, cardboard, plastic pots, wine bottles, jars, tins, old shoes, spare socks and polyurethane. All the detritus of affluence that was once thrown down mines, buried in quarries or piled high on landfill sites is in demand as never before.

Rubbish has been upgraded to recyclables and now commands far more than those few coppers. With today's oil price, even plastics are shooting up in value. Yoghurt pots and ice-cream containers will soon be worth more than the food they contain. A decade ago Britain sent its waste to India or China, where the poor picked a living from the garbage. Now that is done on an industrial scale at home. Plastic reprocessing capacity has leapt from 30,000 tonnes in 2006 to 150,000 tonnes this year, rising soon to 250,000 tonnes. Glass, paper and tin cans are equally valuable.

Never has the adage of brass and muck been truer. Indeed, in America they will soon start burrowing into ancient landfill mountains to retrieve what a throwaway society once squandered. Decay here has been faster, yielding useful supplies of methane. But resifting the rubbish has been slower. The market, meanwhile, is working its own miracles. Fly-tipping may be a thing of the past. Beer cans will be scavanged from the streets. Keeping Britain tidy will be profitable as well as ethical. Commodity price rises have a silver lining - recyclable, of course.

 

10 August 2008 Where there's muck, there's brass. And, even better, plastic: With oil prices sky-high and landfill taxes rising, businesses and investors are finally starting to realise the value of what we throw away

Modern life is rubbish - it generates about 100 million tonnes of it a year - and until recently not many firms wanted to get their hands dirty. However, soaring oil prices and landfill tax mean the economic benefits of recycling are starting to stack up. Recycling has been a money-spinner for Disney's Pixar, whose film Wall‑ features a robot left to clean up a litter-strewn and uninhabitable Earth after humans have abandoned it. But the studio has been accused of hypocrisy for launching a vast range of merchandise on the back of a film with an eco-friendly message. Back in the present day, however, 'the value of waste is now being realised,' says Peter Mills, commercial director at New Earth Solutions (NES), who reports the extreme phenomenon of 'landfill mining' in the US. 'People are going back in - in New York they are excavating landfill. That's something I've got one eye on here.'

Mills's company is backed by what is thought to be the first retail fund purely focused on investing in UK recycling facilities. Launched last month with a target of pounds 15m, the fund will provide an investment pot for the company, which works with local authorities and claims to be able to recycle up to 60 per cent of the waste dumped on UK doorsteps. The UK generates around 100 mil lion tonnes of waste a year from household, business and industrial users. This week, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed the household waste mountain decreasing slightly - from 25.8 million tonnes in 2006 to 25.6 million tonnes last year - with around 34 per cent of rubbish now recycled. That meant the volume of waste sent by councils to landfill also fell slightly, to 15.8 million tonnes from 16.9 million tonnes the previous year. Environment minister Joan Ruddock described the figures as 'good progress' but admitted 'we still have some way to go before we are performing at the level of some of our nearest neighbours' on the Continent. That is an understate ment. The UK is still considered the dustbin of Europe, with only Greece sending more refuse to landfill.

Phil Conran, recycling development manager at Biffa - a major player in waste management along with Veolia and Sita - points out recycling has always had to pay its way, because firms are only prepared to collect what is cost-efficient to recycle. 'A key factor will be landfill tax going up,' he says. 'The key economic factors in recycling are the value of the materials recovered and the cost of landfill. Because the latter has been so cheap, there has been no financial benefit to the industry.' However, Conran says this is changing: 'The cost of oil means the cost of producing with virgin materials has gone up. There is now value in keeping materials out of landfill, so the economic equation stands up.'

Landfill tax is currently pounds 32 a tonne, but will increase by pounds 8 a year until 2011. Experts say that, once the gate fees charged at landfill sites are added on top, the cost per tonne of waste could approach pounds 100 - a levy comparable to that charged in Germany a decade ago. Germany sends around 20 per cent of municipal waste to landfill, compared with almost two-thirds in the UK.

Wrap, the government-funded agency, is keen to attract investors to the recycling industry. It estimates the sector is worth about pounds 12bn but says that could reach pounds 30bn within 15 years as UK and EU initiatives gather pace. Steve Creed, director of business growth at Wrap, says that once oil hit $75 a barrel - it is now around $119 - the cost of using recycled plastic was on a par with buying new resin: 'The value of the materials has started to have an impact on what people think, when five years ago it didn't.' Wrap points to success in recycling plastic bottles - with 182,000 tonnes a year now collected, equal to a third of the bottles used in the UK. Part of that success must be linked to the raw material cost, with the price of HDPE (high density polyethylene) having doubled to pounds 200 a tonne.

Some retailers have complained that the reprocessing part of the recycling industry has not kept pace with collection, meaning efforts to introduce environment-friendly packaging are wasted. Consumers , too, have been disappointed to discover that not all the plastic they conscientiously sort into boxes is reincarnated because of the high costs of extraction. Creed says Wrap is now working on a strategy to address the problem. 'New technology is required to extract mixed plastics but it is close to being available. The challenge is to encourage investors to look at the sector. Waste has been seen as a 'dirty' area and more risky, but the market has doubled in size over the past few years.'

The rising cost of extracting raw materials has also made the industry pay more attention to the value of metals locked away in old TV sets and computer monitors. The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive aims to stop hazardous electricals such as cathode ray tubes, which contain lead, reaching landfill. But David Aitken, managing director at GreenWorld Electronics, says consumers and businesses are confused about how best to conform - and this ignorance has, according to Greenpeace, resulted in toxic waste washing up in scrapyards in Ghana, China and India. The campaign group is lobbying manufacturers to introduce global recycling schemes that would shoulder the burden of recycling old items, a plan Aitken supports: 'When a manufacturer sells a piece of equipment there should be an automatic returns policy,' he says.

However, much of the activity in the sector is geared to tackling municipal waste, as this is more closely tied to EU directives - and because, as Mills says, 'if you go to a bank with a local authority contract, it is as good as a government bond'. NES has a pounds 50m credit facility with German bank Nord, but Mills says the current climate is making it harder for companies with new technologies to get cash: 'There is a shortage of money in the system. We had an advantage because we agreed our facility before the credit crunch hit.'

8 August 2008 Semarnat rejects DF proposal to extend Bordo Poniente lifetime 20 months

Mexico's environment ministry Semarnat said the Bordo Poniente landfill cannot function for another 20 months as requested by the federal district government (GDF), paper La Jornada reported. Semarnat said the landfill cannot extend its operations any longer because waste-compacting duties can worsen soil depressions currently affecting the site, according to the report. This would result in the filtration of lixiviates and contamination of DF aquifers, as well as an increase in atmospheric pollution due to methane emissions. In addition, Semarnat accused GDF of failing to comply with ecological requirements from a 2004 preventive impact report, regulating biogas management and the control of lixiviates. The report also recommended the closure of Bordo Poniente and the opening of a new landfill.

Extending the landfill's lifetime for another 20 months would be equal to adding 4.5Mt of waste, 26% more than what is already deposited at the site, the information said. Located in Mexico state's (Edomex) Nezahualcóotl municipality, Bordo Poniente has an extension of 500ha and receives 12,000t/d from Edomex and DF.

8 August 2008 Fight to stop tipping at site

Campaigners fighting plans to expand a landfill site were dealt a blow after councillors were recommended to approve them. Members of No To Landfill stormed out of a meeting where Northumberland councillors agreed to allow the Seghill site to be extended. Villagers were angered when the bid to continue tipping was given the go-ahead by just one vote. Waste management company Sita UK wants to tip 4.3 million tonnes of waste at the site, but the plans also need to be approved by North Tyne-side Council. Ultimately, the Government Office North East will have final say. No To Landfill chairman Lindsay Perks, of Whitley Bay, said: "We feel it was rather rolled through."


5 August 2008 Solid Recovered Fuel; New Energy Company, Solid Recovered Fuel, Offers Combined Energy, Waste Solutions

As businesses and governments struggle with the twin challenges of energy costs and solid waste disposal, a new company headed by leaders in the energy and solid waste industries offers technology and expertise to turn waste into energy. Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF), headquartered in Atlanta and led by former CEOs of Louis Dreyfus Natural Gas and Southern Company Gas, and the president of a leading waste management company, will design, build and operate facilities to convert municipal solid waste (MSW) to clean, efficient, renewable synthesis gas, called "syngas."

Ronald Bertasi, former president and CEO, Southern Company Gas, and former president and CEO, Southern Company Energy Solutions, is CEO of the new business and serves on its board. Simon Rich, who is former chairman and CEO of Louis Dreyfus Natural Gas, former president of Louis Dreyfus Holding Corp. and currently chairman of Fuqua Rich Weeks private equity firm, is chairman and serves on the board along with Norbert Hector, president of MRR Southern, a Raleigh-based solid waste management company. Other investors and SRF board members are: Ray Weeks, chairman of Weeks Robinson Properties; Rex Fuqua, president and CEO of Fuqua Capital; Ed Weisiger, Jr., president and CEO of Carolina Tractor; and David Griffin, Jr., CEO of D.H. Griffin Wrecking Co., Inc.

SRF takes a technically advanced yet pragmatic approach to converting MSW into cost-efficient, cleaner energy. By utilizing 70% of the MSW stream, the SRF process greatly reduces the need for landfill capacity while producing a clean, renewable fuel. "Market conditions are driving innovation in waste to energy conversion and applicability," said Bertasi. "We put the pieces together to give a business, utility or a public facility the ability to convert MSW, including its own waste stream, into syngas--a form of energy that is adaptable to a range of uses, and is also carbon neutral. This system is good for companies because it reduces their costs and helps them reduce their carbon footprints, and it's also good for the environment because it recycles waste while replacing fossil fuels."

 

4 August 2008 Recyclers are devising dazzling new ways to mint fortunes from America's mountains of waste. But it's still easier to squander garbage than sort it

Surrounded by a canyon of neatly stacked trash bundles, Bob Cappadona, area manager of Casella Waste Systems' 65,000-square-foot recycling facility in Auburn, Mass., can't believe the record prices his garbage is commanding. "Aluminum cans, $900 a bale. Tin cans, $150. No. 2 clear plastic, $300. Cardboard, $70. Mixed paper, $40." He barely conceals his glee as he explains the effects of a recent spike in metals prices: "We get an extra $100 a ton!"

Cappadona's numbers are compelling, but the global implications of the trash boom only really hit you when you see the enormous pallets being carted away from the plant. You realize that recyclers can make vast profits from combing through ordinary rubbish, processing it, and then reselling it to other companies. And that leads to another, bigger thought: Trash is no longer just an environmental liability. It is becoming a financial asset. And it is everywhere.

Or so it would seem.

The possibilities have venture capitalists and buyout firms scrambling to invest in a melange of quirky startups that might have provoked belly laughs from these same financiers five years ago. The broad category of "waste and recycling," which includes everything from materials recovery to sewage biotechnology, drew a record $622 million of investment in 2007, compared with $245 million a year earlier and just $20 million in 2001, according to Cleantech Group, a green investing consultancy. Sober investors are throwing money not only at established recyclers like Casella Waste, but also at bolder ventures like Warrenville (Ill.) trash-to-ethanol startup Coskata and Austin-based e-waste recycler TechTurn, so confident are they that there's real cash in trash.

More than anything, it's the commodities boom--or bubble, if you prefer--that's nudging garbage to the asset side of earth's balance sheet. The calculus is simple: As the prices of oil and other raw materials rise, recycled products become more attractive. Consider that 8% of global oil production is siphoned off to make plastic each year. Recycled plastic, however, requires 80% less energy to produce. Recycled aluminum burns up 95% less energy. Recycled iron and steel use 74% less, while paper requires 64% less. The money piles up quickly: One ton of recycled aluminum saves an average of $700 in electricity. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that if the recycling rate were to increase by just five points, to 35%, this would save the equivalent of almost 2 billion gallons of gasoline annually.

The recycling industry, a loose and unruly assortment of startups and multinationals, can barely keep up with demand. Today virtually all steel made by giants Nucor and AK Steel comes from scrap metal--a boon for recyclers such as Chicago-based Metal Management, whose sales jumped 40% from 2006 to 2007 before the company was acquired by Australian competitor Sims Group.

