Garbage and Sewage Sludge are "economic commodities" and WtE plants work very much like coal-fired power plants; but burns much cleaner. The difference is the fuel. Waste to Energy plants use garbage—not coal—to fire an industrial boiler.

The same steps are used to make electricity in a WtE plant as in a coal-fired power plant: (1) The fuel is burned, releasing heat. (2) The heat turns water into steam. (3) The high-pressure steam turns the blades of a turbine generator to produce electricity. (4) A utility company sends the electricity along power lines to homes, schools, and businesses. Incinerators burn waste at high temperatures and the heat is used to generate steam. Steam can then drive electric turbines &/or heat water for a district heating scheme. Where both forms of energy are produced, this is known as a combined heat and power (CHP) scheme.

[img]http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/926/typicalmodernwastetoenedf5.jpg[/img]

The steam generated by incineration energy is expanded in the turbines, producing electricity. Then it passes through the heat exchanger of the district heating system, where it is heating the water to 80°C–115°C while condensing. In a closed cycle, the water flows back to the incineration heat exchanger and is transformed to steam again. For every 200,000 tonnes of waste incinerated, 145,000 MWh of electrical energy and 540,000 MWh of district heating are produced.

Trucks &/or trains deliver garbage to the "tipping floor" where garbage is sorted. After incineration waste is reduced to blocks of dense cooled ashes. Incinerators reduce overall volume of waste by up to 90% and mass waste by 75%. The plant uses natural gas and burns garbage to produce steam that drives a turbine generator to produce electricity. About ј of the power is used to run in-plant needs with the rest being sent to the power grid. As mentioned, Sudbury already owns GSHi who already owns a "Smart Power Grid."

Modern incinerators burn garbage at extreme high temperatures and use pollution control devices to limit emissions. Pollution controlled devices use sophisticated air pollution control technology and highly skilled workers with engineering degrees run them, so many of these jobs are very high paying. Certified plant operators must also keep up with the frequent changes in State-of-the-Art technologies and regulations.

[img]http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/3339/prvw4m853004rd7.jpg[/img]

Gases are treated in three stages before they are emitted through a stack, and this is called point source pollutants. A filter removes poisonous particles and a Catalytic Reduction stage destroys dioxins and petroleum like substances, and all emissions would be well within provincial pollution standards.

It takes 1 tonne of garbage compared to 1/4 tonne of coal to produce the same amount of energy. However one tonne of garbage burns much cleaner than ј tonne of coal, thus garbage is a cleaner stream of fuel. A barrel of oil costs as much as 70 $. A tonne of garbage generates as much electricity as a barrel of oil; and Ontario is a veritable Middle East of garbage, pumping out 13 million tonnes a year. Therefore, you can think of garbage as a mixture of energy-rich fuel.

Burning one tonne of trash thus avoids mining a quarter tonne of coal or importing or producing one barrel of oil. Taking into account both of these factors means that WtE plants reduces GHG emissions by an estimated 2.8 tonnes of carbon dioxide per tonne of trash burned.

Ontario's total annual electricity consumption was 151 billion kWh in 2006. Ontario emits 203 milltion tones (megatonnes or MT) of greenhouse gases per year; 28% of the national total. To meet Kyoto targets by 2012, it requires cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent by 2020 relative to 1990 levels, and getting to 80 per cent reductions by 2050.

The current flurry of federal eco-spending announcements cannot paper over the lack of a national climate change plan or how the federal government's poor performance on the climate change file is jeopardizing both our international reputation and the environment.

No one is saying this will be easy. Ontario's greenhouse gas emissions come from our coal-fired electricity plants, from our cars and trucks, from heating our houses, from factories and farms. We are indeed "addicted" to fossil fuels, even though we know that burning them blankets the Earth with heat-trapping gases. And due to the lack of any real action to date, Ontario's emissions have grown 15 per cent since 1990.

However, we continue to lag behind our global competitors, including the U.S., Spain, Germany, Italy, France and even India, China and Panama in terms of our investment in renewable energy. Canada ranked only 11th in the Ernst & Young Renewable Energy Investment Attractiveness Index in Q3 2006. These countries invest in low-impact renewable energy because of its multiple environmental, social and economic benefits. They see beyond the fossil fuel era and want to ensure they have a mature and competitive renewable energy industry in place when the inevitable transition to renewable energy comes later this century.

The good news is that the faster that Ontario acts, the less it will cost. And given that our energy use is already much more wasteful than other industrialized countries like Germany, the U.K. and Japan that use half the energy per dollar of output that Canada does, many of the solutions will save us money as we burn less fossil fuel in more efficient homes, power plants, vehicles and workplaces.

If 15 of the 31 million tonnes of trash were combusted (the remaining 16 million tonnes recycled) we would produce 8 billion Kwh of electricity, greater than all other sources of renewable energy, and reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions by 42-million tonnes of carbon dioxide PER YEAR!

A WtE cogeneration plant with flue gas condensers can recover up to 98% of the energy from the waste it burns. Up to about 30% of that comes out as electricity, the rest as heat. This heat is usable as heat or it can be converted into chilled water using an absorption chiller, reducing strain on the grid in summer due to air conditioning load.

In 100 pounds of typical garbage, more than 90 pounds can be burned as fuel to generate electricity at a power plant. Those fuels include paper, plastics, and yard waste. A tonne of garbage generates about 525 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, enough energy to heat a typical office building for one day. Burning 1500 tonnes a days produces enough electricity to power 28,000 homes. Burning 2250 tonnes of garbage a day generates 55 megawatts (MW) of electricity; and a megawatt is 1 million watts of power, enough to light at least 10 thousand light bulbs at the same time.

Currently, the largest garbage gulping incinerator in the world is capable of burning 4,500 tonnes a day. Having 4 megawatt incinerators, 2 in each twin stack, would accommodate garbage from up to 5 million people a day. There are 12.5 million people in Ontario, 8 million in Quebec and 1.2 million in Manitoba, our two next bed neighbours. Having 10 mass burn incinerators, 5 in each stack, would accommodate the entire province of Ontario, although more stacks may be needed. Typically, 3 funances can feed one stack.

Having 10 burners would allow one big burner in each stack to be shut down for maintenance on a rotating basis without interrupting our 24/7/365 production schedule. Since rural towns in Ontario might not provide garbage due to inconvenient delivery or costs, we can accommodate garbage from other provinces. Having 8 of the 10 big burners in service would produce roughly 880 megawatts of electricity per day, every day.

With 20 big burners in play, we would scale up to accommodate more trash and cash and wisely become the "Incineration Capital of the World." A twenty burner diet would digest all of Canada's garbage and produce some 1980 megawatts per day, with 2 of 20 burners shut down for servicing on a ongoing rotating basis. Eighteen mass burners would incinerate 81,000 tonnes or more per day and, with proper digestion, produce roughly 8 tonnes of ash per day.

Bear in mind, emissions do increase not only during start-ups, shutdowns, or upsets in combustion conditions, but also during periods of less-than-optimal performance resulting from lack of maintenance, or simply as a result of facility aging.

The ash represents only 10% by volume of the original garbage. Landfilled ash does not give off the potent smelly greenhouse gas methane the way rotting garbage does. If you actually look at it using science and measure, what comes out of ash, what comes out of garbage, what’s emitted from ash, what’s emitted from garbage, you’ll actually conclude that you’d rather sit next to an ash landfill than a garbage landfill. Sudbury is 37 miles long and 17 miles wide; and has no shortage of space to store 100 years worth of accumulated ash.

There is more information on ash later in this portal, but in the meantime while you’re pondering what 100 million tonnes of ash would look like consider how many hundreds of millions of tonnes of slag and other industrial waste CVRD Inco (Inco) has stored on their wee property over the past 100+ years and they haven’t run out of room nor does it interfere with our city life!

If all Ontario garbage--&/or all of Canada's major cities garbage--were sent to Sudbury we would become the Saudi Arabia of recycling. Becoming an [b][i]“Extreme Green Guerilla"[/i][/b] would turn Sudbury into a powerhouse [b][i]“Green Volt WasteWatt""[/i] [/b] electricity producer. This extreme [b][i]"Green"[/i][/b] plan would create a "waste-based" energy producing manufacturing eco-economy.

