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In Our Next Issue:
The Business of Recycling
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Up in Smoke, In the Ground, Off to China or Generating Power
Where Does New Jersey’s Garbage Go?
 New Jersey has a
population of over 8.5 million people. According to the federal government, each resident generates one ton of garbage per year;
managing this waste is a challenge for the State. Twenty years ago,
the State mandated that each county develop its
own individual plan for managing its solid waste.
Currently,
each of New Jersey's twenty-one counties has developed its own waste
management solution. Options for the counties to manage solid waste include:
incinerating it, burying it (landfill), converting it into energy
(Waste-to-Energy), and recycling it (resource recovery). Recycling/ resource
recovery is required by the
State to be included in a county's waste management plan. With this basic
information, we begin the surprising journey of where garbage goes by looking
at a few counties' solutions.
The waste journey varies in each of the counties.
Although the counties are
mandated to develop their own solid waste management programs, many choose to
pass the day-to-day operations on to its municipalities. For
example in Morris and Essex Counties, the
municipalities determine where its solid waste (materials that are left after the recyclables are
removed) will go. Municipalities can either contract with haulers (waste transport companies) for services for its
residents or in some cases pass the responsibilities on to its residents. Many municipalities prefer not to take on the
business of solid waste management.
Instead they pass it on to their residents. Bergen
and Somerset are just two of counties
where residents are responsible for contracting for their own solid waste removal.
In Somerset and Bergen counties, haulers have the option of taking post
recycled solid waste to any licensed disposal facility they
choose. Haulers base this decision on
tipping costs (the charge to dump each truck) and convenience. A small hauler will most likely avoid travelling
long distances to tip/dump, as it takes the equipment out of service for a
longer period of time. Naturally, a
local disposal facility with reasonable tipping fees will be the destination of choice.
Whether the municipality or
resident is responsible for
the removal of the waste, the final destination of the waste must follow each individual county’s plan. Residents of Essex Fells, in Essex county, must provide
their own waste disposal, whereas Verona, also in Essex County, contracts with a
waste management company to provide services for its residents. Montclair and
Newark residents see their refuse picked up by trucks owned and operated by
their communities. The waste from
all these communities follow Essex County’s mandate for disposal.
It is important to note that throughout the state of New Jersey, businesses and industries are responsibile for their own waste disposal. However, they must comply with its county's mandate.
Morris County's trash has a very different journey. Morris County manages its solid waste at the county level. The Morris
County Municipal Utilities Authority (MCMUA) determines where this waste will go. Although its municipalities are responsible for the collection of the
trash, the county maintains control of its solid waste flow by requiring the haulers to send
it to its two transfer stations. This is known as flow control; waste delivered to
a set location. In the case of Morris County, this waste is then transported
to MCMUA's designated disposal locations in Eastern Pennsylvania. These transfer stations are operated under contract by Waste Management (WM). WM is responsible for maintaining the facilities and transporting the waste to the Pennsylvania
disposal locations made up of five landfills and a Waste-to-Energy plant.
The Morris County system benefits both its municipalities and the Pennsylvania towns that are recipients of the solid
waste. To borrow a line from
the MCMUA website, “The local
municipalities view the MCMUA, as an agency that can be trusted, one that
protects the environment and whose history shows it limits costs while
increasing services for Morris County and its people and businesses.” The Pennsylvania
communities benefit from the revenue and the jobs the landfill and
waste-to-energy facility creates and the energy created by the WTE plant.
WM has been at the forefront of the renewable energy
movement. The company developed a pipeline for the transport of gas generated at the
GROWS and Tullytown landfills to an adjacent gas
processing facility. Electricity from
these facilities is sold and powers homes in the Philadelphia area. Morris County’s waste contributes
to the success of these programs as well as to the greatly reduced property taxes of the communities housing these
landfills and renewable energy facilities.
Several
New Jersey counties operate Waste-to-Energy facilities to process post-recycled municipal solid
waste. Essex, Union and Warren are
examples of counties taking this different approach. Annually these plants process 1.6 million tons of
waste into 485 megawatts of energy. This is enough to power 130 thousand homes. In addition, the facilities also help with metal recycling
in these communities. Each year, Covanta’s three plants recover 30 thousand tons of
metals from the waste stream. These are metals not typically recycled. Covanta Energy
manages the facilities for these
counties as well as over 40 other
Waste-to-Energy
facilities throughout North America,
Europe, and Asia. Covanta uses a variety of technologies
that have earned the company a reputation for safety, reliability, efficiency,
and environmental responsibility.
