Displaying items by tag: US

US: BioHiTech Global started operations at a waste treatment plant in Martinsburg, West Virginia in March 2019. It has completed the first phase of plant commissioning including the facility's reception area, overhead bridge cranes, and its primary mechanical sorting equipment. It has begun the next phase of plant commissioning and progressing operations, which includes receiving limited amounts of waste and beginning runs of its mechanical and biological treatment process for producing solid recovered fuel (SRF). The limited processing runs are expected to result in the production of SRF in the coming weeks with the facility reaching full operations in the second quarter of 2019. The unit uses Entsorga Italia’s proprietary high efficiency mechanical and biological treatment process (HEBIOT)

The majority of the waste, to be delivered as feedstock to the facility, is covered under a ten year agreement with a local waste hauler owned by Gold Medal Group, a regional waste management services company. The SRF will be supplied to cement producer Argos USA under a similar ten-year deal.

"The initiation of revenue generating operations at this first facility of its kind in the US is a pivotal moment for our company and an important step forward in the movement to lessen the environmental impact of waste management,” said Frank E Celli, the chief executive officer (CEO) of BioHiTech Global.

BioHiTech is the largest owner of the Martinsburg SRF plant through a majority owned subsidiary company with a 78% controlling interest in its operations. Gold Medal Group owns the remaining minority stake in the subsidiary.

US: LafargeHolcim’s Ravena cement plant in New York is considering burning tyres as an alternative fuel. Environmental Director Kevin G Bretz told Coeymans town officials that the cement producer has ‘developed relationships’ and held ‘preliminary discussions’ with potential tyre suppliers, according to the Times Union newspaper. The cement producer was hoping to use an approval by the state Department of Environmental Conservation granted in 2006 that gave permission for it to burn up to 4.8 million tyres annually at the plant. However, this Beneficial Use Determination (BUD) expired in mid-2018.

US: Lehigh Cement’s is preparing to co-process ‘raggertail’ at its Glens Falls plant in New York state. The state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has prepared a draft air pollution permit for the unit. It is accepting public comments until late December 2018.

Raggertail is derived from non-recyclable ‘raggertail’ residuals processed by Frontier Fiber from Norampac and Greenpac recycled paper mills in Niagara Falls. It consists of approximately 60% plastic and 40% fibre (biomass). Emissions testing performed at the plant while burning the alternative fuel on a trial basis demonstrated that its use will not cause ambient impacts above State guideline concentrations. At present the cement plant’s kiln is powered by natural gas and coal.

US: The city of Fort Myers in Florida is planning to send 30,000t of ‘toxic’ sludge for disposal at LafargeHolcim’s Theodore cement plant in Alabama. The waste will be transported by truck to LafargeHolcim quarry north of Crystal River for pre-treatment and then onto the Theodore plant, according to the Citrus Country Chronicle newspaper. The company hopes to start the removal process in October 2018 and complete it by the end of the year. Permit application for the removal process are still on-going. The ‘toxic’ sludge came from the city’s water plant. It was dumped in fields in Fort Myers from the 1960s to the 1990s.

US: RePower South (RPS) has reached an agreement with Montgomery, Alabama to operate the city’s materials recovery facility (MRF). RPS will invest US$12m in the City of Montgomery Recycling and Recovery Facility. RePower South has partnered with Bulk Handling Systems (BHS) and Loesche Energy Systems to upgrade the existing recycling system to also produce refuse-derived fuel (RDF) to be sold to cement, power stations and other industrial customers.

The system will process 45t/hr of mixed waste to capture cardboard, metals, paper, plastics and produce fuel. New equipment joining the existing BHS screen, Nihot air and NRT optical sorting technologies include a primary reducer, two NRT optical sorters for fuel cleanup, a Loesche fuel system reducer and PAAL Dokon baler. In total, the system features 10 optical sorters, ensuring the positive recovery of fibre and containers and removal of contamination from fuel.

Repower South holds an exclusive regional license from Accordant Energy for the development, manufacture and sale of ReEngineered Feedstock fuel.

US: Cadence Environmental Energy has promoted Ted T Reese to Executive Vice President. Cadence provides technology for waste fuel recycling and emission reduction technology to the cement industry and is the exclusive supplier of waste-derived fuels for Ash Grove Cement. As part of the company’s succession plan founder Ted J Reese plans to hand over the presidency to Ted T Reese in 2019.