Sudbury also has the oldest rock in North America, the "Sudbury Nickel Eruptive," which is located within the U-shaped "Cambrian Shield," also called the Precambrian Shield, Laurentian Shield, Bouclier Canadien (French), or Laurentian Plateauand, and a rock-faced "Mount Trashmore Monument" with my face on it could be constructed to recognize Sudbury's "eco-efficient [b][i]"Green Status."[/i][/b] [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]

Additionally, or in the alternative, we need to get our architecturally designed WtE on a Canadian stamp! And I’m not kidding you about that one! There are 5 Power Plants on stamps in other countries. Our 21st century architecturally designed humanistic "WasteWatt Power Plant" will be the first in Canada!

Five hundred Waste to Energy facilities can be found from Sweden to Spain and from Britain to Hungary, as it's illegal to landfill anything combustible in most of Europe. Sweden has been a leader in using the energy generated from incineration over the past 30 years.

This State-of-the-Art incinerator near Malmo, Sweden, supplies 40 per cent of the city's electricity and heat

[img]http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/5446/swedenit0.png[/img]

Japan has 193 WtE Power Plants while the rest of Asia have many more. Today, in the U.S., there are 98 WtE plants in 29 states that generate enough electricity to supply almost 3 million households. In fact, Americans throw away enough wood and paper every year to heat 5 million homes for 200 years. The largest WtE plant in the U.S. is located in Detroit, a mere 400 air shed miles from Sudbury. The plant handles 4,000 tonnes a day and 3 furnaces operate using 1 smoke stack.

Currently there are only 8 major municipal incinerators operating in the United Kingdom. These treat just 7% of the Country's municipal solid waste. In comparison to Europe this is very poor. For example, Switzerland and Belgium incinerate over 50% of their municipal solid waste, France, Sweden and Denmark over 40%, and the Netherlands and Norway over 30%.

Nothing speaks as eloquently as an example, and these WtE plants are proof that such plants do work well. European cities such as Amsterdam and Vienna have such advanced garbage incinerators that you can walk by them in a central neighbourhood and not realize what they are. We need to copycat this trend-true low carbon economy and earth-worthy direction, for in ecological terms; our sacred lands just can't afford another century like the past one.

All Ontario garbage would be trucked in while the rest of Canada's garbage would come by rail. Sudbury is starving for jobs and this [b][i] "Green Acres" [/i][/b] Philosophy would create "a pathway out of poverty” by producing over 2000+ new [b] [i] "Green Collar" [/i] [/b] jobs, not to mention free electricity. Toronto sends some 100+ trucks a day to Michigan and that alone is 100 truck driver jobs. Overall, there would be 1400+ jobs in transportation. In 2005, Ottawa produced enough garbage to fill 25,000 transports. Hamilton did the same. Toronto is 5 times the size of Ottawa! These three cities would produce 175,000 transport loads full of of garbage.

Reverse supply chain logistics--which means back-hauling products--would return "Made in Sudbury" finished goods manufactured from recycled waste to markets instead of sending trucks back empty, which reduces manufacturer transportation costs. Spin off jobs would be created in the truck fleet management, maintenance and service industry, while plant construction jobs would be in the hundreds.

All cities would pay us "tipping fees" to take their garbage, and current fees range from 40 to 100 $ per tonne; and fees at some southern Ontario metro dumps are now $150 a tonne. When seen from this prospective; "one man's garbage is definitely another man's Gold." By turning "Garbage into Gold," this is venture would produce "Real Gold" not "Fools Gold," and ensure that the waste isn’t, well, a total waste.

This scheme is a pathway to not only yielding environmental gains but also economic success.

A trash incinerator is the only kind of power station which gets paid to accept the fuel it burns! And with local construction and demolition (CD) materials becoming part of the incoming material stream, we get more infeed fuel for free! Recovering the Btu value of it is a tremendous step above sending it to a landfill.

To operate at peak efficiency, the combustors need to be fed constantly and run 24 hours a day, seven days a week; hence, they thrive on waste. To feed their addiction they need waste; they demand waste, and they love “getting wasted” on “refuse-derived fuel;” otherwise the burners are “starving for trash.” In order to incorporate a guaranteed “flow control," cities sign what is called a "put-or-pay" agreement. These commit communities to deliver a prescribed amount of waste to the incinerator each day, week, month or year, at a fixed rate, and should they fail to do so they have to pay the scheduled amount anyway.

Thus, with capital guaranteed, input guaranteed, and market for output guaranteed; building an incinerator and turning trash into treasure is one of the least risky, most subsidized, guaranteed business venture in the world!

It pays to have "enviro-vision" and an "eco-magination. I have it, and Sudbury needs to immediately become an "eco-holic" by turning these "wastes into resources." Moreover, we’re in the midst of World War IV; the War on Waste. We are in a serious “waste race" with other communities; for it's just a matter of time before some next bed neighbour wises up and adopts this idea and all the jobs along with it.

And, if you're even half as much an "eco-geek" as I am, you’d already know that this is not dirty tech; this "energy recovery scheme" is the future of [b][i]"Green Tech."[/i][/b] Taking even just a percentage of Ontario's landfill-destined “waste stream" and converting it into "value-added products" and "smart heat" would be "eco-topia!"

For example, Covanta Energy’s WtE plant in Hempstead, on Long Island NY, burns about 900,000 tonnes of garbage a year, and creates electricity to run the plant, and power 65,000 homes. There are some 73,000 residential units in Sudbury and over 8 million tonnes of gold (trash) within a 4 hour radius of Sudbury that right now nobody wants![img]http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/4494/duhys2.gif[/img]

Can we really afford another missed "golden" opportunity for our city!

[img]http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/8356/prvw4m853005bi2.jpg[/img]

The plant would cost 1 billion to 2 billion $ to build, and more, if 20 big burners were installed. Toronto just wasted 220+ million $ buying the mammoth Green Lane “megafill” site near London Ontario, and that money could've, and should've went into this project.

Toronto decided to defile a farming community by both increasing a landfill and increasing truck traffic from a few to a constant stream as they trundle their garbage along farming roads, pumping diesel fumes and noise into the air, and compounding the traffic problems along suicide alley. The leachate from this landfill will seep into agricultural land, the very land that feeds us. The methane gas the landfill emits will pollute their air and increase greenhouse gases.

Meanwhile, Premier McGuinty wants to spend "40 billion $" on nuclear energy, which creates a dangerous lifetime supply of nuclear waste, next to no new jobs, and zero jobs in the north.

Nuclear plants will, in effect, block the development of safe, green energy. McGuinty fails to mention our current fleet of aging reactors cost Ontario ratepayers twice what they were promised to cost and lasted half as long. He shrugs off the 350,000 people displaced by the Chernobyl nuclear accident as if they are a fluke not to be repeated and bizarrely holds up the near catastrophic melt down at Three Mile Island nuclear plant as some virtuous success of the technology.

According to him, we shouldn't sweat creating more radioactive nuclear waste because our children's generation will figure out how to deal with it. But solving climate change with nuclear generation is akin to curing cancer with the plague. Nevertheless, we know the province has 40 billion $ to spend on energy production and this project would cost no where near that.

The federal government has "billions" to spend on fighting Greenhouse Gas. This project would provide the best bang for its buck! Menhane gas is 24.5 times more powerful than CO2 as a GHG. We'd wipe out 42+ million tonnes of it with this mother of all net energy producing idea!

State-of-the-Art Waste to Energy Plant in Italy - This plant won the best in the world in 2006

[img]http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/3899/96asmbresciafoto1dn0.jpg[/img]

A third party "could" operate our WtE plant and would also make a financial investment reducing start up costs. This third party would also become a major ratepayer to Sudbury's tax roll.

Acquiring "smart garbage" would also require the government to complete the four-lanes of Highway 69 to Toronto sooner rather than later due to the increased truck traffic. The incinerator could produce enough ash to back fill the construction! Ontario is also in need of electricity, and not only would we close every leaky stinky landfill, but Hydro One would also receive a portion of the hydro we produce.