The great reappraisal of trash has even prompted a Wall Street analyst to cordon off recycling in a separate investment category, like consumer goods or emerging markets. Eric Prouty of Boston-based brokerage Canaccord Adams started following recyclers full-time in 2006; now he covers 11 publicly traded companies. Since its inception late in 2006, Prouty's six-stock Buy list has returned 180%, trouncing the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index's 2% rise. His year-old "Best Ideas" list of eight stocks has shot up 150%, compared with the broad market's 6% gain. "Recycling," says Prouty, "might be the most overlooked beneficiary of the commodities boom."

Of course, there's been similar excitement before. In the 1970s and again in the early 1990s, oil prices zoomed and joyless austerity began to seep into American culture. Governors signed deposit laws, and cities and towns launched recycling programs. Investors started buying up scrap metal outfits, sure they were catching a big business wave. But commodity prices tanked in the mid '80s and again in the early '90s and the movement each time lost steam. Elaborate municipal recycling programs no longer made economic sense and were abandoned, even in environmentally conscious garbage havens like New York. Scrap metal became a joke on Wall Street. Lassitude ruled. Today's recycling boom could suffer a similar fate. "If commodity prices fall, people will be unwilling to bear higher tax rates from cities to maintain unprofitable recycling programs," warns John Charles, president of the Cascade Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Portland, Ore.

The optimists point to a new factor they say will help the industry withstand the next commodities bust: the green movement. Global warming has finally pierced the American popular consciousness. Once marginalized, eco-activists are resonating with a litany of complaints: The U.S. generates the world's greatest volume of per capita waste, yet badly lags in recycling; Americans are too thoughtless to reuse plastic water bottles; electronic waste from discarded computers and cell phones is leaching toxins into the soil; and on and on.

Methane-spewing landfills, meanwhile, are turning into battlegrounds. Municipalities can't easily build new dumps because people refuse to live near one. The acronym "NIMBY" (Not In My Back Yard) is giving way to "BANANA" (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything). Yet old landfills are closing at an alarming rate: In 1988 there were some 8,000 operating in the U.S.; today there are just over 1,700, according to the EPA. In some parts of the world the clashes are turning violent. Italy's Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, dispatched soldiers to Naples, where demonstrators were protesting his efforts to open a big new landfill. Since last year, when that city declared all of its dumps full, ranges of trash have piled up.

But while the world's swelling garbage pile would seem to be a can't-miss opportunity for recyclers, one issue threatens their long-term growth prospects. Oddly enough, they can't get enough garbage, or at least the right kind. That's because all waste, like all politics, is local--which means idiosyncrasies in recycling laws and a failure on the part of politicians to see the big picture. Recycling "has historically been dominated by staid, stubborn, and inefficient industries," says Cleantech managing partner John Balbach. "There's lots of money to be saved--and made--in waste if financial discipline and profit-mindedness take hold."

That's Wall Street's bet, anyway.

A DEARTH OF CLEAN GLASS

Nowhere is the wonder of recycling more evident than at the yawning entry hangar to Casella's Auburn facility. It's the Mount Trashmore of commingled recyclables, bursting with newspapers, bottles, and the occasional Wiffle bat. Casella is known as a "single-stream" recycler: The company picks up one big bin of recyclables--newspapers, cans, glass, plastics, the works--from each home or business and empties it into a truck. At a recycling facility, massive machines sort and separate the material. Casella then sells the commodities in neatly packed bales.

As the conveyor belt starts up, everyone dons microphone-equipped hard hats, goggles, and vests. The cacophony is overwhelming as dozens of magnetized sorters, sifters, chutes, and ladders work through the pile. You might describe the scene as M.C. Escher meeting Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Last year Vermont-based Casella, a publicly traded company formed in 1975 out of a single truck, recycled just under 4 billion pounds of waste, up 12% from 2006.

But Casella's operation isn't a cure-all. The facilities can't process glass effectively--a failure that leaves big money on the table. Outside the Auburn site, a chute erratically spits out a sickly granola of green, blue, and amber shards. Cappadona concedes the blend isn't selling well. "It's like putting rocks in the ground," adds Prouty. "Not very high-value." Buyers, it turns out, want crushed glass that's separated by color.

"If the single-stream guys tell you there's no market, it's because their product is so bad," says Tex Corley, CEO of Strategic Materials, the nation's largest pure-play glass recycler. Corley's customers clamor for recycled glass, which uses up to 40% less energy to process than the virgin kind and results in fewer emissions. Strategic Materials can't turn out enough. This year the company, owned by Chicago private equity firm Willis Stein & Partners, is on track to generate $200 million in sales.

It would do far better were it not for all the gunk. Strategic Materials throws out much of the crushed glass from single-stream providers because it arrives in a stew of "slime, chicken bones, and needles," says Corley. Processing the mess costs him four times as much it does to rejigger clean glass from municipalities that require residents and businesses to segregate recyclables by type. "If you tripled the amount of high-quality glass," says Corley, "our customers would buy every bit of it."

A growing number of municipalities are opting for single-stream operators such as Casella because the simple process makes citizens more likely to comply. "People really like the convenience of throwing everything together," says Steve McGrath, Philadelphia's director of recycling. Since the city started its single-stream program two years ago, he says, the tonnage collected has jumped by 40%, with household participation rising from less than 5% to almost twice that.

That's great, except that the giant machines used by single-stream operators mangle the glass. As long as the gap remains unbridged, millions of dollars will be squandered.

"DUMP TO PUMP"

VC investing boils down to one cosmic question: Where is the pain? Any startup CEO who's begging for money must be able to describe, quickly and clearly, the pressing need that his or her cash-hungry, high-risk proposition will address.

Three VC firms--Khosla Ventures, Advanced Technology Ventures, and GreatPoint Ventures--jumped at the chance to invest in cellulosic ethanol startup Coskata. Its promise: to derive $1-a-gallon ethanol from trash, chiefly from landfill methane, tires, construction debris, and other municipal waste. The company's biggest selling point for "dump-to-pump" technology is its collection of botulism-related bacteria, which feed on the gas produced by trash and excrete ethanol. Whereas corn-based ethanol yields just 1.3 times the energy used to produce it, Coskata's yield is 7.7. And while corn prices are soaring, garbage is cheap.

Todd Kimmel, a principal with Advanced Technology Ventures, founded Coskata in July, 2006, after he bought the rights to those bacteria for an undisclosed sum from the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. Khosla and Advanced Technology Ventures contributed $10 million in first-round financing. In January, General Motors took a stake, in a deal that valued Coskata at around $500 million, according to people familiar with the transaction. In May, Coskata announced the construction of a 40,000-gallon plant in Pennsylvania to produce ethanol for GM's test fleet. Coskata is also looking to team up with municipalities to set up its bioreactors at local sites.

Richard Tobey was so captivated by the dump-to-pump technology that he joined Coskata in 2007 as chief engineer after spending 28 years as a top scientist at Dow Chemical. He couldn't be happier about his decision. Donning lab goggles at Coskata's 25,000-square-foot research and development facility, Tobey and chief marketing officer Wesley Bolsen sidle up to their glass-encased "bioreactor" like doting parents in a neonatal ward. The lung-like contraption houses a thick plastic tube that feeds waste gas to fibers coated with millions of oxygen-averse bacteria. After gorging on carbon monoxide and hydrogen, the microorganisms pump out ethanol in a surge of bubbles that percolates upward. "They're not picky eaters," says Bolsen, a recent recruit from ethanol engineering outfit ICM. He notes that the bacteria will ingest gas from wood trimmings and even a grim medley known as hurricane debris. They thrive on landfill methane, which is 20 times as destructive to ozone as carbon dioxide.

But Coskata still faces a hurdle. Although carbon-rich tires, plastics, and paper are especially conducive to its process, they're surprisingly difficult to obtain in the proper form. Coskata needs materials to be uncontaminated by foods and liquids. Ask Tobey how he'd react if a procession of trucks were to drop pallets of pristine plastic bottles on Coskata's front lawn and he beams: "Oh, that'd be just wonderful. And plastic bags--wow." Instead, countless tons of other untapped assets spill from landfills like Jiffy Pop.

Until that changes, Coskata won't reach its full potential. "You can drive a couple of cars on trash-to-energy, but it just doesn't scale against petroleum," says Tadeusz Patzek, an environmental engineering professor at the University of California at Berkeley. "It's like paying down just the interest when society needs to address the massive principal."

THERE'S GOLD IN E-WASTE

American ingenuity has produced an amazing array of high-tech consumer products. The downside? An equally astounding profusion of electronic waste. The fastest-growing category of trash is also among the most dangerous: E-waste seeps lead, mercury, and other heavy metals into the soil of landfills.

In 2006, Catterton Partners, a Greenwich (Conn.) private equity firm, sensed opportunity in discarded computers and invested $50 million in TechTurn, an e-recycler. TechTurn refurbishes e-waste from companies and sells it to schools, nonprofits, and poor countries. It also recycles the precious copper, gold, and other materials from inside units it can't revamp. The company booked $40 million in sales last year, and is on track for $200 million by 2010. With 15 truckloads headed each day to its Texas and Virginia facilities, TechTurn is racing to open plants in Chicago, Nevada, Seattle, and New Jersey.

It all started with a hunch. In the late '90s, Jeff Zeigler saw that Y2K was orphaning fleet loads of functional computers. He suspected there might be an aftermarket for them, and found brisk demand in Europe and Asia. In 1999, with $3,000 in capital and "a name that I grabbed at the courthouse," the 29-year-old Zeigler set up shop as Newmarket IT. A highlight of the company's early years was helping to cast the malfunctioning printer-fax machine that would be bludgeoned to death by the lovable criminals in the 1999 cult comedy Office Space. Zeigler quickly found that there was also money to be made in cleaning hard drives and recovering metals and plastic.

Today he walks through TechTurn's new 90,000-square-foot facility in Ashland, Va., like the manager of a dystopian Costco. Pallets of recovered computer desktops, laptops, printers, and monitors are stacked ceiling-high in wide aisles, surrounding long disassembly lines laced with crowbars, scan guns, and dangling cables. "We can extract 88% of a computer's value before ever getting down to its base commodities," boasts Zeigler. TechTurn puts computers through a thorough diagnostic process and hard-drive cleansing. Everything else is taken apart and recycled to the last ounce.

Zeigler makes his way through an arcade of 15 boxes, each the size of a construction dumpster. One is full of diskettes and CD ROMs destined for shredding. Zeigler brandishes a plastic monitor base from another box. "It's more than 20 cents a pound now, thanks to oil prices," he beams. A third box contains black computer mice and a fourth, white ones, all to be crushed for copper wire and plastic. Next up: aluminum heat guards and circuit boards that contain gold, palladium, and platinum. "We've seen a fourfold increase in value for these," Zeigler says, adding that a 16-square-foot box of memory sticks contains $15,000 in precious metals. Every bar-coded unit is tracked in real time, whether it's on the assembly line or awaiting attention in a locked iron cage. Employees must pass through a metal detector to get to the lunch room.

Still, the real money comes from salvaging working computers. "We don't look at hardware as e-waste," Zeigler says. "An American student can reuse an executive's laptop for maybe five years, an emerging-market customer even longer." The margins are solid. Fully functional laptops that TechTurn buys for $200 or so can be refurbished and resold at a 20% profit.

If only TechTurn could collect enough e-waste to feed the hunger for its goods. "Domestically and internationally, there is an insatiable demand for what we are selling," says Michael Farello, a partner at Catterton. "We could grow the business tenfold and still have a seemingly unlimited order backlog from schools, small businesses, and developing countries. The challenge is how much can be brought to us."

Not long ago people and businesses had few qualms tossing burned-out computers in Dumpsters. But as fears of the toxins inside e-waste have grown, some 40 states have drawn up special trash-handling rules for electronics. Worries over data pilfering make people all the more reluctant to junk old equipment. And so hidden assets sit idle in closets and basements. "People just don't know what to do with it," says Farello.

Hence the world faces a remarkable problem: There's both too much trash and too many businesses that can't get enough of it. Balance the equation, and recycling could grow by orders of magnitude. But no one has figured out how.

Remember glass recycler Tex Corley? He's merely one degree of economic separation from Donald, a 41-year-old homeless man on Manhattan's Upper West Side. That divide, so easily bridged in theory, says everything about the recycling boom.

