Solving the Landfill Problem with Resource Recovery Facilities

In a recent article written by Ashley Halligan on Software Advice, Halligan interviewed experts heading up two powerful symbiotic relationships between resource recovery centers. Given that Americans, in 2010 alone, generated more than 250 million tons of municipal solid waste (MSW), more and more innovators are finding ways to make an opportunity of the growing landfill problem.

With insight from both David Specca, Assistant Director for Bioenergy and Controlled Environment Agriculture at the Rutgers University EcoComplex and Barry Edwards, Director of Engineering and Utilities at Catawba County, North Carolina’s EcoComplex, her article describes two unique partnerships, both stemming from the recovery of methane from landfills.

Also describing the landfill gas used to fuel facilities, the article goes on to describe initiatives at BMW’s South Carolina manufacturing facility — sourcing two-thirds of its energy from methane piped from a nearby landfill. Named “Top Plant” by Plant Engineering Magazine and “Energy Partner of the Year” by the Environmental Protection Agency for its Landfill Methane Outreach Program (LMOP), the facility has led the state in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Edwards describes the impact of such initiatives: “Applied industrial ecology to waste management will become the predominant waste management method — so you’ll see many similar projects in the immediate future. In fact, we average two tours per week at our complex — that’s the current level of interest shown by others.”

Read more about the growing number of resource recovery efforts here: Resource Recovery Facilities: An Economic And Efficient Energy Supply.