The province(s) and cities could eliminate recycling education and recycling programs and apply those funds to this project and the tipping fees we would charge. Recycling is a good thing, but it costs money. Money that could go for road resurfacing or social programs is being absorbed by increasing disposal costs.

Once the waste to energy plant is up and running the methane gas being produced at the Kingsway Landfill could be converted into compressed Natural Gas (CNG) to fuel light and heavy-duty vehicles like our city transit! Vehicles powered by CNG offer several environmental benefits, including reduced noise levels and cleaner emissions compared to diesel powered vehicles. CNG powered vehicles also have 40 to 50% lower maintenance costs!

Other "eco-fusion-options" is a Plasma Converter System that seems like something right out of "The Jetsons:" plasma, vaporization, temperatures 3 times hotter than the Sun!

It works a little like the big bang, only backward--you get nothing from something. You put the waste in the reactor and you get out the syngas. That’s it. There's no smoke, no flames, no ash, no pollution of any kind—all that’s left is syngas, the fuel source, and the molten obsidian-like material. Waste destruction at the speed of lightning with energy to share!

With 20 of these systems we could accommodate 146 million tonnes a year and zap all of Canada’s solid waste, medical waste and human sewage! Gasification is not just environmentally friendly, it’s a good business decision.

[url=http://www.startech.net/]Star Tech[/url] sn’t the only company using plasma to turn waste into a source of clean energy. A handful of start-ups—Geoplasma, Recovered Energy, PyroGenesis, EnviroArc and Plasco Energy, among others—have entered the market in the past decade. But Longo, who has worked in the garbage business for four decades, is perhaps the industry’s most passionate founding father.

Plasma is simply a gas (air) that the Converter ionizes so it becomes an effective electrical conductor and produces a lightning-like arc of electricity that is the source of the intense energy transferred to the waste material as radiant energy. The arc in the plasma plume within the vessel can be as high as 30,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

When waste materials are subjected to the intensity of the energy transfer within the vessel, the excitation of the waste's molecular bonds is so great that the waste material's molecules break apart into their elemental components (atoms). It is the absorption of this energy by the waste material that forces the waste destruction and elemental dissociation. The Plasma Converter is computer controlled, easy to use and operates at normal atmospheric pressure, very safely and quietly.

[img]http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/8047/processillustration2vm0.gif[/img]

This system can safely and economically destroys wastes, no matter how hazardous or lethal. In doing so, the system protects the environment and helps to improve the public health and safety.

The System achieves closed-loop elemental recycling to safely and irreversibly destroy Municipal Solid Waste, organics and inorganics, solids, liquids and gases, hazardous and non-hazardous waste, industrial by-products and also items such as "e-waste," medical waste, chemical industry waste and other specialty wastes while converting many of them into useful commodity products that can include metals and a synthesis-gas called Plasma Converted Gas (PCG)™.

Among the many commercial uses for PCG, it can be used to produce "green power electricity," Gas To Liquid (GTL) fuels such as ethanol, synthetic diesel fuel and other higher alcohol fuels. Hydrogen, for use and sale, can also be separated from the PCG synthesis gas mixture. Startech is the only publicly traded Waste to Energy plasma arc technology company in the world. They have three 5 ton/day installations in operation, with a number of other plants in various stages of implementation. A 200 ton/day plant being built in Panama and will be the largest such plant in the world.

Another "eco-fusion-option" is the biomass gasification process that pours hot sand over ground-up materials that are no bigger than a softball. The sand pours over that surface area, rapidly heats that biomass and converts it to a gas that is substitutable for natural gas. There are no emissions from this process.

Unsorted garbage is dumped into a sorting machine that rips the green bags open, and chops the trash into smaller pieces. The garbage is fed onto conveyer belts which take the material to a sorting machine. Magnets pull out metals and push out aluminum.

What's left goes in stages through three large, enclosed tanks. Over a period of 40 days, anaerobic bacteria metabolize paper and food scraps and converts them into a soup of smaller molecules, which is then fermented into methane and carbon dioxide by other anaerobic organisms.

What's left, after the methane and carbon dioxide have been siphoned off, are particles of glass, plastic and fine particles of peat that look like coffee grounds. The material is put through a fine screen that filters out the glass and plastic for recycling.

The peat-like material goes through a final process to remove the heavy metals. Subbor executives say that for every 100 kilograms of garbage that goes through the process, 50 kilograms of biogas, 30 kilograms of recycled glass and metals and 20 kilograms of high-grade peat are produced. Subbor is "Canadian tech" and has a plant up and running in Guelph.

Having a combination of systems would be ideal. The biomass gasification process would produce the natural gas needed to operate the WtE plant; we would have a completely self sustaining operation. However, this system is a 40-day process and not suitable as our only source of ridding earth of the large volumes of garbage that we would be handling.

Continued after jump...

[ 09 July 2007: Message edited by: Sudbury ]

• With no need for curbside pre-sorting and sorting collection of trash time would be completely in a quarter of the time it currently takes.

• Conventional and economical rear packer refuse trucks can be used. Even the dual department rear packer mixed waste stream refuse trucks--half recyclables half garbage--are not as efficient as a full size refuse truck.

For example, landfill trash is not dropped off at the same place as recyclables. Thus when half of the truck becomes full a driver has to make a trip to dump the full half of the truck, either recyclables or trash, but he is only unloading half of the divided truck. Once he returns to where he left off and continues collecting refuse the other half of the divided truck becomes full and he has to make another trip to either the landfill or recycle depot to unload--half a truck. Thus vehicle compartments are not properly matched to the proportions of recyclables set out at the curb.

• Currently servicing high rise apartment building presents a challenge, and in many cases, recycling is not even occurring. This problem would now be solved and "all" garbage would be recycled.

• Cities would eliminate the need to fund and provide blue, black and green boxes; we would use bags. This saves more GHG emissions in the manufacturing of the boxes.

• Garbage bags do not fill up with snow like blue boxes do, which slows down the refuse collection process.

• Currently paper in blue boxes is being weighed down by rain water and snow, which means refuse trucks are using more fuel than necessary to carry around extra weight from the water soaked paper. Using bags keeps the paper dry which will result in less fuel being used by the trucks. Less fuel mean cost savings to the ratepayers and will eliminate even more GHG emissions when the less fuel is needed to be produced. Currently, Edmonton, Halifax, Guelph and Kelowna use bags for recyclables.

• All refuse would be picked up and delivered to the correct recycling center, unlike the non-recyclable plastics that are currently being picked up and not even being recycled.

• The [b][i]”Green Acres”[/i][/b] philosophy eliminates the need for recycling centres everywhere and the capital cost associated therewith; i.e., balers, shredders, defensifiers, compactors, granulators, blowers, conveyors, weight scales, roll off containers, trailers, forklifts and front end loaders, snow removal, hydro, gas, phone, wages.

• It eliminates sorting, grading, and the processing of recyclables into a form suitable for market sale, i.e., size, weight, baling, removal of contaminants.

The current system is extremely inefficient and by cost shifting their waste management programs to this [b][i]"Green Acres Hannibal the Can-able" "[/i][/b] program cities would have a "zero increase" over current costs; and we’d all have a more efficient system and cleaner environment.

For any type of waste stream the most significant challenge to recycling is low tipping fees. With low tipping fees, the cost for disposal might be less than the cost to recycle, depending on location and any surcharge for contamination. This cost differential creates a significant disincentive to recycling.

Hauling costs are proportional to distance. As the distance increases, the cost to haul the material will also increase. Thus, if the recycling facility is too far away, the material will not be recycled due to cost. Similarly, if the distance to the end market is too far, recycling becomes uneconomical.

However our tipping fees would be for the most part offset by the current landfill tipping fees cities already pay. The greater amount of cities participating and providing garbage the lower the tipping fee charges could be. In fact, cities would eliminate recycling education programs to save money and come out on top in a cost-benefit analysis.

Local landfilling may very well be cheaper than WtE plants when a city’s waste has to be transferred long distances for incineration, however, when the "external" environmental costs are factored in, WTE is less expensive in all cases.