On a cool April night, Donald roots hurriedly for returnable glass bottles in trash bags outside a Thai restaurant. He has nearly 200 in his rusty cart, having rinsed them out in a Central Park bathroom. A supermarket will pay a nickel apiece for up to 240 bottles, but only if he makes it by 10 p.m.

Donald and some fellow scavengers report that guys from New Jersey and Pennsylvania showed up in flatbed trucks months ago, offering 7 cents apiece--a two-penny premium--for unlimited quantities of color-separated returnable bottles. That is, says Donald, until the police caught wind of the underground market and told the out-of-towners to scram. In October, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who suspended the city's glass- and plastic-recycling services in 2002 and then reinstated them, imposed stiff penalties on drivers who take curbside recyclables, often loaded with returnables Manhattanites can't be bothered to redeem.

For Donald, the crackdown means it's back to haunting grocery stores that, despite deposit laws, aren't eager to accommodate homeless men lugging bottles. "It's no good for business," says the manager of a 24-hour supermarket. With the emergency exit blocked by heaps of cans and bottles, he declares the bottle-collecting machine out of order even before his arbitrary 10 p.m. rule can kick in.

And so Donald and Tex Corley are out of luck. The glass will return to trash bins en route to some landfill. "I don't beg, I don't rob anyone," says Donald, pushing his cart up Broadway. He stops and holds up an amber bottle. "This--here, hold it--this is money. Money is on the streets. Money is in trash cans. Isn't that the stupidest thing in the world?"

1 August 2008 Waste plant wins funding

Staffordshire County Council has been awarded pounds 122.4 million for a project that could eliminate 300,000 tonnes of municipal waste from landfill each year. The cash is earmarked to build an energy from waste plant at Four Ashes industrial estate in the south of the county. It is expected to produce enough electricity to power 24,000 homes. The council is now exploring the options for a combined heat and power scheme, which it said has the potential to deliver net carbon savings of 56,000 tonnes by 2020. It is planning to issue a notice to prospective bidders in the Official Journal of the European Union later in the summer


1 August 2008 Plans cause a stink

Imminent plans to double the landfill space at the City of Rockinghams Millar Road Landfill Facility, teamed with long-term proposals for a regional resource recovery facility similar to the controversial Canning Vale centre, have put people living in neighbouring Town of Kwinana residential estates on odour alert. The Homestead Ridge Progress Association (HRPA) recently wrote of its concerns to Kwinana Council, which broached the subject with Rockingham Council at a joint meeting on June 30. Kwinana Council said the HRPA was concerned about offensive odours that may result from the easterly expansion of landfill cells from 11 to 13 next year, plus South Metropolitan Regional Council and Rivers Regional Council plans for secondary waste treatment facilities at the 99ha Millar Road site. HRPA president Chris Oughton said there were 350 homes in Homestead Ridge adjacent to the Millar Road site, and many more were planned for the Village at Wellard estate.

While odour had not been a significant problem to date, residents were worried that expansion plans would place their homes upwind of the new landfill cells, which would expand from 22ha to 55ha, or from 11 to 28 cells, in the next 20 years. Mr Oughton said they were also concerned a regional resource recovery centre (RRRC) would generate odour from composting processes for household organic waste, like those that temporarily closed the SMRC-managed Canning Vale centre early in 2007. He said the Millar Road site had buffers in excess of the prescribed 500m from homes in Leda Boulevard but these were set by the Department of Environment and Conservation in 1992 and community expectations and waste disposal techniques had evolved. Rockingham Mayor Barry Sammels said the council would review the buffer zones around the landfill site to see if they could be extended. He said DEC licences for the site were reviewed annually and although the SMRC was completing a feasibility study for a RRRC for Millar Road, the City Council had not yet formally considered the proposal.

30 July 2008 Anheuser-Busch's Houston Brewery To Utilize Biogas From Allied Waste Industries, Inc.'s Landfill

Allied Waste Industries, Inc. announced that it has entered into an agreement with Ameresco McCarty Energy to sell biogas from Allied Waste's McCarty Road Landfill, for use at Anheuser-Busch's Houston brewery.

30 July 2008 EBRD contributes US$4 million loan to improve solid waste management in Dushanbe

The EBRD will improve the quality of the environment in Dushanbe with a loan of up to $4 million to a solid waste collection and disposal project in the Tajik capital. In addition to the EBRD loan the project will be co-financed by a $4.0 million capital grant from The Netherlands, the EBRD press release said. The project will create a solid waste management programme and finance high priority investments to improve waste transportation, rehabilitate the existing landfill which has been in use since 1977 and create new sanitary landfill cells. The project will help Dushanbe, with a population of 650,000, to improve its solid waste management system.

The proceeds will finance the rehabilitation of the existing landfill, the improvement of roads, the acquisition of collection trucks and cleaning vehicles, a weighbridge and a leachate treatment system. Technical co-operation will be provided by Sweden and the EBRD’ Early Transition Countries Multi Donor Fund and the EBRD Special Shareholder’ Fund totalling $3.0 million. Support will be provided to the local government to consolidate waste management services into one municipal corporation, prepare a business plan and develop a plan to attract private sector participation in the waste management operations. Jean-Patrick Marquet, EBRD Director for Municipal & Environmental Infrastructure, said the Bank’ involvement has been critical to foster implementation of a project which will be important and beneficial for Dushanbe and its population. The EBRD can offer lending in Tajikistan with a maturity that is not yet available on the market and the Bank’ participation facilitated the approval of the grant by The Netherlands. To-date, the EBRD has invested more than 100 million US Dollars in more than 35 projects in Tajikistan. The country is part of the ETC initiative which aims to stimulate market activity in the participating countries by using a streamlined approach to financing more projects, including smaller ones, mobilising more investment, and encouraging economic reform.

28 July 2008 Metrogas to invest US$40mn to obtain gas from landfills, sewage treatment plants

Chilean natural gas distributor Metrogas is on the verge of using biogas generated by sanitary landfills and water treatment plants in the metropolitan region in an effort to optimize gas supply, paper Diario Financiero reported. Client manager Ian Nelson indicated that these installations can supply 400,000m3 a day, which he said is the equivalent of 100% of commercial and residential demand in the metropolitan region during summer and is similar to the volume that has been supplied by Argentina for over a year, according to the report. Nelson also said this figure could double if better operating systems were implemented in landfills and treatment plants. The process is simple and economically viable, the executive said. It consists of extracting CO2 from the biogas and converting it into biomethane. Today, much of this gas is burned, sometimes to benefit from the sale of carbon bonds.

"This project combines environmental and economical interests at the same time as it increases our autonomy," Nelson was quoted as saying. The average cost of producing biomethane is around US$4.5-5 for every MBTU, plus transport costs which vary according to the location of the landfill or treatment plant. This is considerably less than the US$21.5-22 for every MBTU that Argentina will be charging for gas after announcing a price increase last week. It is also cheaper than the US$15/MBTU that liquid natural gas will cost after arriving at Quintero in region V. The company estimates the projects will require around US$40mn in investment.

Nelson highlighted the efficiency and the environmental aspects of the initiative, as gas is more efficient than electric energy and the project would also contribute to a reduction in particle emissions in highly polluted Santiago. The firm is currently negotiating with four landfills in the capital and expects to sign a contract with Lepanto soon, Nelson said. At the end of August, the first unit will be launched at Aguas Andinas' La Farfana treatment plant, which will supply 35,000 customers. However, the executive said that there are two complications: the process requires a new certification in the carbon bond mechanism and it is difficult to fix the price that Metrogas should pay for the gas.

21 July 2008 ENER-G wins contracts for landfill gas in Hungary

UK energy technology business ENER-G plc reported July 5 that it has won three contracts to generate electricity from landfill gas sites in Hungary. Two agreements will run for 15 years at two landfill sites owned by an Austrian waste management company. The other contract covers a 10-year period at a site operated by a local authority southwest of Budapest. None of the three landfill operators were named. ENER-G will invest £.6 million ($5.2 million) to drill holes into the landfill waste mass, insert pipes and channel methane into large spark-ignition engines that convert the gas into electricity. The projects, expected to generate 2.65 MW of electricity, will provide power for 2,000 homes as well as prevent methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from escaping to the atmosphere. The contracts will be fulfilled by ENER-G Natural Power in partnership with Hungary-based ENER-G Energia Technolóia, formerly Kipszer, which ENER-G plc acquired in 2006. ENER-G said it is examining 10 additional landfill sites in Hungary, "which include a major opportunity with Budapest Waste Management" for potential energy production.

18 July 2008 Fulcrum BioEnergy announces plans to build one of the first commercial-scale ethanol plants using municipal solid waste as feedstock.

Fulcrum BioEnergy Inc is advancing next-generation ethanol production with its plans to build one of the first commercial-scale production facilities for converting municipal solid waste to ethanol. The plant will process municipal solid waste-household garbage - revolutionizing waste disposal while creating a much needed low-cost, reliable and environmentally clean renewable transportation fuel. When it begins operations in early 2010, the Sierra BioFuels plant is expected to produce about 10.5 M gallons/y of ethanol, and to process nearly 90,000 tonnes/y of municipal solid waste that would otherwise have been disposed of in landfills. Fulcrum BioEnergy will design, finance, construct, own and operate the plant, which will be located ten miles east of Reno at the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Centre in Storey County, NV. This late-stage development project is expected to cost about $120 M and is set to enter construction by the end of 2008.

The Sierra BioFuels plant is the first of several projects that Fulcrum BioEnergy is currently developing across the country. The plant will utilize gasification technology licensed from Integrated Environmental Technologies and a licensed proprietary catalytic technology for converting synthesis gas to ethanol jointly developed by Nipawin Biomass Ethanol New Generation Co-operative Ltd and Saskatchewan Research Council. Fulcrum BioEnergy's process is expected to be environmentally benign; utilizing a gasification process does not create significant levels of emissions like today's waste-to-energy incineration technology. Fulcrum BioEnergy is collaborating with waste hauling and disposal companies around the country to revolutionize the disposal of solid waste. Because Fulcrum BioEnergy converts post-recycled organic waste, it adds another layer of recovery and recycling to conventional processes. Fulcrum BioEnergy's facilities therefore do not compete or interfere with communities' established recycling programmes. Partnering with these solid waste companies will revolutionize waste disposal by further reducing landfill volumes and lowering waste disposal costs in an environmentally responsible manner. Based in Pleasanton, CA, Fulcrum BioEnergy is emerging as a leading company in the development of the next-generation of ethanol production in the US.

 

17 July 2008 6 firms eye Arequipa landfill, waste transfer plant

A total of six firms have expressed interest in investing in the construction of a landfill and a waste transfer plant in Peruvian city Arequipa, state news agency Andina reported. The companies are Comseinsa, De la Piedra y Asociados, Diestra (which already handles Lima's Huaycoloro landfill), Data General Corporation, also known as Petromax, EMPSSA and Brazilian firm OAS Constructora. Authorities will hold a meeting with company representatives in Lima to discuss the project, said Arequipa's provincial governor Simó Balbuena. According to Balbuena, there are two options for the construction of the landfill.One involves building it with a material known as geo-membrane, which requires a 31.9mn-sol (US$11.3mn) investment. The second option is to build it with clay for 40mn soles.The waste transfer plant will require a 3.6mn-sol investment, he added.

The local government has already carried out the technical studies needed for the works, which can be started as soon as the firms decide to invest. Arequipa is the capital of the southwestern province of the same name.The project was recently promoted in Arequipa by the country's state agency for promoting private investment ProInversió.

 

14 July 2008 Rivalry in the Waste Industry Heats Up

Waste-industry leader Waste Management Inc. offered to buy No. 3 rival Republic Services Inc. for about $6.3 billion, a deal that would further consolidate an industry that has been focused on bolstering prices at landfills. The proposal is an apparent attempt to scuttle Republic's own deal with No. 2 garbage hauler Allied Waste Industries Inc. The three largest U.S. waste companies control more than two-thirds of the nation's permitted landfill capacity, according to a February 2007 report by the Solid Waste Association of North America, a group of mostly municipal trash officials. A merger of $13-billion Waste Management and $3-billion Republic, in sales, would leave just under half the country's permitted landfill capacity in the control of the combined company. Waste Management's $34-a-share offer is a 22% premium over Republic's Friday closing price. In 4 p.m. composite trading on the New York Stock Exchange, Waste Management shares on Monday fell $2.12, or 5.8%, to $34.49; Republic rose $3.86, or 14%, to $31.76; and Allied Waste fell 20 cents, or 1.7%, to $11.79.

