8 minute read
DRIVEN TO INNOVATE
DRIVEN TO INNOVATE
An integrated approach to giving resources new life
About 1.4 million people live in New Hampshire in 2024, and between them, they produce almost 2.1 million tons of waste each year. That’s almost 3,000 pounds per person, which, if you imagine it piling up in the alley behind your house instead of getting trucked away, provides a particularly challenging illustration of modern society.
And that’s the challenge the state of New Hampshire, and partners such as Casella, need to deal with each year. As the population grows, how does the state maintain enough capacity to dispose of all that trash, and how does it continue to invest in the necessary infrastructure to give resources new life and make modern life possible?
The answer is multifold, and doesn’t include burying it all in landfills. In fact, in the Waste Management Hierarchy developed by the state in its 2022 NH Solid Waste Management Plan, landfills represent the smallest tier of the disposal pyramid. Ahead of landfills comes source reduction, recycling and reuse, composting, waste-to-energy, and incineration.
That doesn’t mean there won’t be a need for landfills in the state’s overall strategy; only that education, innovation and technology will play a larger and larger role in ensuring today’s high-tech landfills are reserved only for material that can’t be disposed of any other way.
GROWING RECYCLING AND DIVERSION PRACTICES
According to Sam Nicolai, vice president of Engineering and Compliance at Casella, New Hampshire is an outlier among New England states in that it does not have a recycling mandate.
“That drives behavior as well as opportunity for residents and businesses,” he says.
Currently, 1.5 million tons of the 2.1 million total tons of waste produced in New Hampshire each year requires disposal. About half a million tons are recycled and that number will grow.
“The recycling and diversion programs have become part and parcel of our global economy,” Nicolai says. “Manufacturing depends on these resources and raw materials.”
INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS FOR HARD-TO-HANDLE WASTE STREAMS
When considering how to manage waste streams, it’s important to understand what types of material they’re composed of – and how those materials have changed over time. Ongoing changes in the composition of the waste stream mean that any solution needs to be flexible and adaptable.
“I’ve seen massive shifts in what we discard,” Paul Ligon, senior vice president of Sustainable Growth at Casella, says. “Newspapers used to be one of the largest parts of the waste stream. They’re gone. Glass used to be a significant part. It’s been displaced by plastic. Batteries didn’t use to be the problems they are today. Corrugated cardboard: the Amazons of the world are influencing what’s in the waste stream to a huge degree.”
“The facilities we’re building now need to be really agile; and there need to be technologies in these facilities to enable that, including robotics to artificial intelligence.”
A striking percentage of the waste stream is made up of food. Twenty-four percent of what ends up in landfills is food waste and that calls for more innovation, and innovative partnerships, in food waste recovery.
Textiles and growing “fast fashion” castoffs make up nearly 10 percent of waste.
Hard to recycle plastics represent about 18 percent of the waste stream, Ligon says.
“A lot of these have markets, but how do you collect them, sort them, and get them into a viable market?”
One of the solutions is to build an ARC.
REDUCING WASTE AT THE SOURCE — BUILDING AN ARC
Casella partners with large businesses to reduce waste streams at their source and create outlets for otherwise lowvolume recyclables. Ligon describes the strategy: “Rather than manage waste, let’s manage resources. Let’s manage waste out of design and operational processes that are occurring with large generators. Get beyond the dumpster and upstream into the four walls of the operation so you can get at materials before they become waste. We’ve done this extensively with our largest customers.”
One dramatic example is the work Casella has done with partner Hypertherm. “We’ve been able to drive 90 percent of Hypertherm’s disposal streams into reclamation,” Ligon says.
This is partly thanks to a new type of reclamation program Casella has developed and dubbed an ARC (Aggregation & Recovery Collaboratives). These ARCs are designed to provide customized regional solutions for handle hard to recyclable materials by shredding and consolidating these materials from multiple local generators to produce full truckloads of what would otherwise be too low-volume recyclables to bring to market.
INFRASTRUCTURE OF THE FUTURE
Ligon describes the infrastructure of the future, a vision that meet’s the state’s goals, is a quilt of innovative technologies such as ARCs and MRFs (Material Recovery Facilities), partnerships and people.
He sees the green economy created by these projects as a source of jobs and support for vulnerable populations in the state.
For example, as described in Casella’s response to the state’s Solid Waste Management Plan, “Casella and Goodwill of Northern New England are collaborating across Northern New England to create innovative new ways to address and overcome social and environmental challenges related to resource recovery, waste diversion, and job placement for individuals who have historically struggled to reintegrate into society while recovering from substance abuse disorders and/or incarceration. Core to the mission of both organizations is the desire to achieve a higher and better use for what has traditionally been considered waste. In addition to the latest single-stream sorting technology designed to recover traditional recyclables, the MRF of the Future will include infrastructure to assess, process, sort, and inventory unwanted textiles and bulky waste for resale through Goodwill’s various retail models.
“How do we think about this as a major future opportunity for the state?” Ligon asks, “In terms of building an infrastructure of the future that creates meaningful jobs, and protects public health and the environment?”
THE ONGOING NEED FOR DISPOSAL CAPACITY
But no matter the success of the reduction, recycling, and diversion efforts, Nicolai points out, “You can’t recycle yourself out of a need for waste capacity.”
Ligon concurs.
“From a disposal capacity standpoint, the state has determined it’s going to have a need coming up,” he says. “That’s not unique to New Hampshire. The entire Northeast is facing capacity issues.”
Some states have decided to export their waste, he says, but in the long run that creates problems.
For both businesses and residents, having local disposal capacity means waste doesn’t need to be shipped further and further afield. When it does need to ship, the costs rise for residents, municipalities, and the environment in terms of transportation and greenhouse gas emissions. If those costs aren’t stable, it’s difficult to pursue other recycling and reclamation programs.
“Really forward-looking states are looking at this as a way of building out their green infrastructure; their green economy,” Ligon says.
Nicolai adds the efficiency created by local capacity will enable businesses to grow. “Disposal capacity is an asset that supports the generators of that waste,” he says.
Right now, the pace that facilities are closing exceeds the rate at which new facilities are coming online.
TODAY’S LANDFILL TECHNOLOGY
To that end, Casella is currently seeking a permit to construct a first-in-class commercial landfill in the northern part of the state. The 72-acre lined footprint would accept 600,000 cubic yards of waste per year and come online in 2028, providing a seamless transition from when the current facility in Bethlehem closes.
“I would characterize the Dalton proposed permit of 600,000 (cubic yards per year) as significant in terms of the overall capacity of the state,” Nicolai says. “It’s certainly a large chunk of the capacity that’s needed.”
And it’s not what people might imagine when they picture the town dump from their childhoods.
“Most people are shocked at how complex an engineering project landfills are and have become,” Nicolai says.
“I manage a team of 25 engineers and environmental professionals to support the facilities we have.” He describes how specialists ranging from design engineers, wetland biologists, hydrologists and air quality experts must come together to make a modern landfill.
“Without them,” he says, “we’d have a crisis on our hands.”
MATERIALS MANAGED
DISPOSAL 192,700 TONS
RECYCLING19,200 TONS
ORGANICS90,300 TONS
TRANSFER STATIONS183,200 TONS
OTHER COLLECTION50,842 TONS OF C&D RECYCLED;1,148 LBS OF LEAD ACID BATTERIES;16,269 LINEAR FEET OF FLORESCENT LIGHT BULBS
49% Drivers10% Mechanics18% Equipment operators, and other laborers23% Compliance, engineering, management, and support staff
$18,490,400 Contributed to the NH economy in the form of payroll and taxes