The constantly increasing use of land for landfilling is not sustainable, thus when comparing capital costs measured on the basis of per tonne of designed capacity, the economics of scale favour a large WtE facility, especially when a WtE plant can generate revenue from produced marketable products in addition to exporting energy to offsite energy users.

Therefore, "eco-worriers" are in need of a sweeping rethink about the "eco-nomics" of their recycling programs. Landfilling is "eco-enemy" #1, while current recycling programs are "eco-enemy" #2, especially if you're an [b][i]"eco-minded Green thinker."[/i][/b] Raw waste landfilling is "eco-suicide" and should be a “climate crime,” and "For the Love of the Earth" we need to starve landfills to death.

[b][i]"Going Green is Great"[/i][/b] and I would love to aid Canada in becoming a truly [b][i]"Great Green Country!"[/i][/b] Today, it is said that Canada has the most mature and sophisticated recycling system in the world, however, as we just witnessed, "this" is simply a myth.

A truly “Solid Waste Management” hierarchy would adopt and reinforce the focus away from landfilling and towards waste prevention, reduction, reuse, recycling, composting, biogas recovery and an energy from waste recovery system; in that order of priority. Rather that placing WtE on the same level as material recycling, it should be placed below recycling in a waste management hierarchy. Waste that is suitable for recycling or composting is recycled and composted, what cannot be recycled is processed using a WtE plant. Compost sells for $15/cubic yard in other cities.

The best solution is a combination of "zero waste," "precycling" i.e., strict packaging laws, "good sound sensible recycling programs," composting, "incineration," "biogas recovery production," and landfilling waste ash and non combustible trash. By following this scenario we would be connecting all kinds of "eco-cycle" dots and create a soild waste system for the 21st century.

[img]http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/1892/dogtrashleftbj3.jpg[/img]

Zero waste is a philosophy and a design principle for the 21st Century; it is not simply about putting an end to landfilling. Aiming for zero waste is not an end-of-pipe solution. That is why it heralds fundamental change. Aiming for zero waste means designing products and packaging with reuse and recycling in mind. It means ending subsidies for wasting. It means closing the gap between landfill prices and their true costs. It means making manufacturers take responsibility for the entire lifecycle of their products and packaging.

Zero waste efforts, just like recycling efforts before, will change the face of solid waste management in the future. Instead of managing wastes, we will manage resources and strive to eliminate waste. It’s the new age ecology.

Precycling is stopping waste before it happens. Preventing waste at its source. Reducing the amount of waste we produce, and in plain English; MAKING LESS GARBAGE!

As it is becoming more expensive to safely dispose of our wastes recycling helps, but it is not the whole solution! If we’re not precycling, we’re wasting resources!

For example as an environmental shopper we look for:

• No packaging.
• Buy in the bulk food section.
• Buy fruit & snacks loose instead of in packages.
• Bring your own canvas or reusable bags to the store.
• Look for minimal packaging.
• Look for concentrates.
• Buy larger sizes of products.
• Reusables and refillable packaging.
• Refillable milk & soda containers.

At Home.

Choose the reusable alternative to disposable products.

• A cloth towel instead of paper towels.
• A reusable razor instead of disposable ones.
• A mug instead of paper or plastic disposable cups.
• Washable plates or china instead of disposable plates.
• Cloth napkins instead of paper napkins.
• Rechargeable batteries instead of disposable batteries.
• Donate used clothing and appliances to charities.

At Work.

• Make double-sided copies.
• Circulate, instead of distributing individual copies of memorandums, letter and magazines.
• Periodically review mailing lists, remove duplicates
• Consolidate mailings whenever possible.
• Use E-mail whenever possible.
• Get off unwanted mailing lists.
• Bring reusable dishes, mugs/cups and silverware to the office instead of disposables.
Reusing office supplies is a great idea!

At School.

• Use both sides of paper.
• Save and reuse boxes, mailing tubes, and Styrofoam "peanuts."
• Reuse three-ring binders, Manila folders, pocket folders, report covers and other school and office supplies. Use reusable dishes, cups/mugs and silverware.
• Bring "reusable lunches" to school (bring your lunch in a lunch box or canvas bag, plastic sandwich holder and reusable drink container.

To most folks, any junk mail is too much. Recycling junk mail is okay, but reducing the flow of junk mail will conserve natural resources and save you time and money.

Every time you buy something, order a product by mail or on the Web, enter a contest, make a donation, write a check, subscribe to a magazine, or send in a warranty card, chances are your name and address are being added to a mailing list of some kind. That mailing list might be rented, sold, or traded to other companies.

If your mailbox at home or work is overflowing with unwanted solicitations, advertisements and other literature, you have probably wondered what you can do about it. Due to the changes in law you can now be removed from credit card and junk mailing lists by making a toll-free call.

Return junk mail stamped "address correction requested" or "return postage guaranteed." Return junk mail unopened to the sender by writing "Refused" or "Return to sender" on the envelope. Without this special notation; the post office will not return the mail to the sender.

Grass Cycling--What could be easier? Set your mower to cut a little long, and leave the clippings on the lawn. No bags to empty when you mow, reduce the water needed on your lawn, reduce the need to fertilize and thereby reduce toxic runoff to creeks and lakes via the storm drains.

Grass clippings are 80% water and contain 2- 4% nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and other nutrients. This is also good for you in lowering fertilizer costs. Leaving grass clippings on the lawn returns nutrients to the soil resulting in healthier turf. Simply allow your grass to grow to three inches and then cut no more than one inch off the top. This is the "one-third" rule. This helps develop a deeper root system which is a natural defense against weeds, disease and drought. This benefits the environment. Improves your lawn. Saves time; and prevents making garbage.

Since 1993, domestically produced alkaline and carbon zinc batteries contain no added mercury and are essentially mercury-free. Since early 1995, rechargeable alkaline batteries contain no added mercury and are essentially mercury-free.

Almost everyone uses and discards batteries into the waste stream. Although waste batteries are a small amount of the solid waste stream, they are a concentrated source of some types of heavy metals. The main constituents of concern for human health and the environment include: cadmium, lead and mercury.

A [b][i]Green Government[/i][/b] would pass a law requiring all batteries to be reusable/rechargeable batteries. Single-use batteries would be outlawed.

[img]http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/1296/battery3db6.jpg[/img]

Sudbury should also host two "leave no trace" events each year. A “Use-It-Again Sudbury” program features community "garage sale give aways" which allows residents to drop off and pick up items for free. These “no waste like home” events would make an "eco-impact" by drastically reducing city disposal, transportation and energy costs. It's as much about economics as it is about taking a pro-active environmental stance.

This promotion of ecologically inspired efficiency would reduce citizens’ "ecological footprint," and a "zero waste no trace" strategy would lead to an "ecological endpoint goal." The effort in Seattle recycled 60 tonnes of metal last year, and an estimated 221 tonnes of materials were reused and diverted from landfills.

Sudbury’s "eco-cycle exchange" would be an online community bulletin board where individuals can offer up free, unwanted reusable items or browse through listings and find a treasure of their own. It's free to join, free to post, free to browse, and best of all, every item up for exchange is free. Think of it as a virtual garage sale that you can visit 24/7!

Clean out your closet or garage and post your unwanted but still reusable and free goods on the eco-cycle exchange. If you're posting an item, you decide how you want to be contacted-by email, phone, or anonymous form and you arrange the exchange with interested parties. Your posting consists of a short description of the item, and there's an easy way to upload photos too, if you'd like.

Put more effort into publicizing a prescription eyeglass program, which not only reduces garbage but helps others see well by donating old prescription eyeglasses to LensCrafters' Gift of Sight program. [url=http://www.givethegiftofsight.org.]www.givethegiftofsight.org.[/url]

Put more effort into publicizing our local ReStore.

Juliet Racine - Manager
450 Notre Dame Avenue, Unit 9
Sudbury, ON P3C 5K8
Tel: (705) 669-0624
Fax: (705) 669-1689
Email: [email protected]
Website: [url=http://www.habitatsudbury.com]http://www.habitatsudbury.com[/url]

Don’t forget the Salvation Army and similar charities. They represent one of the best and most generous ways to make sure your household items and clothing get reused.