Waste Management expects the deal to add to earnings in the first year and deliver cost savings of at least $150 million, most of that realized in the first year. Last month, Republic agreed to acquire Allied Waste in a deal initially valued at $6.24 billion that would combine the nation's second-and third-largest trash haulers. Republic said it will review Waste Management's proposal. Despite the economic slowdown in the U.S., the garbage industry has remained relatively strong. All three of the biggest trash haulers maintained or slightly improved their profit margins last year compared to 2006. In the first quarter of this year, Waste Management's margin declined by a bit more than a point due to higher energy costs.

Waste Management Chief Executive David Steiner said during a conference call with investors Monday that the company didn't "go out looking" for the deal, but couldn't ignore the opportunity when Republic Services made its bid for Allied Waste. Waste Management also reported preliminary second-quarter earnings of 64 cents a share, including two cents to three cents per share in tax gains, on revenue of $3.49 billion. The results will be issued July 29. The company said that, if it can reach a deal with Republic, it will pursue divestitures to avoid violating antitrust laws, though it didn't specify which landfills or other assets would be sold. If it completes the deal, Waste Management said it may have to forgo some planned share repurchases to pay down additional debt.

14 July 2008 Plastics recycling plant for the city

After four years of setbacks and hard work, Robina businessman Darryl Norman is finally ready to establish a $25 million plastics-recycling facility on the Gold Coast. Global Plastic Recyclers expects to begin operations early next year. Mr Norman said the project, funded by a small group of local shareholders and through a partnership with New Zealand company Cal Marine, would offer huge benefits to the Coast community. ``We will create around 30 jobs and the environmental benefits are the particular products that we will be making . . . not to mention other benefits such as reducing waste to landfill,'' he said.

Executive officer Stewart Norton said the facility would reap large benefits for the state.``It's a fantastic project for Queensland; absolutely fantastic,'' said Mr Norton. ``It is going to change a lot of people's perceptions on recycling and the products that are manufactured from recycled materials.'' The Gold Coast's leading business organisation for companies involved with environment-friendly goods and services, EnviroIndustry, has thrown its support behind the project. President Matt Keys said EnviroIndustry endorsed the GBR venture, given the technology and the company's export potential. ``Our organisation is pleased to see GPR base its operations in our city, because this is precisely the type of technology that our city needs,'' said Mr Keys.``This technology has huge export potential.'' GPR has the exclusive Australian licence for Julien Environmental Technology, which converts plastics-recycling from a feel-good idea into a potentially lucrative financial exercise, said Mr Keys. The group is seeking a 10,000sqm site to establish the recycling facility.

Mr Norton said the financial outlook for the company was positive, given the large competitive edge the JET technology gave it. The company says the JET technology is designed to process any grade or mix of plastics types, which can come straight from landfill, unwashed and unsorted. The JET process differs from other plastics-recycling technologies in that it does not require separation in the waste stream. The resulting raw material is called Syntal, which generally can be used to replace wood and has several commercial applications.

``The returns are quite enormous when you talk about taking what was termed waste and rubbish and turning it into a viable product,'' said Mr Norman.``The most competitive edge we have is that the JET technology is a completely different method of recycling, compared with other operations which recycle by single polymer (plastic) or limited polymer types.'' Mr Norman said the technology was originally acquired through a `brothership' with the creator of the technology, Philippe Julien, who developed it in 2003. ``I flew to Europe in 2003 and 2004 to consummate the deal to acquire the licences and we have just gone from there,'' he said. ``He (Philippe Julien) has stayed very loyal to us. ``Quite a few companies have tried to get the licences off me to be able to operate in Australia.'' Mr Norman said he suffered several setbacks in raising funding. ``We have just kept the faith, and so did the patent holder, knowing that eventually someone would come along and realise this is something worth backing, which Cal Marine did,'' he said. ``Probably more importantly, as we have gone through this long, arduous struggle, the world is turning greener and greener and now it is our time.'' Mr Norman said the company had aspirations to establish facilities in every state in Australia and expected Yatala to house group's foundation facility.

 

14 July 2008 Residents fail to halt refuse tip extension

Villagers failed to gain an undertaking about the future of a giant tip. Proposals by 3C Waste to increase the height of part of the Gowy landfill site on Ince Lane, Wimbolds Trafford, led to objections. The company told planning officers at Cheshire County Council it wished to raise the restoration levels of two phases of the tip to extend its life by just over four years to 2016. The move would provide almost 1.4m cubic metres of new tipping space on the 55.5ha site by increasing the height of the areas concerned by 10m. After the tip has settled, planning officers say there would be an overall increase of four metres.

County councillors heard the original planning permission for the tip, issued in 1986, was for 20 years. In 2006, this was extended until 2012. The most recent application led to 14 individual objections together with a 120 signature petition. Mickle Trafford and District Parish Council objected to any extension to the life of the tip and argued villagers had experienced the negative effects of the landfill for long enough. With increased recycling, parish councillors felt the need for landfill sites should be reducing and the tip should be closed sooner rather than later. Residents said they were concerned about the effect on their amenity and quality of life from issues including noise disturbance, HGVs, reversing alarms, bird scaring techniques, dust, odour, environmental pollution, vermin, pests and the spread of disease. They were also worried about the hours of operation and working on bank and public holidays and questioned the need for a further extension, the effect on the Green Belt and the infringement of human rights.Occupiers insisted they had suffered long enough and the tip should not be allowed to extend any further.

The main issues were the effect on residential amenity and quality of life, planning officers believed. They felt the change would have little effect on the character of the landscape. Noise monitoring was undertaken on a regular basis and a number of measures were taken to deal with odours. The application was recommended for permission subject to conditions. The company told the County Hall meeting the site was included in the county's approved waste plan which recognised the need for landfill sites. It was the only site for the disposal of household waste in the west of Cheshire and no objections had been raised by the Environment Agency. The plans were approved on the basis that tipping would cease in November 2016 and restoration would be completed 12 months later. No undertaking was required that there should not be a further application.

14 July 2008 Ontario adds fee for electronics recycling

Ontario is set to add a green levy to televisions and computers sold in the province as a way to offset the cost of recycling electronic equipment that is commonly dumped when outdated. "The goal is to ensure that this material does not end up in our landfill site," said Environment Minister John Gerretsen. "The main reason for this is because there are hazardous materials involved; we're talking lead and mercury and other materials." Mr. Gerretsen yesterday approved the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Program, which includes per-item fees on the two major electronic purchases, as well as computer monitors and printers, mice and keyboards. The levies, $10 for televisions and about $13 for computers, will be billed to Ontario producers and importers beginning on April 1, 2009. Mr. Gerretsen said it was up to the manufacturers to decide if the cost would be absorbed or passed on to consumers. The program's income, expected to be about $62-million in the first year, will go to Waste Diversion Ontario, a non-Crown corporation that operates waste-diversion programs for the government, in order to fund the collection and recycling of outdated and unwanted electronics.

"The cost to recycle, the cost to manage responsibly, is higher than the cost to dispose. The way the current marketplace works is there's a disincentive to do the right thing," said executive director Glenda Gies. Ms. Gies said they will implement pick-up programs and expand the number of drop-off locations, from the current 167 to about 650 locations across the province. A second phase of green fees will seek provincial approval next summer, seeking similar fees for the production and import of cellphones and BlackBerrys, answering machines, radios, cameras, DVD players and stereo equipment. The ministry says that by the fifth year of the program, it expects 61% of Ontario's electronic waste to be reused or recycled, more than double the current rate of 27%.

According to the ministry, households and businesses throw out about 90,000 tonnes of old computers, printers and televisions each year, which could grow to 123,000 tonnes within five years -- about four million desktop computers, 1.5 million laptops and 2.2 million televisions. Progressive Conservative environment critic Toby Barrett slammed the "electronics tax" yesterday as an expensive initiative that would not make the province any greener. Recycling fees on electronics are already in place in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia.

10 July 2008 Saemas, Funep to recover Sertãzinho landfill

São Paulo state Sertãzinho city's autonomous water, sewerage and environmental services provider Saemas signed a contract with research and education foundation Funep for the environmental recovery of the city's landfill, according to Saemas head Helium Dalmazo. A total of 92,000 reais (US$57,213) will be invested in the project, he said. The foundation will first diagnose any damage to the environment and then work to address the impacts. "Preliminary studies will be carried out in the area to decide what measures need to be taken. The only thing we can say at the moment is that everyone will benefit from the project," Dalmazo said. The Sertãzinho landfill operated for 23 years. Since May of this year, the city's garbage has been sent to a landfill in Guataparáity. According to Saemas, the city of Sertãzinho produces 60t/d of garbage.


9 July 2008 Recyclenet Corp - Potential New Revenue Stream for Recycled Materials

Paul Roszel Chairman of RecycleNet Corporation is pleased to announce a potential new revenue stream for anyone who is recycling materials. Using RecycleNet Corporation's innovative Recycling Offset Credits (ROCs) program, participants can buy and sell ROCs (pronounced rocks). RecycleNet Corporation has introduced the Recycling Offset Credits (ROCs) program as a certified measurement system to reward companies for their recycling efforts. By voluntarily reporting materials recycled, participants are awarded Recycling Offset Credits (ROCs) for each ton of material recycled. ROCs may be redeemed for a certificate to verify tonnage recycled or accumulated ROCs may be traded. For over 13 years RecycleNet has operated an online secondary commodities exchange. RecycleNet is excited at the opportunity of offering an innovative new service for the trading of Recycling Offset Credits (ROCs). This service allows the buying and selling of ROCs and creates a potential new revenue stream for recyclable commodities.

It is RecycleNet's hope that the creation of the Recycling Offset Credits (ROCs) program will provide an economic incentive to increase the sustainability and strength of the recycling industry and over the long term result in an increase in the total volume of materials recycled. Traditional valuation of scrap materials was based on the price you would receive from selling the materials only. Over the past few years the increase in landfill disposal and haulage fees has allowed for the calculation of waste diversion or tip fees to justify recycling efforts. To-day by using tools such as the US EPA WARM model, the upstream climate footprint of recycling can be measured. This approach of viewing the economic impact of recycling has the potential of altering the way the recycling industry is traditionally viewed; many materials thought of as marginal or uneconomic to recycle may be viewed in a new light. By taking into account the climatic impact of recycling, the footprint value may be equal to or greater than the current scrap price of some commodities. As a ripple effect of the Kyoto Protocol and in advance of the introduction of cap & trade regulation or the implementation of a carbon tax, many companies have voluntarily adopted a carbon neutral strategy. With the formation of the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) a market value for carbon credits has been established. Increased worldwide environmental awareness has evolved to a point of unprecedented opportunity for the recycling industry.

Voluntary participation in the Recycling Offset Credits (ROCs) program can create new value for environmental efforts and result in the free and fair market trading of ROCs. In the spirit and belief that a raising tide floats all boats, RecycleNet Corporation invites you to join in our endeavor, by working together we can build the economic strength and profitability of the industry. For more information please visit www.recycle.net/offsetcredits/. And ROC on!

9 July 2008 Plasco Energy Group; City of Ottawa moves forward with to 400 tonne-per-day PlascoEnergy facility

Plasco Energy Group Inc. ("PlascoEnergy") of Ottawa announced that the Ottawa City Council unanimously agreed to issue a letter of intent to PlascoEnergy to build, own and operate a 400 tonne-per-day waste conversion facility that will process residual household waste that would otherwise be sent to landfill. The City will continue to operate source separation blue box (plastic, metal and glass), black box (paper and paperboard) and yard waste composting programs introduced many years ago, and is currently introducing source separation of organics for anaerobic digestion. The Plasco Conversion Facility will convert substantially all residual household waste to valuable products including synthetic fuel gas for operation of internal combustion engines. Generators driven by the engines and by waste heat from the conversion process and the engines will produce approximately 21 MW of net saleable base-load power for delivery to Hydro Ottawa.