Sunil
K Garg, Ph.D, Esq., the Executive Director of the Union
County Utilities Authority, explains the benefits of Waste-to-Energy
conversion, “WTE (waste-to-energy) uses
municipal solid waste (MSW) as fuel in boilers that generate steam to drive a
turbine that generates electricity. The
electricity is sold on the distribution grid generating revenue that is used to
offset the cost of MSW management, and other essential municipal services. WTE recovers more than 600 kW-hr of
electricity per ton of waste. This is
at least 10 times more than the electricity recoverable from a ton of
land-filled waste. An average household
annually generates about 2 tons of MSW that can produce 1200 – 1300 kW-hr of electricity per year through WTE. This is sufficient to satisfy about 6 weeks
of electricity consumption of an average home in NJ. MSW is local, sustainable and indigenous, making it an economic
way to generate electricity and manage solid waste.” Garg adds, “Our facility in Rahway generates roughly 25% of the
sustainable energy in NJ.”
The
Covanta facility in Newark is easily recognized. A pink and blue building, it
is visible from the NJ Turnpike. Waste-to-Energy facilities are closely
monitored by hi-tech equipment with the results reported to the DEP (Department
of Environmental Protection). The
Essex, Union and Warren county facilities have an excellent record of their
emissions falling far below the State’s strict requirements.
The Good, The Bad and The Smelly—Landfill
The
days of landfills (dumps) emitting smoke and stench with various animals (rats, mice,
birds) swarming around are long
gone. A landfill
is not simply an open hole in the ground.
They are carefully
designed structures built into or on
top of the ground in which trash is isolated from the surrounding environment
(groundwater, air, rain) by using a bottom liner and daily covering of
soil. There
are two types: sanitary landfills use a clay liner to
isolate the trash from the environment and municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills
use a synthetic (plastic) liner to isolate the trash from the environment . Today’s
landfills often capture the methane that is generated from them and use it to
generate electricity. Even though
today’s landfills must meet very stringent requirements, the ongoing use of
them for solid waste management is questionable. Waste is often hauled or shipped long distances resulting in
higher transportation costs and a larger carbon footprint than a local
solution. These additional costs are
passed on to its customers and the larger carbon footprint greatly impacts the
environment.
Glass, Paper, Plastic and Much More—The Complexities of Recycling
All New Jersey counties must
include a recycling component in its solid waste plan. Recycling is required by law for both residents and
businesses and has been since April 20, 1987 when Governor Thomas Kean signed
the Mandatory Source Separation & Recycling Act.
Similar
to the solid waste component, the recycling component can either be managed on a municipal
level as Bergen and Essex
County does or managed on a county level such as Somerset County. No matter how recycling is handled
for the residents in a county, businesses and industries are responsible for its own recyclables.
Recycling
involves processing used materials into new products. Although we first think of glass, paper and plastic it is far
more extensive than those materials alone.
Recycling is a key component of modern waste management and is the third
component of the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” waste hierarchy. The success of recycling is dependent on the
ability to use the recycled goods for another purpose—a market for the recycled
materials must exist.
To encourage the recycling component of the waste hierarchy and reduce the quantity of solid waste within the state, New Jersey passed the Recycling
Enhancement Act. The bill requires
solid waste collectors to pay a tax based on the tonnage it hauls. The tax in turn is passed on to the haulers’ customers. The revenue collected from this bill is
deposited in the State Recycling Fund, which is administered by the Department
of Environmental Protection. The funds
provide grants for municipalities or counties that, at their own expense, provide for the collection, processing and
marketing of recyclable materials.
Recycling
or "Resource Recovery" is the collecting and separating of certain
waste materials for processing into new forms. Even “post-recycled waste,” the materials
left after the glass, plastic, paper etc. are removed from the waste stream,
can be recycled. The Covanta managed
facilities in Essex, Union and Warren County “convert” the counties
post-recycled municipal waste into electricity, a very common occurrence in
Europe. Twenty
years ago, when our waste-to-energy facilities were built they used
state-of-the-art equipment. Now new
technologies make WTE facilities an even more viable option for waste
management and for producing sustainable energy.