All of these ideas lessen the amount of material going into our waste stream.

[img]http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/423/handcanav9.jpg[/img]

Thus, it's time to move into the second phase of recycling, which is deciding who pays. A new approach to recycling would shift the financial burden of these curbside programs off local governments and squarely onto the private sector. Establishing stringent mandates, would, in effect, force manufacturers to take greater responsibility for the waste they produced. As the debate over these "demand-side" programs widens, policymakers and voters must take a candid look at the costs and benefits of these measures.

Product stewardship is a concept whereby environmental protection centers around the product itself, and everyone involved in the lifespan of the product is called upon to take up responsibility to reduce its environmental impact. For manufacturers, this includes planning for, and if necessary, paying for the recycling or disposal of the product at the end of its useful life. For retailers and consumers, this means taking an active role in ensuring the proper disposal or recycling of an end-of-life product.

Germany's [b][i]"Green Dot"[/i][/b] program has reduced packaging by remarkable amounts. Licensing of the Green Dot trademark is used to finance the system. Any surplus income resulting from the licensing is returned co the program participants through cost reductions or investments in the further development of the system. The Green Dot symbol may be printed on packaging if the manufacturer has paid a license fee. The fee is determined based on the polluter-pays principle and "depends on the material, weight and volume or area of the packaging. As such, it is an incentive to optimize packaging: The less the pack weighs, the lower the license fee will be.

Advance disposal fees (ADFs) impose a “front-end” charge on products or materials before they are discarded as waste. Manufacturers oppose front-end fees placed on products at the point of purchase but those you buy the product and create the waste should pay, otherwise it’s simply the poor subsidizing the rich when "waste-end" mechanisms are imposed at the point of disposal, which are funded through property taxes. Shifting the costs of wasteful recycling onto businesses only means that citizens will have to pay the bill wearing their consumer, rather than their taxpayer, hat.

Despite manufacturer’s opposition to ADFs, advance disposal fees have been in place in Ontario for decades, and they are expanding. Beer bottles and old pop bottles employed ADF formula's and wine bottles were just added in early 2007.

The government could also create a modest [b][i]"Eco-Green Tax"[/i][/b] to help fund the cost of our [b][i]"Green Acres"[/i][/b] sustainable development and ongoing transportation costs. Like the ADF, a green tax would be applied at the point of purchase of any goods to fund the disposal costs. The purpose would be to provide consumers with accurate information about the true costs of their choices in the marketplace. The intent is to immediately correct the distortions created by the "free ecosystems" commons and the belief that nature can endlessly absorb human impacts without costs.

Product pricing must reflect all environmental and social costs created throughout their entire lifecycle from first design to final disposal. Full cost accounting thus requires a legislative foundation and a landfill disposal green tax would increase manufacturer's attention to packaging waste minimization. The UK and Germany has moved in this direction and set the benchmark standard.

The problem with the current approach is that there is simply no incentive for anyone to limit trash production, since they will pay the same annual trash collection fee through property taxes no matter how much or little they produce. A green tax would eliminate garbage collection costs from the property tax structure and no longer would small families or people who produce little garbage underwrite large families that produce more garbage and garbage collection costs. This would also eliminate the chance of the province or municipalities from enacting "pay-as-you-throw" garbage bag fees, which is already happening in some communities.

State-of-the-Art Waste to Energy Plant in the Austria

[img]http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/8799/austriass1.jpg[/img]

[b][i]"Green Manufacturing"[/i][/b] should be the focus of our nation. Products and packaging made from recycled material are everywhere; in stores that sell groceries, office supplies, auto parts, and everything in between. Recyclables are transformed into an amazing variety of new products everyday. There's no limit to the things that can be made from recyclables; and the "happy eco-friendlier by-products" manufactured from recycled garbage would create even more jobs.

Anything made of aluminum can be recycled repeatedly without loss of metal quality or properties: not only cans, but aluminum foil, plates and pie molds. Aluminum ore is so expensive to mine that recycling aluminum more than pays for itself. Burning it produces no energy so clearly, aluminum is valuable to recycle and not useful to burn. Recycling aluminum cans saves 95% of the energy required to make the same amount of aluminum from its virgin source, bauxite.

Aluminum companies have invested in dedicated state of the art secondary metal processing plants to recycle aluminum. In the case of beverage cans, the process uses gas collected from burning off the volatile substances in can coatings to provide heat for the process. Every last bit of energy is used.

The aluminum can is 100% recyclable; there are no labels or covers to be removed and used beverage cans are normally back on supermarket shelves as new beverage cans in 8 weeks. Sudbury already has a beverage bottling company on Lorne Street, so we already have a built in customer.

Aluminum cans are worth 6 to 20 times more than any other used packaging material and aluminum is the only packaging material that more than covers the cost of its own collection and processing at recycling centres. The aluminum can is therefore good news for the environment and good for the economy.

However, the greatest use of Aluminum is in the auto industry where almost 6 billion pounds are currently used, and is increasing year upon year. This increasing use gives aluminum’s established credibility as a "[b][i]"Green Metal"[/i][/b] a further boost, and several different product manufacturing plants could be established.

This includes a wide range of items such as beverage cans, car cylinder heads, window frames, electrical cabling, pie pans, house siding, small appliances, lawn furniture, and almost anything else made of aluminum. Alternatively, aluminum can be back hauled to Alcan's plant in Quebec.

A 27 tonne ingot made from approximately 1.5 million used drinks cans

[img]http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/2027/recycleme2.jpg[/img]

Steel cans are easy to recycle due to their magnetic properties and the limited number of potential contaminants in the remanufacturing process. The steel can was invented in England in the early 1800's. It often called a tin can because of the thin layer of tin applied to the can's inner and outer surfaces. Tin is used to protect food and beverage flavors and to prevent rusting. Detinners specialize in removing the tin from steel cans for resale in tin using industries. Steel scrap from detinning is either sold to the steel industry or to the copper precipitation industry.

Iron and steel foundries are an emerging market for steel cans. Foundries use scrap as a raw material in making castings and molds for industrial users. Due to changes in steel-making, an increasing amount of steel cans are tin free. These cans use a chromium ash to achieve the same results as tin.

Steel cans account for more than 90% of all food cans. New high quality steels have led to the development of the new two-piece, drawn and ironed steel can, which may lead to steel's reentry into the beverage can market. Steel is the world's most recycled material and 65% of steel is made from recycled steel. Only steel can be repetitively recycled without ever deteriorating in quality.

Recycled steel is made into steel cans, nails, screws, building materials, tools, and yes, even a Steely. The lovable cousin of the original Slinky. It stretches, snaps back, and makes a ”steely sound.” Everyone wants a Stealy, thus several different product manufacturing plants could be established. Alternatively, steel cans could be back hauled to the steel mills in the Soo (190 miles) &/or Hamilton Ontario.

[img]http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/1644/recycleal9.png[/img]

Ontario throws away some 4 million tonnes of food scraps and organic waste a year and all household food scrap would be turned into high-grade compost and sold for profit; so let’s not say “organic waste,” let’s use the phrase “organic resources.”

First, some simple definitions:

[b]Composting[/b] – The process whereby organic waste is transformed into compost. Waste is biologically decomposed and stabilized in the presence of oxygen. This process naturally produces heat that serves to accelerate the process, and kill any pathogens and weed seeds.

[b]Compost[/b] – A granular, stable, material, high in organic matter and plant nutrients, that improves soil structure, nutrient content, biological activity and plant yield when applied to land.

Composting is far more than a waste treatment technology. It is an essential component in sustainable development and production. Composting as a human activity has been around for millennia. In recent times, human activity has disrupted the carbon cycle by harvesting organic material (crops), and disposing of waste to landfills and sewers. This has resulted in a range of problems including landfill leachate and gas, nutrient enrichment of waters, and loss of soil quality. Controlled composting offers a sustainable means of beneficial reuse of waste that will prevent further environmental degradation, improve productive soils and restore the carbon cycle.