Upon approval, the facility will be funded, built, owned and operated by PlascoEnergy and will be capable of processing 400 tonnes per day (150,000 tonnes per year) of garbage. Garbage will be delivered from local collection trucks to the facility. PlascoEnergy will separate large metal objects prior to feeding the garbage into the conversion system and will send them back to the City for recycling. The City will pay a tipping fee of $60 per tonne of waste processed, escalated to reflect CPI over a 20-year contract. All risks of operation and efficiency of power generation are assumed by PlascoEnergy. The City will receive 25% of annual revenues that exceed an amount mutually agreed to by PlascoEnergy and the City. The facility will occupy a six-acre site near an existing city owned and operated landfill. The City's leftover garbage will be converted into synthetic engine fuel, agricultural sulphur, industrial salt and construction aggregate with no emissions to the air, land or water. In addition, the excess moisture in the waste will be recovered through the process as clean water.

The engines will drive electrical generators to produce reliable base-load power. Emissions from the engines will be monitored by continuous emissions monitoring and by periodic source testing. The results of both continuous and source testing will be reported on the ZeroWasteOttawa.com website and will be reviewed by independent experts approved by the Ministry of the Environment ("MOE"). An independent Public Advisory Committee will review and make public comments as it sees fit on the environmental performance of the facility and MOE will assure that the facility continuously meets its environmental requirements under the Ministry's Certificate of Approval.

The move by City Council comes three years after the Council approved development by PlascoEnergy of a plant to demonstrate the Plasco Conversion System on a City owned site on the capped Nepean Landfill on Trail Road. The demonstration facility received funding support by Sustainable Development Technology Canada, and from the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation. Ottawa provided the demonstration site and has provided garbage for processing at the demonstration plant. The Plasco Trail Road demonstration plant began commissioning in July last year.

"Provided this system meets all the environmental requirements, the City of Ottawa will be supportive," said Ottawa Mayor Larry O'Brien. "I have always said cities have too much waste and not enough energy and exploring technologies like PlascoEnergy is a positive step forward for our City." All necessary permits including Certificates of Approval by the Ontario MOE must be received before commencement of operations. Certificates of Approval will be based on exhaustive operating data from the existing Trail Road Demonstration Facility. The entire process of approvals and construction is expected to take approximately two years.


8 July 2008 Ener-G wins landfill gas-electricity generation contracts in Hungary

UK-based sustainable energy technology company Ener-G has won three contracts to generate renewable electricity from landfill gas sites in Hungary. Two agreements have a duration of 15 years at two landfill sites owned by an Austrian waste management company. The other contract covers a 10-year period at a site operated by a local authority southwest of Budapest, Hungary. The operations involve Ener-G drilling holes into the landfill waste mass, inserting pipes and feeding the tapped methane into large spark ignition engines that convert the gas into electricity. The conversion of waste gas into energy is expected to provide power for some 2,000 homes. The contracts will be delivered by Ener-G Natural Power in partnership with Hungary-based Ener-G Energia Technologia, formerly Kipszer, which Ener-G acquired in 2006. More than GBP2.6 million will be invested in operations at the three sites, which have a combined electrical capacity of 2.65MW.

The operations will involve one Caterpillar 1,150kW generator at the largest site and a combination of Perkins 400kW and 500kW generators at the two other smaller ones. Biogas Technology, a sister company of Ener-G, will also supply equipment in the form of suction pumps and flares as part of the project. Hugh Richmond, managing director of Ener-G Natural Power, said: "These contracts were awarded after competitive tendering with other European companies. We were delighted to enter a country where we had never worked before, convince them of our ability, fight off the competition and have signed contracts in less than 12 months. We see that as a major achievement."

 

8 July 2008 Waste management contract

Berjaya Corp Bhd has entered into a build, operate and transfer agreement, and a waste management and service agreement with the Construction Bureau of Sanshui District (CBSD), Foshan City, China, for a proposed sanitary landfill project in Guandong. The sanitary landfill will have an overall municipal solid waste capacity of about 9.52 million tonnes with a life span of 28 years.

4 July 2008 Power plant views sought

Staffordshire County Council has submitted plans for its energy from waste plant, which could provide electricity to 24,000 homes. The proposed facility at the Four Ashes industrial estate 8km north of Wolverhampton would process up to 300,000 tonnes of waste each year from Sandwell, Staffordshire, Walsall and Warwickshire. Public consultation on the planning application will run until 25 July, with a decision expected in November. The council plans to open the plant in 2013. Staffordshire director of municipal waste strategy Ian Benson insisted that the process would give everyone the chance to have their say. 'We welcome comments on the application. It is putting into practice our zero waste to landfill strategy, which has received a great deal of public support. The plant combines a cost-effective solution for Staffordshire taxpayers with a tried and tested technology,' he maintained

4 July 2008 Landfill site to stay

Councillors agreed to extend the life of a giant tip on Chester's outskirts. Residents in Mickle Trafford and District argue they have had enough of the Gowy tip operated by 3C Waste which first had permission in 1986 for 20 years. An extension was subsequently agreed to 2012 and plans have now been approved to increase the height of two areas to provide tipping space until 2016. A County Hall meeting heard any plans would have to be considered on their merits at the time. Chairman Cllr Barrie Hardern said: "Members stipulated that in their opinion the Gowy landfill site should remain open until 2016 and the site should be restored a year later."

 

3 July 2008 Plans to ship trash hits new obstacle

Two companies that bid to ship Oahu's trash to the mainland are challenging a third company's bid. Simcoe Environmental Services Inc. and Off-Island Transfer say Hawaiian Waste Systems is under valuing the project by bidding $99 to ship the trash. Simcoe bid $184 per ton, and Off-Island Transfer bid $204 per ton. Both companies filed separate complaints with the city. City officials were planning to award the contract this month. City Environmental Services Director Eric Takamura says the protests are being evaluated and they cannot move forward with awarding a contract until the protests are resolved. The three-year contract, with an option of a two-year extension, requires the winning bidder to ship 2,050 tons of trash per week to a mainland landfill.

30 June 2008 Valley landfill oversight dispute comes to a head; The state will monitor Sunshine Canyon until a local body is set up.

Adding another wrinkle to a decades-old controversy over a giant dump in the north San Fernando Valley, the state has approved a request by the operator of Sunshine Canyon Landfill to step in and oversee enforcement of waste laws at the facility until a city-county joint agency is approved. Sunshine Canyon is actually two landfills roughly a quarter of a mile apart, which puts them in different jurisdictions: one in the city of Los Angeles, the other in unincorporated county territory. The dump's owner, Browning-Ferris Industries, wants to merge the landfills to create a single dump that would accept 12,100 tons of garbage a day, but has been required to run them separately until the city and county form a single agency to oversee it. BFI bypassed the local agencies last year and asked the California Integrated Waste Management Board to merge the landfills and have the state inspect the site. Under state law, local officials have until 2010 to put the joint agency in place, but BFI complained that city and county leaders were taking too long.

City and county officials want to maintain oversight powers, saying the state is too lax in enforcing some of the regulations. The City Council and the Board of Supervisors have approved an agreement to create the joint city-county oversight agency, and it has been submitted to the state for approval. The state is scheduled to vote on it July 22. "BFI didn't want to wait," said Wayde Hunter, a member of the city and county community advisory committees. "They did an end run around the city and county." BFI officials said that it would be less expensive to operate the two landfills as one and that they went to the state because they were tired of waiting for the city and county to act.

Greg Loughnane, L.A. market vice president for BFI's owner, Allied Waste, said space is running out on the city side of the dump, forcing that side to decrease the amount of trash it accepts to 1,000 tons per day from 5,500 tons per day. "We can't afford the situation," Loughnane said. "Everybody's flustered about something that will go away on July 22." BFI wants to merge the dumps to put all 12,100 tons on the county side, where there is more easily accessible space. The state has approved BFI's request and will step in and oversee the landfill until the joint agency is approved. The city and county will continue to have an inspector at the landfill every day. Hunter said BFI's move forced a rush to create the agency, and that both the city and county were considering filing lawsuits against BFI for bypassing them.

But an attorney with the state's waste management board said state law allows landfill operators to take such steps when local governments drag their feet. "There is a law in place that allows an operator to submit an application when there is a limited amount of time to act on it," said Steven Levine, senior staff counsel for the waste management board. "My understanding is there's a concern that you don't want local or state agencies to take too long." The joint agency is to include experienced inspectors to oversee the dump. It also would oversee the distribution of millions of dollars in dumping fees generated every year that are to be split between the two jurisdictions. The agency would be overseen by five directors, including one person appointed by the City Council and one by the Board of Supervisors. BFI would pay all costs for the agency.

Sunshine Canyon is one of the largest municipal dumps in the nation. It sits near an earthquake fault and atop an underground reservoir that holds water for 19 million people in Southern California. The dump, located in the mountains above Granada Hills, has long operated amid mistrust and finger-pointing. As the owner has tried to expand its capacity, local residents and leaders have attempted to shut it down, complaining of noise, pollution and odors. Over the years, neighborhood groups have sued the landfill owners and the county over expansion and alleged regulatory violations.

30 June 2008 Knowaste Moves Into Eastern Europe

Knowaste, the world's leading developer of recycling technologies for nappies and personal care products, has announced that it will be opening its first processing facility in Slovenia in the summer of 2009 after signing a joint venture agreement with Slovenian waste disposal company Aico Eko d.o.o. The agreement involves Knowaste building and operating a facility for the recycling of absorbent hygiene products including disposable baby nappies, incontinence materials and disposable bed liners, into sanitized re-usable paper pulp and plastic components. By partnering with Aico Eko, Knowaste expects to process some 10,000 tonnes of nappy waste per annum.

The joint venture agreement follows Knowaste's announcement last month of its first site in the UK in Birmingham, which is due to go live at the beginning of 2009 and is part of a GBP20m investment programme by the company across the country. The agreement marks the introduction of Knowaste's recycling technology in Eastern Europe. The facility, which will be based in Ilirska Bistrica, will enable 98% of the disposable nappy to be removed from the waste stream and recreated into a variety of products, including plastic cladding, roof tiles, bicycle helmets and plastic injection and extrusion products. Nappies are one of the few remaining household items that, until now, could not be recycled and they can take up to 500 years to decompose, creating significant public health and environmental risks.

Barbara Sterlekar, a Director at Aico Eko d.o.o, said: "Recycling is nowadays the best possible way to treat waste. The scale of nappies and incontinence products generated across the world creates a major environmental challenge. We are therefore delighted to be positively contributing to the environment by recycling these absorbent hygiene products in Slovenia through our agreement with Knowaste." Roy Brown, President and CEO of Knowaste, said: "In response to this challenge our recycling process offers a sustainable, low cost, environmentally friendly waste management solution for nappies and other absorbent hygiene products.

"It diverts untreated human waste from landfills thereby preventing public health risks; diverts some 98% of nappy waste from going to landfill, thereby dramatically reducing associated gases such as methane and carbon dioxide; and at the same time creates new products." The Knowaste vision is to contribute to the long term health of the planet by introducing cost effective technologies that can recycle disposable absorbent hygiene products. The company began research in this area in 1989 and has been commercially active for the past 10 years. Knowaste has processed and diverted over 200,000 tonnes of nappies in that time. Knowaste is planning more than 20 recycling facilities for absorbent hygiene products throughout Europe in the next five years.

 

30 June 2008 CAF to provide non-reimbursable support for La Paz landfill

The Andean Development Corporation (CAF) and Bolivia's water ministry have signed a non-reimbursable cooperation agreement for the construction of a landfill in capital La Paz, CAF reported in a release. CAF will draw up a technical, economic, social and environmental study along with an identification study to determine the project's feasibility. The landfill will benefit districts La Paz, El Alto, Achocalla and Viacha, which comprise the metropolitan area of the capital. Institutional modifications will also be made to guarantee the project's sustainability, a financing model will be drawn up, and tender and hiring contract rules will also be established through the initiative. The landfill will benefit some 2mn inhabitants. The facility will include areas to handle hazardous waste in order to guarantee safety. It will also be able to obtain revenues from the issue of carbon bonds or for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and will enable authorities to obtain biogas.

