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By Jeremy K. O’Brien, P.E The long-term availability of a cost-effective, reliable and sustainable solid waste management system is an important component of the infrastructure needed by a local community to spur economic development. In this regard, municipal solid waste management (MSW) systems that utilize waste-to-energy (WTE) facilities to process unrecycled waste for energy recovery provide a number of noteworthy economic development benefits. A previous article on this topic was published in the ...... continue reading
From: MSW Management Topics: Environment, SWANA, WTE
By Larry Trojak Despite an impressive upturn in recycling rates nationwide in the last decade or so, it’s inevitable that landfills will continue to reach capacity, prompting closure, capping, and a move to alternate sites. Such was the case when the Rock Prairie Road Landfill near College Station, TX, a fixture to the area for more than 30 years, maxed out, shifting disposal to the newly constructed Twin Oaks Landfill. Operated by the Brazos Valley Solid Waste Management Agency (BVSWMA, pronounced buh-...... continue reading
From: MSW Management Topics: Environment, Landfill, Operations
by John Trotti Regardless of how delicious the food from the kitchen of your favorite restaurant is, there’s something going on behind the scene you won’t find on the menu, notably that bilious vetch of fats, oils, and grease we euphemistically call FOG. Some of it—the yellow stuff—occasionally finds its way into such recognizable products as biodiesel, but there’s also its sinister half brother, the dark-colored glop caught by grease traps that people with sucker trucks charge good money to haul away a...... continue reading
From: MSW Management Topics: Environment, Materials, Wastes
Written by Penelope B. Grenoble Southern California’s Puente Hills Landfill, one of the largest landfills in the country, will shut down operations on October 31, 2013, with 127 million tons of waste in place and 10-plus million tons short of its permitted capacity. The site has been in operation since 1957, first as a private dump, and since 1970 as a sanitary landfill owned and operated by the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County (LACSD). According to LACSD Division Engineer Robert Asgian, ...... continue reading
From: MSW Management Topics: Environment, Landfill, Maintenance
Written by Allen Lynch In the January/February 2007 issue of MSW Management magazine, I wrote a Guest Editorial on “Extended Producer Responsibility—Why Not?” in which I spoke about the EPR programs in the province of British Columbia, Canada. I provided the following description of what EPR is in British Columbia: An environmental policy approach in which a producer’s responsibility, physical and/or financial, for a product is extended to the post-consumer stage of a product’s life cycle. I listed the ...... continue reading
From: MSW Management Topics: Environment, Legal-Regulatory, Special Wastes
Written by Aaron Kubichka Today, more and more landfill properties are being vegetated with native species, grasses in particular. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) even promotes the use of native grasses at landfills. This makes sense because native grasses provide long-term cost savings, enhance habitat value, and are more sustainable than the traditional highway mixes. Native grasses are typically managed using prescribed burning techniques. Fire releases nutrients for grasses, ...... continue reading
From: MSW Management Topics: Environment, Landfill, Operations
Written by Amber Reed When a massive windstorm struck Bountiful, UT, the magnitude of the greenwaste to deal with was overwhelming. Teaming up with a local tree service and woodwaste processing company, Bob’s Tree Service Inc., the City of Bountiful Landfill quickly developed a plan to clear out and process the excessive amounts of waste, relying on both organizations’ recycling operations to speed the cleanup efforts. The Storm Hits In the early morning hours of Thursday, December 1, 2011, residen...... continue reading
From: MSW Management Topics: Environment, Outreach, Recycling
Written by Neal Bolton At a staff meeting some decades ago, we began talking about a potential expansion to one of our active landfills. There was a small tract of open ground adjacent to the landfill—actually it was within the buffer zone—that would work very well for a lateral expansion. It was marginal farmland and produced but a few bales of salt grass hay each year. However, as you can imagine, we saw it as being far more valuable as a potential landfill expansion. There was only one pro...... continue reading
From: MSW Management Topics: Engineering, Environment, Landfill
Written by Randy L. Vogel Increasingly, the negative ecological and economic impacts of invasive plant species are garnering the attention of government officials, land managers and the general public. Invasive species can displace native species, disrupt entire ecosystems, and result in significant economic harm to landowners and public bodies. Invasive species are generally species not native to North America that invade natural areas and out-compete native species, displacing them and at t...... continue reading
From: MSW Management Topics: Environment, Landfill, Management
Written by Carol Brzozowski Handling household hazardous wastes (HHW) and bulky wastes is more costly, time-consuming, and subject to more regulatory oversight than other components in the wastestream. They require special handling. Additionally, they present quite the challenge toward some operations’ goals of achieving a near zero-waste goal. In an effort to provide residents with convenient ways to dispose of such materials, many operations have engaged in community events, sending out mobile un...... continue reading
From: MSW Management Topics: Environment, Safety, Special Wastes
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