[img]http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/2909/basicsofcompostdiagramin7.jpg[/img]

Composting is a biological stabilization technique which eliminates odours and pathogens and produces a product that is safe and pleasant to use. Organic kitchen scraps, such as vegetables and fruits and their peelings, coffee grounds, tea, egg shells, and, yard wastes, such as grass clippings, leaves and plant trimmings, make up almost a third of our garbage.

Composting can keep all this out of our overloaded landfills and produce a finished product called "humus" that returns valuable nutrients to the soil. Achieving consistent, pathogen-free compost, within a reasonable timeframe, on a large scale requires an appropriately engineered system. Industrial scale guaranteed no odour in-vessel composting systems effectively manage all organic waste, harnessing the nutrients and organic matter present.

Continued after jump...

[ 09 July 2007: Message edited by: Sudbury ]

So as you can see, there are numerous by-products that can be made in one location in this truly efficient recycling waste to energy [b][i]"Green Acres"[/i][/b] Philosophy. Nothing would be wasted.

After the sorting operation the garbage enters a hopper pit where a crane operator picks up about 1 tonne per scoop and dumps it into the combustor

[img]http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/8672/prvw4m853001pn9.jpg[/img]

[center]This is as dirty as it gets. With automatic sorting technology not one person touches the garbarge from the time it's picked up at the curb![/center]

[img]http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/646/anautomaticgrabtransferfd7.jpg[/img]

As mentioned previously, Waste to Energy incineration has a number of outputs such as the ash and the emission to the atmosphere of combustion product gases. The high-temperature incinerator in a Waste to Energy plant burns most of the waste. All that is left is a substance called ash. Ash is the solid residue left over when something is burned. It’s like the ash left over from a wood fire in the bottom of a fireplace.

Bottom Ash means the ash residue remaining after combustion of solid waste or solid waste in combination with fossil fuel in a solid waste incinerator that is discharged through and from the grates, combustor or stoker. Fly ash means the ash residue from the combustion of solid waste or solid waste in combination with fossil fuel that is entrained in the gas stream of the solid waste incinerator and removed by the air pollution control equipment. Combined ash means the mixture of bottom ash and fly ash.

Waste to Energy plants produce two types of ash; incinerator fly ash (IFB) and incinerator bottom ash (IBA). The total amount of ash produced ranges from 10 to 25 percent by weight of the original quantity of waste, and the fly ash amounts to about 10 to 20 percent of the total ash. In a Waste to Energy plant, 2,000 pounds (one tonne) of garbage is reduced to 300–500 pounds of ash. Once burned, the ash turns to a hard concrete, and the heavy metals, like lead and cadmium, are bound within the ash.

The average person produces around 2,000 pounds of waste a year. If all this waste were landfilled, it would take more than two cubic yards of landfill space. That’s the volume of a box three feet long, three feet wide, and six feet high. If that waste were burned, the ash residue would fit into a box three feet long, three feet wide, but only nine inches high!

State-of-the-Art Waste to Energy Plant in Portugal

[img]http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/1586/portugalqx3.jpg[/img]

In the U.S., the EPA decides whether the ash is hazardous by conducting an extraction procedure toxicity test--known to its friends as EP tox. In the EP tox test dilute acetic acid is poured over ash samples, then they are shaken, and filtered. The leachate is tested for various pollutants. If the lead concentration is more than 2 milligrams per liter, the ash is officially hazardous.

Heavy metals such are lead are indestructible. Whatever heavy metals are put into an incinerator they come out either in the stack gases or in the ash. The more you clean them out of the gases, the more they show up in the ash. Primary sources of lead are batteries, solder, metal alloys, dyed plastics, and colored inks. Lead has been taken out of black newspaper inks, but it is still present in some colored inks.

The only way to keep an incinerator from putting out lead is to stop putting lead into it, either by banning the use of lead where substitutes are available--as in inks--or by recycling objects containing it--such as batteries. We would not be burning batteries and would deink all paper prior to incinerating it. We would burn very little, if any, plastic given the amount of finished products we could make with it and sell for profit.

If the ash is found to be hazardous, it can only be disposed of in landfills which are carefully designed to prevent pollutants in the ash from leaching into underground aquifers, but in testing over the past decade, no ash from a U.S. or European modern Waste to Energy plant has ever been determined to be a hazardous waste.

Ash that is safe can be reused for many applications, such as making cement blocks and even to make artificial reefs for marine animals. About one-third of all the ash produced is used in landfills as a daily or final cover layer, thus we could back haul it to cities for landfill cover material and for gas venting layer material. As stated previously, there are over 10,000 landfills in Canada.

Rubber and bottom ash can also be mixed with asphalt for road construction, made into rubber sand bags for flooding purposes, and "Enviro-Bricks." "With the solid look of a brick home, and the environmentally responsible aspect of mass recycling, Enviro-Bricks provide the answer to a very critical worldwide need." R40 insulation! The city could partner up with Rainbow or Browne's Concrete to make "Eco-Smart" Cement Blocks and "Enviro-Earth Bricks" or develop them on our own.

[img]http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/9746/envirobrick90uf9.jpg[/img]

Researchers have found that bricks made from fly ash, fine ash particles captured as waste by coal power plants, may be even safer than predicted. Instead of leaching minute amounts of mercury as some researchers had predicted, the bricks apparently do the reverse, pulling minute amounts of the toxic metal out of ambient air.

Manufacturing clay brick requires kilns fired to high temperatures, which wastes energy, pollutes air and generates greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. In contrast, fly ash bricks are "self-cementing," flame resistant and manufactured at room temperature and cured in the open air. They conserve energy, cost less to manufacture, and don't contribute to air pollution or global warming.

Once colored and shaped, the bricks are similar to their clay counterparts, both in appearance and in meeting or exceeding construction-material standards. Coal fly ash and Waste to Energy fly ash are the same thing, thus different ash manufactured product could be established.

Fly and bottom ash is also used as a component in the production of "Flowable Fill" (also called controlled low strength material, or CLSM), which is used as self-leveling, self-compacting backfill material in many applications, including a sub base for parking lots and new asphalt road constuction, in lieu of compacted earth or granular fill. Therefore, the ash could be used to backfill the roadbed construction of the four lanes on highway 69 from Sudbury to just north of Parry Sound! Thus Sudbury would not be landfilling any ash for years to come given the volume of backfill the highway 69 project requires.

The most common method of ash management is disposal in landfill, either commingled with MSW or alone in an ash "monofill." A monofill is a landfill that contains only ash, no raw garbage. However, today, ash has become a beneficial by-product and using ash for the products just mentioned is a significant step “towards zero landfills." Excessive ash can also be stored in exhausted mines, if need be.

[img]http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/4463/variousbricksf1na9.jpg[/img]

Some might say; I'm a total "ash-hole" for thinking up this whole garbage idea, but in truth, it's time to follow the [b][i]"Green Brick Road"[/i][/b] as this treasure trove of trash will turn "Garbage into Gold", is a "Building Block" to our future, and our "Pot of Gold" at the end of the rainbow! Others will be [b][i]"Green with Envy"[/i][/b] and this entire plan would create a truly "Solid" Waste Management system.

Modern incinerators are very different from the incinerators that were commonly used until a few decades ago. Old-type incinerators usually did not include a materials separation to remove hazardous or recyclable materials before burning, and tended to risk the health of the plant workers and the nearby residents, and most of them did not generate electricity.

Modern incinerators emit less air pollution than coal plants, but more than natural gas plants. The USEPA has characterized modern incinerators as "producing electricity with less environmental impact than almost any other source of electricity."

State-of-the-Art Waste to Energy Plant in the Netherlands

[img]http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/5955/netherlandsqg5.jpg[/img]

Waste to Energy plants have a kind of built-in anti-pollution device, as its furnace burns at such high temperatures--1,800 to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit--many complex chemicals naturally break down into simpler, less harmful compounds. Waste to Energy plants employ a combination of air pollution control devices, including scrubbers, fabric filters, and electrostatic precipitators to control acid gases, particles, nitrogen oxides, metals and organic emissions.