26 June 2008 How to milk plastic

What can you do with old yoghurt pots? Turn them into kerbs. Recycling mixed plastic packaging from household waste has always been difficult to gauge. Some local authorities have spent cash on equipment that will sort and separate the different plastics from one another while other authorities do not have the machinery. As a result, finding applications for mixed plastic has been difficult. But now a Birmingham-based manufacturer has developed a system that can take mixed plastic from thousands of households and use it to produce hundreds of miles of road kerbs.

According to Revalue Technologies director Rod Fox, as many as 3.5 million tonnes of carbon emissions could be saved by using these recycled plastics. "An estimated 3.5 million tonnes of kerb and ducting products are manufactured using concrete. This gives the potential to divert more than 1 million tonnes of plastic waste from landfill, " he says. Mr Fox claims that after successful field tests the company was now planning to build a production facility capable of producing as many as 400,000 road kerbs weighing 25 kg each. This low weight would also help contractors meet manual handling requirements while using the E-Kerbs, which Mr Fox claims boast a longer service life than concrete kerbs.

 

25 June 2008 Hazardous Waste, Map of a Growing Market

n 2007 the amount of hazardous waste that was collected and treated in Europe accounted to 67.6 million tonnes. It represents only a small percent of the total waste generated. However, its toxicity, technical/infrastructure expertise needed to handle them and the harmful impact it could have on the environment have made hazardous waste a cause of concern. Most of the European countries have government agencies that take care of issues related to hazardous waste. They are also responsible for the development and implementation of policies related to hazardous waste.

Western Europe has a well developed hazardous waste management services market which was valued $8.10 billion in 2007. “Waste management, especially hazardous waste, has always been given its share of importance in Europe,”ays Frost & Sullivan Research Associate Karthikeyan Ravikumar. “The changes made to the definition of hazardous waste in the European Waste Catalogue seem to have benefited the hazardous waste treatment market. It has widened the definition of hazardous waste thereby adding waste such as contaminated soil to the list of hazardous waste. This has considerably increased the hazardous waste volumes entering the treatment market. The implementation of the landfill directive in June 2002 too has had a huge impact on alternate treatment techniques. It has diverted waste previously disposed in landfills to alternate treatment techniques such as thermal treatment, physical/chemical treatment, stabilization and recycling. This directive has helped alternate treatment techniques especially in the recycling sector.”

But let’s see how the situation is in some European countries. Hazardous waste management services market is an important economic factor in Germany with more than 1,000,000 employees employed in the sector generating revenues of over $2 billion in 2007. The total volume of hazardous waste treated in Germany amounts to about 11 million tonnes in 2007. “ell developed policies, legislation and infrastructure have made Germany one of the dominant players in the European hazardous waste market,”ontinues Frost & Sullivan analyst Ravikumar. “trong infrastructure has further made Germany a key destination for hazardous waste in Europe. Increased waste generation, stringent laws and inadequate treatment facilities in other European countries especially the developing Eastern European countries has resulted in the export of waste to Germany. This trend is expected to continue because of the strong industrial growth witnessed in some Eastern European countries and some major market players are looking at those countries as growth markets for the future.”

The United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland hazardous waste management services is the second largest market with a value of $1.10 billion in 2007. United Kingdom and ROI have historically relied upon landfill as a source of cheap and widely available waste disposal method. This reliance has effectively been changed with the implementation of the Landfill directive, which came into effect in 2004. As a result, a drift away from landfills towards alternate treatment techniques such as recycling and physical/chemical treatment of hazardous waste is the order of the day. This is a common trend observed all over Europe.

The historic decision of the French authorities to focus on incineration and valorization as the ultimate methods of disposal for hazardous wastes has made thermal treatment the most favored technique in France. The French hazardous waste management services market is the third largest in Europe with a value of $909 million in 2007. France has emerged as a major treatment center and import destination for hazardous waste from other European countries that lack the required infrastructure especially thermal treatment. Less restriction on the import of waste assisted by available capacity has made France a favorite destination for treatment and final disposal.

Italy, Iberia, Benelux, Alpine and Scandinavia are other major markets in Europe. The West European hazardous waste management services market which has reached maturity in many countries is expected to experience a stable growth for the next seven years.

23 June 2008 Solvay aims to reduce environmental impact.

A power station using non-recyclable used materials as fuel is being built by Solvay in Bernburg, Germany to lessen landfill waste. Construction of the Refuse Derived Fuel power facility had started with the help of German waste disposal and recycling group Tonsmeier. The facility will produce sodium carbonate and hydrogen peroxide beginning spring 2010. Steam and electricity will also be generated at the facility, which will use plastics and wood from cardboard, paper, textiles, buildings and furniture.


23 June 2008 Biomethane for England; BOC-Linde for Gasrec Project at Sita UKLandfill in Surrey: Gas Enough for Hardstaff Trucks and Four Fueling Stations

A new landfill biomethane project in England will yield enough fuel to support the entire Hardstaff Group fleet of 82 natural gas trucks, and the four fueling stations Hardstaff operates, with ample left over for sale, says Hardstaff chief Trevor Fletcher. Gasrec, which says it's the UK's first commercial producer of liquid biomethane fuel (referred to as "LBM"), is using liquefaction technology from BOC-Linde to process landfill gas from Sita UK's Albury facility in Surrey, near Guildford southwest of London.

"We have produced electricity from landfill gas for many years but we believe there is a big future for generating fuel from waste," Sita UK new markets business development manager Stuart Hayward-Higham said in a release. Hardstaff has a fleet of about 200 vehicles, Fletcher told F&F last week, including 66 NGVs using a proprietary dual-fuel system, and 16 with dedicated Cummins Westport C Gas Plus spark-ignition engines. Hardstaff has three LNG fueling stations and one station for LCNG. Fletcher says all will be supported by an ample 5,000 to 6,000 tons (up to 8.2 million cubic meters) of Gasrec LBM/LNG product per year.

 

23 June 2008 Suit accuses Schnitzer unit of dumping metals

Schnitzer Steel Industries Inc.'s Hawaiian unit has been slapped with a lawsuit for allegedly dumping shredder fluff containing recyclable metals into a landfill on the island of Oahu despite receiving a local government subsidy to keep metals out of the waste stream. In a suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii, rival scrap processor Paragon Metals Inc. claims that Schnitzer Steel Hawaii Corp. has dumped about 50 million pounds of residue from its shredder into Waimanalo Gulch, the state's only landfill. The court papers filed by Paragon's attorneys allege that the residue contains metals that could be recovered. Testing showed that between 5 and 11 percent of the residue metal allegedly dumped by the Schnitzer unit into the landfill could be recycled, Paragon contends in its suit. "This means waste plus recyclable metals from neighbor island junk cars and other materials are ending up in this landfill on Oahu," R. Patrick Jaress, an attorney for Paragon, said in a statement.

Schnitzer operates the only shredder in Hawaii. Under a city of Honolulu ordinance, the scrap processor is reimbursed up to 80 percent (or about $2 million a year) for the tipping fees it pays the landfill, Paragon says in court papers. It is the only company to receive a subsidy and should adhere to a city law that prohibits the dumping of recyclable materials, Paragon says. Paragon's attorneys claim that Schnitzer had engaged in "deceptive trade practices" and misled the city into paying it subsidies. Paragon also claims that its ability to compete in the local scrap metal market has been damaged by Schnitzer Steel's alleged activities. Paragon said it doesn't participate in the subsidy program and exports all of its metal scrap overseas.

Executives at Schnitzer's headquarters in Portland, Ore., had no comment on the lawsuit. Rene Mansho, Schnitzer's community relations director in Hawaii, told a local newspaper that the company hadn't seen a copy of the suit and couldn't comment. Schnitzer sends about 25,000 tons of waste to the landfill each year, Mansho said. It had shipped its shredder residue to the city-owned power plant, where it was burned to produce electricity, but the utility no longer accepts that material. Shredder plants built in the past few years have been equipped with eddy current equipment and newer separation technology that recovers more metals from shredder residue. These metals are sold to aluminum smelters and other metal refiners. Shredder residue that remains both at new plants and at older facilities is commonly used as what some industry members call "the daily cover" over the trash and waste materials that are dumped in landfills each day.

19 June 2008 Casella Waste Systems upgraded to overweight at JPMorgan

Casella Waste Systems Inc. Thursday was upgraded to overweight from neutral at JPMorgan, which said it expects the company's landfill development program to start paying off in 2009. "We believe Casella Waste's multiyear landfill development program should begin to deliver more meaningful EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) and free cash flow beginning this year," analyst Scott Levine said in a client note. Levine added that fiscal 2009 guidance includes contributions from the recent Hakes & Ontario landfills, and said state Department of Environmental Protection permit approval at Southbridge could drive upside to current expectations. He raised his fiscal 2009 estimate to earnings of 15 cents from 7 cents a share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, on average, project 10 cents a share. Levine expects free cash flow to double in fiscal 2009, buoyed by EBITDA from new landfills and another year of modest capital expenditures.

 

23 June 2008 Pizzorno Environnement authorised to reopen Balancan landfill site

Less than 24 hours after its Balancan landfill site was shut down by the local authorities, French environmental services group Pizzorno Environnement obtained a licence to continue to operate the site for another five years, renewable for six years. The reopening of the site was authorised via an order classifying the site as a 'project of general interest'.

23 June 2008 PFI might be too slow for waste

Local authorities are becoming worried that using private finance for waste infrastructure will take too long, jeopardising their chances of meeting EU landfill targets. Last August's Comprehensive Spending Review allocated £ billion in central subsidies for new PFI waste schemes, giving councils an incentive to use this off-balance sheet method of procurement. But things may not work out that way. Some municipal leaders now believe that PFI cannot deliver facilities in time to meet the EU targets, which will kick in from 2013. Sandwell council last month launched a consultation over whether it should use PFI for its Waste Improvement Plan - or set up a strategic partnership to channel its own investment instead.

The current PFI plan, which was outlined in an expression of interest to Defra, the environment ministry, in March, involves managing the council's 200,000 tonnes of waste a year. But Sandwell fears that facilities won't be ready until 2013 if the contract is procured through PFI - a full 12 months later than would be the case without PFI. Landfill taxes will start to be levied in 2013. The council's Cabinet was due to make a final decision on the way forward as Public Private Finance went to press, and the authority's political leaders want the body to reject PFI. The likely snub raises questions about whether the offer of PFI credits - departmental subsidies for the schemes - will be sufficient incentive to get councils to use the initiative.

In fact, the subsidies make less difference than you might think. They only support the capital element of PFI charges, a big chunk of the cost of, for example, a school (where it accounts for about 80% of the PFI fee). But this isn't the case in waste. Most waste PFIs involve relatively little capital investment. Rather, most of the cost is in service provision, which the council must fund itself. Therefore councils must balance the relatively small subsidy available through PFI against the extended planning and procurement timetables it involves. Time is of the essence, with the threat of landfill taxes less than five years away. And therefore Sandwell is unlikely to be the last council to decide that PFI isn't worth the wait.

16 June 2008 Government to launch waste-to-energy concession tender in Códoba

Argentine city Códoba's government council will launch a concession tender process for biogas recovery at the city's Bouwer landfill. The council is currently analyzing the international tender's bidding rules, which are expected to be approved within a month. Authorities are also meeting with private firms to discuss the rules and to make any necessary modifications, the report said. The project consists of installing a system to capture and use the methane gas generated in the landfill, also known as Potrero del Estado, located in the Bouwer district. The gas will then be burned to reduce pollution and produce energy. The initiative seeks to reduce environmental pollution while producing revenues through the sale of carbon bonds.

The concession will be granted for eight years and the awardee will be responsible for making all the necessary investments for the project. The project was submitted to authorities as a private initiative by French firm Bioenersis. The city government decided to launch an international tender after confirming interest from other companies. The process will be carried out simultaneously with the tenders to hire two firms to collect and manage the disposal of the city's solid waste, starting in 2009. Bouwer landfill is one of Argentina's largest. It emits industrial amounts of methane gas, which is 21 times more toxic than carbon dioxide. The concessionaire will benefit from the sale of carbon bonds, while paying a canon to the local municipality.