US: Penn Waste has won the Solid Waste Association of North America’s (SWANA) Silver Excellence Award in the Recycling Systems category.

Penn Waste is receiving the award for its York, Pennsylvania 45t/hr single stream system retrofit. The 2017 retrofit, provided by Bulk Handling Systems (BHS), boosted capacity 130% to 45t/hr. It also added NRT optical sorting technology and a Max-AI Autonomous Quality Control (AQC) robotic sorter to improve container recovery and purity. The improvements resulted in a facility able to process 18,000t/month with more than 98% uptime and capturing 98% of recyclables. Penn Waste said that the company did not lose a single ton during the speedy retrofit and has since been running at 100% capacity with lower operating costs.

SWANA’s Excellence Awards Program recognises outstanding solid waste programs and facilities that advance the practice of environmentally and economically sound solid waste management through their commitment to utilizing effective technologies and processes in system design and operations, advancing worker and community health and safety and implementing successful public education and outreach programs. The award will be presented at SWANA’s annual conference in August 2018.

US: Bulk Handlings Systems (BHS) and its subsidiary National Recovery Technologies (NRT) has launched two new products targeted at Material Recovery Facility (MRF) operators for identifying waste products and tracking the entire recycling process. The Max-AI Visual Identification System (VIS) provides real time material identification in recycling plants. The Total Intelligence Platform provides information to track the entire recycling process.

Max-AI VIS helps operators monitor material composition in the sorting process. The system uses multi-layered neural networks and a vision system to see and identify objects. It can be used to verify the quality of end products, or to monitor the quantity of recyclables in a MRF’s residue as it leaves a system. An operator can compare composition for a specified time period against key performance indicators.

The Total Intelligence Platform monitors and tracks throughput, uptime, downtime events, material composition, motor amperage, and performance data from optical sorters and Max-AI-powered equipment.

“While perhaps not as sexy as robotic sorting, the idea that we can now see and track input composition, residue composition and product quality automatically is something that our customers are really excited about,” said BHS chief executive officer Steve Miller.

US: RePower South, a licensee of Accordant Energy, has started building a municipal solid waste (MSW) processing plant at Moncks Corner in South Carolina. The unit will use Accordant's ReEngineered Feedstock technology to process 50t/hr of MSW to make the company’s ReEngineered Feedstock product, a type of refuse-derived fuel (RDF). ReEngineered Feedstock will be marketed to cement plants and other industrial users.

"The RPS team has decades of experience in the recycling, solid waste, energy, finance, and construction industries, having built, owned, and operated multiple recycling and solid waste companies. We are confident this first commercial facility utilising the Accordant technology will improve recycling performance and landfill diversion while providing a renewable solid fuel for cement kilns and utility and industrial boilers," said Paula A Calabrese, Senior Vice-President and Chief Strategy Officer of Accordant.

Accordant says that its ReEngineered Feedstock product can be engineered for a variety of combustion applications and is physically and chemically designed to mimic the properties of coal. The product also holds a non-waste fuel determination from the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) allowing regulatory benefits for its users.

US: RePower South (RPS) has started building the Berkeley County Recycling and Recovery Facility, a mixed waste processing plant. The turnkey recovery system will be provided by Bulk Handling Systems (BHS) under an engineering procurement and construction (EPC) agreement with Barnhill Contracting Company. When production begins in early 2019, the Moncks Corner, South Carolina plant will process 50t/hr of mixed waste sourced from Berkeley County to recover recycled commodities and a fuel feedstock.

The plant will use a BHS FiberPure system, consisting of BHS screens, NRT optical sorters and Max-AI autonomous quality control units to remove unwanted fractions to produce an end product with minimal manual sorting. Non-recyclable fibres and plastics destined for fuel will undergo further filtering by NRT SpydIR optical sorters equipped with MetalDirector options to remove unwanted contaminants. Max-AI AQCs are also utilised in each sorting position on the container line. In total, the system will use seven NRT optical sorters and nine Max-AI AQCs. In addition, Loesche Energy Systems will provide a Loesche RocketMill for size reduction. The system will also features two Kadant PAAL balers.