The EPA wants to make sure that harmful gases and particles are not going out the smokestack into the air. Scrubbers clean chemical gas emissions by spraying a liquid into the gas stream to neutralize the acids. Fabric filters and electrostatic precipitators remove particles from the emissions. The particles are then mixed with the ash that is removed from the bottom of the Waste to Energy plant's furnace when it is cleaned.

As stated previously, the most publicized concerns from environmentalists about the incineration of municipal solid wastes (MSW) involve the fear that it produces significant amounts of dioxin and furan emissions to the atmosphere. Dioxins and furans are considered by many to be serious health hazards. Older generation incinerators that were not equipped with modern gas cleaning technologies were indeed significant sources of dioxin emissions. Today, however, due to advances in emission control designs and stringent new governmental regulations, modern Waste to Energy incinerators emits virtually no dioxins. The quantity of pollutants in the emissions from large-scale incinerators is reduced by scrubbing process, as well as other processes.

According to the USEPA, modern incinerators are no longer significant sources of dioxins and furans. In 1987, before the governmental regulations required the use of emission controls, there was a total of 10,000 grams of dioxin emissions from U.S. Waste to Energy incinerators. Today, the total emissions from the 98 plants are only 10 grams, a reduction of 99.9%. Backyard barrel burning of household and garden wastes, still allowed in some rural areas, generates 580 grams of dioxins yearly. Studies conducted by the USEPA demonstrate that the emissions from just one family using a burn barrel produces more emissions than a modern incinerator disposing of 200 tons of waste per day.

According to the 2005 report from the Ministry of the Environment of Germany, where there are 66 incinerators, in 1990 one third of all dioxin emissions in Germany came from waste incineration plants, for the year 2000 the figure was less than 1%. Chimneys and tiled stoves in private households alone discharge approximately twenty times more dioxin into the environment than waste incineration plants.

Odour pollution can also be a problem with old-style incinerators, but odours and dust are extremely well controlled in a modern incinerator. They receive and store the waste in an enclosed area with a negative pressure with the airflow being routed through a boiler which prevents unpleasant odours from escaping into the atmosphere.

State-of-the-Art Waste to Energy Plant in the U.K

[img]http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/858/ukse0.jpg[/img]

Sudbury could also incorporate clinical incinerators. The aim of incinerating this category of waste is to remove the pollution and health risks, rather than to reduce volume. Incineration of medical waste produces an end product ash that is sterile and non-hazardous.

We could also include a plant for human waste, solving our stinky problem in Lively. Toronto produces 160,000 tonnes a year in sewage. There is over 400,000 tonnes in Ontario. Toronto sends some 15 trucks a day to Quebec and elsewhere to dispose of it. That's another 15 full time truck driver jobs; not to mention more tipping fees.

Sewage is a source of biomass energy that is very similar to the other animal wastes, the only difference being that it has been treated in developed countries for many years. Energy can be extracted from sewage using anaerobic digestion to produce "biogas." The sewage sludge that remains can then be incinerated or undergo pyrolysis to produce more biogas and 'bio-oil'. The Plamsa Arc technology discussed earlier would do the job.

Sudbury spends over 8 million $ a year on fuel for our city buses, city vehicles, snowplows, fire trucks, ambulances, and cop cars. Biogas can be turned into diesel fuel which would save us over 8 million $. We would be getting paid to accept the fuel our vehicles burn. Our infeed fuel for free!

Paint sludge that used to be thrown away, for example, is now dried to a powder and shipped to a plastics manufacturer, ending up eventually as parking lot bumpers and guardrails, although, hopefully, we wouldn't be getting much paint in regular trash. However, the city collects used paint all the time, thus an "eco-elements" "eco-paint" factory could be established. To be recycled, the used paints are blended, filtered to industry standards and mixed with a percentage of conventional paint. The high-quality product covers most surfaces in one coat and is the half the price of comparable conventional paint. What was once a one-colour, limited-use product is now available in numerous grades, colours and percentages of post-consumer content.

"E-Waste" is a huge business today, and Xstrata's state-of-the-art Electronic Recycling Business operation, the only one of its kind in Canada, is located in an 82,200 square-foot industrial facility in Brampton, Ontario. Xstrata operates in Sudbury and there is no reason why we couldn't open a centre here; not only for Sudbury, but all of northern Ontario.

Electronic devices such as computer monitors and TVs contain hazardous materials that must be managed properly. Picture tubes, or cathode ray tubes (CRTs), are made with three to eight pounds of the heavy metal lead. Circuit boards also contain lead in addition to cadmium, mercury and other hazardous materials. Heavy metals such as lead can cause damage to living organisms at very low concentrations and tend to accumulate in the food chain.

Illegal dumping and the improper disposal of waste impacts public health and safety, property values and the quality of life in our community.

A Take it Back Network is a partnership among government agencies, retailers, repair shops, charitable organizations and recyclers that provides consumers with options for recycling certain wastes–and their hazardous components–in a safe and cost effective manner. Some electronics manufacturers also offered their corporate customers a recycling service for their used equipment.

Our Take it Back Network would accept a variety of electronic equipment such as computers, monitors, printers, TVs, cell phones, PDAs, fax machines, stereos, DVD and VCR players, other household electronics and rechargeable batteries. The electronics are recycled domestically in an environmentally sound manner.

[img]http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/951/tibnfluorescentszf9.gif[/img]

Fluorescent light bulbs and tubes are no longer accepted as regular garbage and our new Electronic Recycling Business would accept fluorescent bulbs and tubes and recycle them domestically in an environmentally sound manner.

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[ 09 July 2007: Message edited by: Sudbury ]

Taking this mega-recycling school of thought one step further requires underscoring another important factor of this fundamentally sound project. There are some 73,000 residential units in Sudbury, and not only would we create thousands of jobs, but we would also produce enough 100 percent renewable electricity to supply every residential unit with a set amount of electricity and electric heat for FREE!

State-of-the-Art Waste to Energy Plant in Norway

[img]http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/9379/norwayok2.jpg[/img]

Customers who use more electricity than the allowable limit would be charged market prices for all excess usage. This smart energy [b][i]"Green Growth"[/i][/b] project would
eliminate inflated and unstable natural gas and electricity prices, GST, and bill bank paying costs for our Citizens. Currently monthly charges for gas are 16 $ plus GST regardless of the amount of gas used. Add the transportation charge, plus GST, storage charge, plus GST, and your bill is 30 to 40 $ a month, every month, before you even use any gas.

For the average consumer, eliminating a series of nuisance costs like natural gas fees, GST thereon, and bank bill paying charges, is the equivalent of reducing a 2000 $ property tax bill by up to or over 100 percent! In other words, whether you're a property owner or renter, rich or poor, each user could receive a 2000 $ or so economic incentive per year if we proceed with this project. Thus, it would not only solve Sudbury's Hydro-Hell problem with unsustainable, unaffordable and unjust access to energy; but also put waste in its place!

Consider the alternative. Our federal government has already announced that natural gas rates are going to rise in order to cut down of greenhouse gas emissions produced during gas production. Cutting greenhouse gases will cool the earth’s temperature; which will drive your natural gas consumption and energy costs even higher, since the earth will be colder.

We could, and should also be using [b][i]"Green Billing Accounts" [/i][/b] (paperless) to eliminate non-value added activities and expenses. "Electronic billing" is easy, it's quick, it's secure, and there is no bill paying service charge.

Our "E-Pay" system would require you to enroll, following which you would receive an e-mail notification confirming the approval of your enrollment. The User ID chosen by you is to be used to Login into the system. After which you would be receiving an e-mail notification on monthly basis informing you that your bill is ready for viewing and payment is due in 14 days. On the due date you bill would be paid by automatic debit from your bank account or charged to your credit card, depending on which bill paying system you have selected. This e-service thereby eliminates paper, printers, ink, envelopes and postage, which would reduce city expenditures that you pay by a million or more $ every year.