16 June 2008 Latest energy project puts `waste gas' to good use

A new Taranaki (NZ) cogeneration project which officially opens today will use waste gas to generate enough electricity and hot water for 2000 households annually. The project, sited at Todd Energy's McKee plant near Tikorangi in north Taranaki, uses gas sourced from a waste stream that was previously flared into the atmosphere. The company expects a separate project using gas from its Mangahewa Field will generate enough electricity to power a further 9000 homes by December. ``With the power crisis threatening the stability of New Zealand's energy supply, this project is an excellent example of how cogeneration technology maximises plant efficiency, using waste gas to deliver electricity to the national grid and hot water for use at the plant,'' said managing director Richard Tweedie. ``This project also illustrates the type of thermal generation that is clearly in the national interest and should be encouraged by Government policy, but unfortunately this is not the case.'' Tweedie said the company had always sought to develop cogeneration projects, but was hesitant given the Government's intention to ban thermal generation in excess of 10MW for 10 years.

The two cogeneration units at McKee are driven by internal combustion engines designed specifically to run on waste gas - an unavoidable by- product of processing natural gas to pipeline specification sales quality. The 2MW of electricity generated is exported to the local grid. Exhaust heat from the generation units is recovered to pre-heat water for the plant's system - the hot water is a vital component in processing the plant's crude due to its waxy nature. The hot water produced is equivalent to providing energy to another 2000 households annually. A separate project will see a further three cogeneration units operational by December, generating an additional 9MW of electricity. The project has received carbon credits from the Government in recognition of the greenhouse gas emissions reductions achieved, relative to generation of the same amount of electricity from a less efficient thermal process, said the company. Wholly New Zealand-owned, Todd is the country's largest generator of electricity from efficient gas-fired cogeneration facilities, including Whareroa, Edgecumbe, Kapuni and Southern Landfill in Wellington.

23 June 2008 SP okays MOA on plastic garbage

The Iloilo city council here has authorized Mayor Jerry P. Treas to sign a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with Holcim Corp., calling for the shipment of 100 metric tons of plastic garbage taken from the citys dumpsite to be used as fuel of Holcim cement plant in Lugait, Iligan City, Mindanao. The authority was given in last Wednesdays SP regular session while the MOA was approved by the Solid Waste Management Board (SWMB) and the Solid Waste Management for Local Government Units project assisted by the German-funded GTZ. City councilor Eldrid Antiquerra, chairman of the committee on environment and main proponent of the agreements committee report, said the project will have a test period of 100 days partnership in shipping out the plastic garbage taken out from the old dumpsite at Brgy. Calajunan, Mandurriao district. Earlier, Treas disclosed that a pre-test run conducted last April was able to send 20 metric tons of plastic garbage to Holcim in Iligan and tested as the factorys fuel in cement manufacturing. The test run was successful and Holcim Cement plant eyes Iloilo Citys plastic garbage as important alternative fuel.

Representatives of Holcim Phil. paid a visit here last March to talk about possible cooperation and partnership on the elimination of plastic garbage at the city dumpsite. The Holcim team was 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. GTZ, on the other hand, represented by Dr. Johannes Paul, will be spending for the expenses incurred in taking out the garbage from Calajunan. GTZ is helping the city government in its solid waste disposal management and in the conversion of the 23-hectare dumpsite into a sanitary landfill. The city dumpsite is receiving some 150 to 170 metric tons of garbage everyday collected from public markets, shopping malls and residences here. Plastic wastes are made up of more than 50 percent of the collected garbage.

The project is expected to minimize 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. The plan includes the covering of some three hectares of cleared dumpsite area with soil taken from the Iloilo flood control project site in Jaro and will be developed like rice terraces planted to trees and flowers expected to become later as an eco-tourism park. The city government has already constructed a perimeter fence around the dumpsite area and acquired an assistance loan of P90-million from the World Bank to buy heavy equipment such as two units of dumptruck and one unit of backhoe excavator. It is also planning to buy two units of bulldozer compactor and a weighbridge.

 

11 June 2008 Semarnat to create fund to handle used tires in Baja California

Mexican environment ministry Semarnat's office in Baja California expects to raise nearly 5mn pesos (US$479,089) for a fund to finance the handling of used tires imported from the US, local office head Sórates Bastida told BNamericas. "The fund will be financed by a fee charged for every imported tire, with which we will pay for the final disposal of the material," the official said. "A committee will be formed shortly to decide the cost of entry on a technical basis. However, the fee is currently fixed at six pesos," he added. "Baja California has been a permanent entry point for used tires from the US," Bastida said, adding: "In more than 2,000km of shared border with the US, there are only two points of entry for this kind material, in Chihuahua and Baja California states."

After entry to Baja California, the tires can go to several possible destinations for their final disposal. The tires can go to Tecate or Tijuana, either to a state landfill or a private company that uses them for construction. In addition, the tires are sent to local cement company Cemex's plant in Mexicali municipality, which has special ovens to use the tires as fuel for its manufacturing process. However, the number of tires surpasses the capacity of this facility. "Resources from the fund will be used to ship the tires to the Cemex plant in neighboring Sonora state, as its local ovens are too small," Bastida said. "This involves receiving the tires, grinding them, and packing and shipping them up to the facility in Hermosillo," he added. "However, if someone has a better idea to dispose of the tires, the fund could go entirely to that project," he said.

Each year, a quota of 750,000 used tires enters Mexico from the US under bilateral governmental agreements, while an additional 500,000 are brought into the country by individuals or companies, such as firms that buy used vehicles to obtain scrap for resale. "However, we estimate there are nearly 5mn tires laying scattered across the state, in illegal waste dumps, riverbanks and empty land lots, among other places," Bastida said.

9 June 2008 Buenos Aires government inaugurates solid waste treatment plant

The Buenos Aires province government inaugurated a new solid waste treatment plant, the government reported in a release. Promoted by the ministry of agriculture and productive issues, the initiative is part of a provincial program to build solid waste treatment plants in municipalities with up to 100,000 inhabitants, in an effort to contribute to the province's environmental sustainability. Known as "Sin Desperdicio" (Without Waste), the program aims to "create a profound change in solid waste management, contributing to the elimination of open air waste dumps, generating formal employment for those who work in poor conditions in the dumps themselves and stimulating the commercialization of recycled materials," agriculture and productive issues minister Déora Giorgi said. The new plant will process plastic, cardboard and metals, recycling them for industrial use. Until now, these waste materials were left in open air dumps.

The facility, located in district Las Flores, will have the capacity to process 14t/d of solid waste, reducing by 60-70% the amount of waste that ends up in the local landfill. The provincial government will contribute to the program by purchasing specific equipment, and providing technical assistance and training to the municipalities that build the waste treatment plants. The program also includes a social component, which consists of training unofficial waste recyclers - who search for recyclable waste in garbage dumps - and employing them in the plants.

 

9 June 2008 Trash-to-energy test project proposed in Watsonville

A trash-to-energy test project is in the works at the Buena Vista Landfill off Highway 1 in Watsonville, California. Carlsbad-based AdaptiveARC says the plasma-arc gasification project would use temperatures as high as 3,000 degrees to vaporize municipal waste and convert it into fuel for electricity. The plant would likely eliminate Santa Cruz County's need for another landfill. But the technology remains unproven and the county's contract with AdaptiveARC has been postponed until more research is complete. AdaptiveARC's Kris Skrinak says he's confident the technology will hold up to scrutiny. The Carlsbad firm has offered the $15 million demonstration facility at no cost to the county.

9 June 2008 Lehman Bros To Take Shr In Steam Autoclave Recycling Plant

Lehman Brothers, the global investment bank, and Graphite Resources, a waste management company based in Newcastle, U.K., said Tuesday that Lehman Brothers has acquired a 45.3% of Graphite. The investment is part of a deal to build a steam autoclave recycling plant on the banks of the river Tyne in Gateshead, North East England, worth GBP50 million. Lehman Brothers has invested alongside the management team and other investors, it said. At the same time, Graphite Resources announced that Lord Kenneth Baker, the former Conservative MP and Secretary of State for the Environment, has been appointed as Chairman of the Board of Directors. Lord Baker is Chairman of the Lehman Brothers Merchant Banking European Advisory Board and has personally invested in Graphite Resources alongside Lehman Brothers and the management team. The autoclave cycle reduces waste to less than 20% of its original volume. During the process all foodstuffs, paper and organic 'cellulose' material become fibrous. Plastic is softened and reduced in volume. Tin cans, glass, aerosols, steel and aluminium are delacquered and steam cleaned. This material then undergoes separation treatment to extract additional value, dramatically reducing the tonnage sent to landfill, without the carbon emissions associated with incineration.

3 June 2008 Building companies pressed to recycle waste

Master Builders are doing their bit for the environment by launching a campaign to help reduce waste in WAs construction industry. More than 50 per cent of the waste going to landfill in metropolitan WA is construction and demolition waste. Master Builders manager Geoff Cooper believes there are now more opportunities to recycle in WA for builders and subcontractors. Demand for recycled construction materials, such as metals and road base, has increased. "We are aiming to increase the current recycling level of 18 per cent of construction and demolition waste," he said.

To assist the industry to recycle more waste, Master Builders and the WA Governments Towards Zero Waste Program have released a new guide to help builders and subcontractors. The guide sets out the steps required for builders and contractors to introduce a waste management plan to separate wastes to assist in reducing waste going to landfill. The costs of disposing of waste are also increasing due to higher transport costs and an increase in the landfill levy from $3 per cubic metre for inert waste in 2006-07 to $9 per cubic metre by 2010, Mr Cooper said. Mr Cooper said that builders and contractors are being required by clients, planning authorities and tendering guidelines to conduct onsite or offsite sorting of wastes. Clients are asking for the implementation of waste management plans to demonstrate the environmental credentials of their buildings and their builders. Master Builders will be promoting waste management successes to its members and offering more waste management training for builders and contractors.

2 June 2008 Idaho metal recyclers: One man's junk

Some Idaho metal recyclers are making investments in new equipment and operations, spurred by unrelenting high prices for metals and long-term changes in consumer behavior that are leading more people to avoid paying for the privilege to dump their junk at landfills. Pacific Steel & Recycling of Great Falls, Mont., for example, recently opened a $16 million recycling and auto shredding facility near Mayfield in Elmore County. The facility joins the company's 36 recycling centers throughout the Intermountain West, including 11 in Idaho. It now employs 24 people and features a $6.5 million shredder that pulverizes and separates components from vehicles and appliances. United Metals of Caldwell, too, recently added two portable car crushers and a portable tin baler to its operations and recently purchased a $1 million seasonal recycling facility in Gooding, which it plans to keep open year-round with 10 full-time workers.

Both companies say the additions are long-term investments that will help them increase the supply of metal that they can sell to steel mills and metal processors. But their timing couldn't have been better since company officials say they are seeing a spike in their intakes as consumers are looking to get cash for worthless equipment that is now more valuable than it was a few years ago. "We have definitely seen a lot of material that has been sitting around farms, houses and other places for years," said Brett Ekart, operations manager at United Metals, in an e-mail interview. "Awareness that the material is actually worth hauling to a scrap metal recycling facility and the awareness of people refusing to pay landfill costs when they could actually receive money for their material has definitely played a role in the increase of material we have been processing over the last year."

Pacific Steel's new facility started full-scale operations on Feb. 18 and has already processed more than 40,000 tons of metal. The capacity is now up to between 1,500 to 2,000 tons of metal per day. The plant accepts material only from the company's 36 other recycling centers, not from the general public. The centerpiece of the facility is the $6.5 million shredder that can take cars or compressed steel logs and hammer them to pieces, then separate out the metals with air jets and magnets. The shredder can separate ferrous (iron, steel) and non-ferrous metals (copper, aluminum and brass) from other materials with close to 99 percent accuracy. The non-metallic material is then used as landfill cover. The metals can be sold directly to steel mills or sent to other metal processors. The average wage for the 24 employees is between $18 and $20 per hour.