In
addition to WTE and recycling, many
counties encourage composting. We asked
Diane Vigilante, solid waste manager for Somerset County about the benefits of
composting. She told us, “Somerset
County encourages composting because it is an environmentally sound method for
disposing of food waste. We offer two
composting classes annually and provide composting bins for our
residents.” Vigilante added, “From a
financial perspective, composting can greatly reduce the volume of trash, which
can in turn impact a town’s disposal costs.
In addition, the compost is great for someone who likes to garden.”
Converted
Organics composts on a very large scale.
The company, based in Boston, recycles commercial food waste into
environmentally friendly fertilizer or biostimulant for the retail, turf
management and agribusiness markets.
When fully operational, the Converted Organics’ facility in Woodbridge,
NJ will produce both a dry and liquid fertilizer. Its products are available to consumers in both Home Depot and
Whole Foods and its turf products are used on the finest U.S. Golf courses.
Innovative
companies like Converted Organics, TerraCycle, which manufactures fifty-six
different consumer products by upcycling trash and Mohawk Industries, which takes in 3 billion plastic bottles a year to manufacture its EverStrand carpet
and other products, has created a market for recycled materials and has proven
there is a market
for products made from recycled materials.
Hazardous Waste— A Concern for Everyone
The
collection and disposal of hazardous waste, either household or industrial, is
done at the county level. Each county
must provide for the collection of household hazardous waste (HHW) for its
residents. What kind of materials
constitute HHW—aerosols, appliances with CFCs, batteries, computers,
electronics & CRTs to name just a few. A complete list and schedule of
collections throughout the state can be found at http://www.njhazwaste.com and on each
county's web site. Businesses and
industries in New Jersey are responsible for the appropriate disposal of HHW.
Recycled
computers, electronics and CRTs or e-Waste, as it is known, is hazardous and is
regulated by the federal government under the Resource Recover and Conservation
Act (RCRA), as well as by many individual state regulations. The Electronic
Waste Management Act signed into law last January makes New Jersey one of
eight states that have adopted legislation to control the disposal of E Waste.
David
Zimet, president of Hesstech, an e-Steward founder* and electronics recycler in
Edison warns us that e-Waste often has a very questionable journey, “The lack
of enforcement or effective regulations provides opportunities for less than
reputable brokers and recycling firms, to say one thing and do another. “ Zimet
points out that, “US based companies are not protected from disposal
liabilities in foreign countries. A
thorough investigation will likely reveal most recyclers are helping e-waste
find its way to China and Africa creating hazardous conditions for its residents
and its recycling workforce.” He
further suggests, “In addition to understanding where your e-waste is going you
should learn how to confirm whether hard drives have truly been purged of
data.”
Recyclers
often claim to use Department of Defense (DoD) approved software, however, the
DoD has never endorsed any software.
Zimet explains that Hesstech often receives “cleaned” drives that
actually still contain data. Before recycling anything, Hesstech rechecks hard
drives, and if data is found cleans them again. Many recyclers don’t bother and vital data can wind up in the
wrong hands such as the camps in Nigeria, a popular destination for recycling
TVs and computers.
Our
journey through the solid waste hierarchy has been long and complex. Hopefully this journey has helped to raise
our awareness of the challenges faced by the ongoing production of solid waste
and finding solutions for managing it.
The
solutions can be productive— developing new processes and products enables more
materials to be recycled, creating more local sustainable energy from our waste
and discovering new ways to reduce our consumption and reuse materials.
We
will always be faced with disposing of solid waste—be it burning it, burying it
or recycling it. The best we, as
individuals and businesses, can do is be responsible in our choices. For those
of us who contract directly for removal of waste, we have greater control over
it.....next time your waste removal contract is up ask.... “Where does my
garbage go?”
To
learn more about how to responsibly manage your solid waste in New Jersey email
us at info@njmep.org.
*“e-Stewards
recyclers are a group of leading North American electronics recyclers that have
been qualified by the Basel Action Network ( www.ban.org) as practicing internationally compliant electronics waste
recycling. Recyclers adopting the e-Stewards standard ( www.e-Stewards.org) provide legal, safe and healthy disposal of electronic waste
around the world.”
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