State-of-the-Art Waste to Energy Plant in the USA

[img]http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/2564/usare2.jpg[/img]

Constant adjustments along the "future forward way" must be made in order to solve our economic problems, but to adjust and adapt is the "badge of intelligence." With the advent of genetic engineering, and through better cloning techniques that are currently being used, trees can also be genetically manipulated to grow faster and burn hotter. The hotter an incinerator burns the less emissions that are emitted.

Under this smart growth scenario trees are fully-grown in 3 years and ready for harvest and incineration. Growing energy forestry crops on a large scale can also be used to fuel an "Ethanol plant" and Ethanol plants are the way to the fuel future! An Ethanol plant would create many more new jobs when farming is included.

In partnership with Inco, Sudbury could, and should begin producing electricity from the Superstack, thus further increasing electricity production and reducing the strain on the provinces power grid.

For those who don't know, Inco's Superstack is 1247 feet tall; only 121 feet shorter than the former World Trade Center in "Zoo" York City. The Superstack was the tallest structure in Canada until the CN tower opened in Toronto in 1976. The Superstack was the tallest smoke stack in the world but is now the second tallest freestanding chimney after the GRES-2 Power Station in Kazakhstan, which is about 38 meters taller. However, Sudbury's Superstack is still the tallest cigar in the Western hemisphere and remains the second tallest freestanding structure in Canada. It was constructed by Inco in 1972 at an estimated cost of 25 million $.

[img]http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/1961/stackcigzw7.jpg[/img]

The Superstack sits atop the largest nickel smelting operation in the world at Inco's Copper Cliff processing facility and could produce enough electricity for 200,000 homes; and could've been doing so for the past 35 years.

Hot air rises, naturally, and the Superstack operates as a giant vacuum. As the hot air rises in the stack it would past through an array of turbine generators clustered inside the stack. The result: enough clean, green electricity to power some 200,000 homes without producing a particle of pollution or a wisp of planet-warming gases.

Inco's copper refinery is now releasing stream and not even using the Superstack, and this stream could, and should also be used to produce electricity. The heat from the Superstack could, and should also be harvested to heat Dynamic Earth, homes and businesses in Copper Cliff; and it could've been doing so for the past 35 years.

Xstrata also has a smokestack in its smelter which could be utilized for the same electricity producing process.

We could also turn every available exhausted mine shaft into a 350,000 kilowatts a day energy producing shaft by repeatedly using the same water over and over again. Water from a reservoir above ground would drop down the shaft through a power plant underground and then be pumped backed to the upper pool to be repeated again and again.

To add to our renewable mix, "Electro Kinetic Road Ramps" should also be installed in our high traffic roadways to create electricity and give us a cutting clean-tech edge. When cars drive over ramps they produce electricity that will be used to power streetlights, traffic lights and cross walk signals, which would reduce our electricity costs. Several other street lights, traffic signals and would be solar-powered.

[img]http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/6568/solarlight2et0.jpg[/img]

All of these ideas would make Sudbury a global hotbed of "alternative-energy entrepreneurship," thus, our "risk appetite" needs to expand and it's time to take some calculated risks and to view innovation as the "Bank of Tomorrow." Make deposits into it today and it will yield dividends tomorrow. By creating new jobs, and new virgin revenue sources, we would reduce everyone's property taxes when the newly generated revenue is applied to city expenditures, Thus, the idea of being able to provide Citizens with a living wage and lower taxes while at the same time heal the planet is an enormously attractive one.

State-of-the-Art Waste to Energy Plant in Burnaby B.C. Canada

[img]http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/2339/burnabydb8.jpg[/img]

Creating new jobs would dry up available unskilled and semiskilled workers thereby driving up the wages of other low-income workers city wide who would then hop skip and jog to the highest paying job offer. This very un-tech job creating solution would also lower out of wedlock births, the use and sale of illegal drugs, crime rates, policing, prosecuting and prison costs, while increasing spending in the city, gas tax, GST and income tax revenue for both federal and provincial governments, thus reducing the dependency on taxpayer support. Creating new revenue for senior levels of government puts Sudbury in a position to receive more in-grant aid.

Therefore, the federal government has a vested interest in seeing this venture become reality by providing funding for the project. The federal government has billions of $ set aside for their war on climate change and this project is their lead eco-fighting warrior, thus we need to tap into their cash register!

For the sake of this discussion consider this; suppose building 20 burners, 5 manufacturing plants covering dozens of lines of products and, adding turbines to Inco's Superstack and Xstrata stack cost 10 billion $. From just one penny of GST the federal government makes over 5 billion $ every 3 months. They could pay this off in 6 months! By February 2009, they will have spent 7 billion $ of OUR money in Afghanistan. Think about that! The federal government has multi billion $ surpluses every year! In 2006, all levels of government, municipal, provincial and federal, had a 29 billion $ surplus. Spending 10 billion $ "one time" to eliminate up to 100 million tonnes of greenhouse gas EVERY YEAR is a bargain! The federal government can print off all the money it needs! The provincial and municipal governments cannot. The provincial government would also chip in reducing the federal government’s burden in this project.

Once the federal government invests they would pay out less in employment insurance, GST rebates, processing and postage costs while its taxation collections in insurance premiums, GST and income tax would rise. The federal government would also increase their revenue from private firms that the new employees patronize when the employees earnings are spent. Instead of being a burden on the federal treasury a great many new people would contribute to it.

Studies estimate that for every million $ the government spends on public projects it gets back in tax revenue and employment insurance savings about 500,000 $. The net cost to government is therefore only about half of the actual investment. Thus, they could fund the 10 billion $ project and it only cost them 5 billion.

The net cost could turn out to be smaller still. If the improvement in employment and sales prompts business to expand--and this project would--then the government would collect additional tax revenue and save even more in employment insurance payouts as a result of the jobs created by the private sector expansion. Thus, eventually the government recoups "all" of its funding despite the large-scale upfront investment.

As the portfolio of possibilities is endless, Sudbury must think outside the square, heat up the city's economic thermostat, and innovate to grow this wisdom economy.

The "eco-product-index" is extensive, the local-sourcing vast; and this venture is at a minimum a ten-way-trade-off. (1) Sudbury gets much needed jobs, (2) Sudbury businesses and residents get low cost hydro, (3) Sudbury increases revenue from the sale of excess hydro, (4) Highway 69 is completed soon rather than later, (5) the province gets to eliminate landfills across the province, (6) the province gets a much needed new source of hydro for its insatiable volume demand, (7) the province reduces the burden on the already taxed hydro generation system by removing Sudbury's hydro needs from their power grid, (8) the province and city reduces welfare rolls, (9) the province and federal government increases income tax revenue from new jobs created, and (10) the province increases sales tax revenue from the newly employed people spending their earnings.

Sudbury’s renewable energy field would import over two billion $ a year in low carbon currency tipping fees--over 20 billion every 10 years--while sales from newly manufactured products would fetch over 336 million $ more. This economic growth and output would create 2000+ cleaner economy jobs in this new wisdom economy. Two thousand 45,000 $ a year jobs would have a 90 million $ annual impact in Sudbury from employee wages alone!

Even without other province’s trash, Ontario produces enough garbage to guarantee waste flow electricity production and would produce hundreds of millions in tipping fees.

So as you can see, there are many "positive feedback loops" and nothing here is intellectually complex or hard to do, and this wise intoxicating prosperity plan is simple to understand, easy to implement, and as win win as it gets!

Compare this "smart growth revenue friendly bulletproof prosperity plan" to what our current mayor is offering!

Higher taxes, less service and no jobs! Dumb growth in the extreme!

Our mayor can play Mary Had a Little Lamb but he can't play Beethoven! Our mayor is a walking talking excuse and lacks the ability to choreograph a win without telling a lie. Our mayor lied his way into office because he knew he wouldn't win otherwise.

Our Twentieth Century mayor provides no future based answers for he’s not innovative or revolutionary ready because he's fluent in NDP.

Continued after jump...

[ 09 July 2007: Message edited by: Sudbury ]

[ 09 July 2007: Message edited by: Sudbury ]

Thanks for your help Fidel!

Jas, I'm sold on incinerators. After I wrote most of this up I researched Plasma Arc and vaporization is even better than incineration.