United Metals purchased a seasonal recycling center on 1800 East in Gooding from Taylor Recycling last summer and has turned it into a year-round operation, adding personnel, equipment and a drop box service for commercial facilities. The ribbon-cutting was on May 15. The facility features three excavators, a portable car crusher, a tin baler and two front end wheel loaders. The new operation will allow the company to send more metal to its Caldwell plant to be processed by a 700T Sierra shear, which can handle more than 110 tons of heavy melt steel per day. The new equipment will allow local residents to bring in materials that contain non-ferrous metals, like copper and aluminum. Since 1997, United Metals has partnered with Schnitzer Steel Industries Inc. of Portland, Ore., which makes it easier for the company to sell its metals to both national and international outlets and thereby find better prices.

27 May 2008 Anhui's First Landfill Gas-based Power Generation Project Receives Approval

The RMB46M household waste landfill gas-based power generation project in Hefei City has received approval to be established, announced Hefei's City Appearance & Environmental Sanitation Administrative Bureau. This is the first project in Anhui Province to use household waste landfill gas to generate power. The first phase will establish three 957kW generators and will involve an investment of RMB46M. Upon completion, the project will treat approximately 11.7 million cbm of methane annually, equal to reducing the annual carbon dioxide emissions by 108,000t. In addition, the annual power generation volume will be 206,700kWh, equal to saving 10,000t of standard coal.


24 May 2008 Waste plant resubmitted

Viridor has lodged revised proposals for an energy from waste (EfW) facility at its Oxwellmains landfill site to serve east and central Lothian and Edinburgh. It has reduced the size of the plant to ensure that it is in line with the emerging area's waste plan, Scottish Government guidance and local views following a public consultation. The plant is no longer designed to take municipal waste from the two furthest authorities, West Lothian and the Scottish Borders.

It is now intended that it will process 150,000 tonnes of municipal waste and the same amount of residual commercial and industrial waste, which will generate more than 25MW of electricity. Local people said they are keen to see a smaller facility that is less reliant on road transport. Around half of the waste will now be taken to the site by rail. The Scottish Government has set targets for 70 per cent of waste to be recycled, five per cent to be landfilled and 25 per cent to go to EfW facilities by 2025

12 May 2008 Linde-WMI Biomethane; World's Largest Landfill Gas Plant, For Garbage Trucks, to Open in 2009

Germany's Linde Group and Waste Management, Inc. say they'll open the world's largest landfill biomethane plant next year, using liquefied natural gas from the Altamont landfill in Livermore, east of San Francisco, to fuel 300 trash and recycling collection vehicles. "This will be the largest plant of its kind and we hope to break new ground by producing commercial quantities," said WMI VP Duane Woods. "Linde is using its expertise in designing and developing LNG plants around the world to create a clean and sustainable energy solution for the residents of California," said Linde North America president Pat Murphy. Capital expenditure is reported at $15.5 million. WMI pegs daily LNG capacity at about 13,000 gallons.

6 May 2008 Electronic wasteland: Breeding toxins from dead PCs: Children are dying to clear up the developed world's discarded computers

Thousands of discarded computers from western Europe and the US arrive in the ports of west Africa every day, ending up in massive toxic dumps where children burn and pull them apart to extract metals for cash. The dumping of the developed world's electronic trash, or e-waste, is in direct contravention of international legislation and is causing serious health problems for inhabitants of the shanty towns that have sprung up amid the smouldering dumps in Lagos and Accra. Campaigners believe unscrupulous scrap merchants are illegally dumping millions of tonnes of dangerous waste on the developing world under the guise of exporting it for use in schools and hospitals. They are calling for better policing of the ban on exports of e-waste, which can release lead, mercury and other dangerous chemicals.

"Ghana is increasingly becoming a dumping ground for waste from Europe and the US," according to Mike Anane, director of the League of Environmental Journalists in Ghana. "The people that break open these monitors tell me that they suffer from nausea, headaches and respiratory problems." More than half a million computers arrive in Lagos every month but only about one in four works. The rest are sold as scrap, smashed up and burned. "Millions of tons of e-waste disappears from the developed world every year and continues to reappear in developing countries, despite international bans," according to Luke Upchurch from Consumers International, which represents more than 220 consumer groups in 115 countries.

The illegal trade in e-waste is highly lucrative. It is possible to extract more gold out of a tonne of electronic circuitry than from a tonne of gold-bearing rock. But illegal dumping is putting at risk charities and other organisations that donate second-hand equipment to the developing world. Since the introduction of the Basle Ban outlawing the export of hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries in 1992, computers have become an everyday item. Consumers and businesses are replacing their kit at an ever increasing rate, creating a new waste mountain. Six years ago the EU produced the waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) directive ,which introduced new curbs and restrictions on the movement of e-waste. The directive, which came into effect in Britain in January last year, heavily regulates the movement of e-waste for recycling and bans its export for disposal. It also introduced a scheme under which the cost of properly disposing of electronic equipment put on the market after August 2005 must be picked up by the producers of the waste - manufacturers, retailers, branders and importers.

But DanWatch, a partner organisation of Consumers International, has evidence that computer equipment from British companies and even local authorities is being dumped in west Africa. "We filmed children as young as six searching for metal scraps in the earth, which was littered with the toxic waste from thousands of shattered cathode ray tubes," said Benjamin Holst, co-founder of DanWatch. "A whole community is virtually living and working in this highly toxic environment, which is growing every day." Properly functioning computer equipment is exempt from the WEEE rules about export. In fact the regulations encourage refurbishment and re-use of computer equipment. But there is no regime that checks computer equipment destined for re-use before it is shipped overseas.

Regulating waste in England and Wales falls under the remit of the Environment Agency. "Our position would be that genuine re-use of working equipment is generally a good thing," explained Adrian Harding, the agency's policy advisor. The trouble lies in the phrase "genuine re-use". Harding admits that the agency simply does not have the resources to check every consignment destined for re-use in the developing world. Part of the problem is that the agency does not even have to be notified about the movement of goods for re-use so it would not know which containers to target.

One organisation that has already made a name for itself as a legitimate supplier of second-hand computers to the developing world is Computer Aid International, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary and has sent more than 119,000 computers to countries including Kenya and Chile. The charity is registered with the Environment Agency as an official e-waste treatment company. Any machines it cannot use are sent to specialist recycling facilities within the EU. Founder Tony Roberts believes the problem with existing e-waste regulations is that outside the EU they do not make the producer of computer equipment pay for its proper disposal.

Without this cash there is little incentive for developing nations to start investing in proper recycling facilities. As a result the e-waste problem is likely to grow, not because of unscrupulous European exporters but because of the increasing number of computers being sold in the developing world. "When you look at the whole product lifetime of a computer 75% of the environmental damage is done before the computer is switched on for the first time," he pointed out. "It is the production, the mining, the factories producing the kit and the use of toxic materials - that is where the environmental damage is done. So if we do not make the producer responsible for dealing with these environmental issues we are never going to get a redesign of computers; we are never going to get computers that are produced in a more environmentally friendly way."

Once Computer Aid's donated equipment reaches the end of its useful life, the company tries to limit the environmental damage caused by its disposal. In Kenya, for instance, it is helping to build a recycling facility that will take not just its own kit but broken machines from across the country. The process is basic but better than using landfill - and circuit boards are re-exported to Britain. Roberts said: "The problem is the producers are not providing any funds in the developing markets, where they are selling millions of PCs, so we just need to set up similar funds in all markets." It is a call taken up by Martin Hojsik, toxics campaigner at Greenpeace International. "We want the producers to be responsible for the take-back of their kit," he said.

The hope is that the sheer expense of making producers pay for the disposal of their computer equipment wherever it is sold or used across the world, will spur the industry towards making "greener" machines. To bring a quick end to the spectacle of children scrabbling around in toxic waste dumps in Africa, Europe's regulators and more importantly its consumers and businesses need to take responsibility for disposing of their computer equipment.

 

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.

 

Recycling is older than you think Sometime around 600 AD, plunderers along Mediterranean Coast are alleged to have dismantled the remains of the collapsed Colossus of Rhodes and sold its pieces to weapons makers. In the 14th century, author Geoffrey Chaucer was "clerk of the works" at Westminster Palace, responsible for the collection and inventory of scrap metals. Captain Kidd's ship, searched when he was captured in 1699, was found carrying 10 tons of scrap iron. Paper recycling dates back to the creation of paper in China around 105 AD. The New World's first iron furnace was built in 1640s at Saugus, Mass. The operation went bankrupt some 20 years later, but ironmaking and the use of scrap metals spread across the continent.

AGR Group (German/European environmental management)

ASA Group (Central European waste management)

Augean UK landfill operator

Befesa (Spanish and worldwide waste mangement)

Biffa - UK's largest landfill operator

Boral (Australian landfills)

Breen Holdings (Australian landfill operator)

Catawba County Landfill (US landfill)

Cespa (Spanish/European Landfill operator)

Cleansing Service Group (CSG) UK landfill operator

CNIM (equipment provider)

Cory Environmental UK landfill operator

DEFRA Department the Environment (UK)

Economics of Landfill Mining

Essent (Dutch/European waste processor)

European landfills and waste mangement (.doc download)

FCC (Spanish/European landfill operator)

Focsa Services UK landfill operator

Geocycle (Global waste management and valorisation)

Global alternative fuels for cement (June 2009, Toronto)

Global Waste Management Symposium (September 08, US)

GM Waste UK landfill operator

Groupe Nicollin (French waste management company)

Grundon UK landfill operator

Hills Group UK landfill operator

Indaver (Belgian/European waste management)

IUT Group (Landfill miner)

Jacob Becker (German/European landfill operator)

Landfill on Wikipedia

Landfill Site - useful portal into the UK landfill industry

Lassila & Tikanoja (Baltic waste management)

Lobbe (German waste management company)

London Waste UK landfill operator

Lowry Landfill (US landfill)

Marshall Landfill (US Landfill)

Merseyside Waste Disposal Authority UK landfill operator

Oran Group UK landfill operator

Orchid Environmental (UK waste management)

Premier UK landfill operator

Puente Hills Landfill (US landfill)

Ragn-Sells (Swedish/European environmental management)

Recycling International (Magazine)

Recycling Magazine (Magazine)

Recycling Today (Magazine)

Remondis (European landfill operator)

Resource Recycling (Magazine & website)

Shanks UK landfill operator

Salt River Landfill (US landfill)

Saubermacher (Austrian/eastern European waste operator)

SITA UK landfill operator

Solid Waste and Recycling (Magazine and web site)

Sulo (German landfill operator)

Systems4Recycling (equipment producer)

Urbaser (Spanish waste management)

US EPA Landfill reclaimation paper (old but interesting) pdf

Veolia UK landfill operator (incorporating Cleanaway and Onyx)

van Gansewinkel (European landfill operator)

Vecoplan (equipment provider)

Verdant Group UK landfill operator

Viridor UK landfill operator

WasteAge (website)

WasteNews.com (website)

Waste Recycling Group UK landfill operator

West Australian Landfill Services

Williamson County Landfill (US landfill)

Download PRo Calandar 2010 (pdf, 160kb) 2nd Global Landfill Mining Conference, 13 September 2010, London Global Mining Finance Conference, 22-23 September, London 5th Global Insulation Conference, 4-5 October 2010, London 6th European Slag Conference, EUROSLAG, 20-22 October 2010, Madrid 10th Global Gypsum Conference and Exhibition, 25-26 October 2010, Paris, France 6th Global Slag Conference, 22-23 November 2010, Sydney, Australia 12th Discussions of the Round Table (Loesche USA Symposium), 1-4 December 2010, Miami, USA AUCBM 16th Arab International Cement Conference & Exhibition, 6-8 December 2010, Ras Al Khaimah, UAE Future Cements Conference and Exhibition, 8-9 February 2011, London, UK 2nd Global Cement and Concrete Conference and Exhibition, 15-16 March 2011 (to be confirmed), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia 5th Global Alternative Fuels Conference for Cement and Lime, 12-13 April 2011, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2nd Global Cement Wear and Maintenance Conference, 9-10 May 2011 (to be confirmed), location tbc 53rd IEEE-IAS/PCA Cement Industry Technical Conference, 22-26 May 2011, St. Louis, MO, US Global Cement Electrical Energy Efficiency Conference, 13-14 June 2011, London 13th International Congress on the Chemistry of Cement, 3-8 July 2011, Madrid, Spain Global Boards Conference and Exhibition, autumn 2011, London UNITECR 2011, 30 October-2 November 2011, Kyoto