Materials Management: An Integrated Approach

The issues facing the waste and recycling industry are incredibly complex, with many interconnected parts. How does a company address all of them, while maintaining an economically and environmentally sustainable business? That is the constant challenge facing Casella and the communities that the company serves.

While many people are paying closer attention to the products they purchase and the resources they consume, while simultaneously recycling more, modern society still requires safe, secure and affordable disposal options. In New Hampshire alone, Casella serves more than 50,000 households, 5,500 businesses, and 150 cities and towns through its collection, transfer, recycling and waste disposal operations. The company employs more than 175 people across its Granite State operations, with an annual payroll of more than $10 million, to manage more than 300,000 tons of New Hampshire waste and recyclables.

But Casella’s core operations are far more expansive, comprised of more than 140 facilities from Pennsylvania to Maine, allowing the company to deliver a full range of services to businesses, organizations and households throughout the region. With operations spanning the Northeast, Casella’s integrated resource management infrastructure connects its partners with the regional recycling and waste infrastructure needed to make modern life possible, while protecting the environment.

In short, this regional approach enables Casella to provide large-scale resource-management services at a cost that businesses and communities can afford and allows for local communities to share in the economic and environmental benefits of broader infrastructure capabilities.

THE VALUE OF AN INTEGRATED SYSTEM

To quantify the economic and environmental value that is created by this integrated system, Casella recently commissioned a study by DSM Environmental Services, Inc., an internationally recognized leader in data-driven analyses related to resource recovery and solid waste management solutions.

The study revealed some telling economic and environmental benefits to maintaining the current level of disposal capacity provided by the NCES Landfill in Bethlehem, in conjunction with a proposed Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) in central New Hampshire.

Key findings of the study include:

• The combined economic value of the landfill and recycling infrastructure is estimated to add over $400 million to the state’s economy over a 20-year period.

• In addition to the economic gains, it also allows New Hampshire residents and businesses to avoid nearly $75 million in additional waste and transportation costs over 20 years.

• An annual reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of more than 29,000 metric tons of carbon due to increased recycling rates and avoidance of additional transportation, which is equivalent to taking more than 6,200 passenger cars off the road each year.

THE NEED FOR THE GRANITE STATE LANDFILL

With the cap and closure for the NCES Landfill in Bethlehem scheduled to occur at the end of 2026, Casella conducted a broad search for a suitable new site for a landfill to ensure that the needed capacity remained available. The company identified a suitable parcel on the outskirts of Dalton, situated in an industrial developed area with limited abutting neighbors.

The Granite State Landfill (GSL) being proposed for Dalton will be among the most technologically advanced in the industry and complements New Hampshire’s Waste Management Hierarchy, which prioritizes reducing trash creation while incorporating reuse, recycling and composting over landfilling.

According to Brian Oliver, Casella’s eastern region vice president, this disposal capacity is critical to bridging the gap to a future where landfills might be unnecessary. “Closing landfills while eliminating expansion of existing facilities and prohibiting the development of new facilities, does not stop the generation of trash. We all need to reduce, reuse and recycle to minimize disposal capacity needs, but in today’s environment, landfills are still necessary, and they are a better option than incineration because it allows us to find higher and better use and diversion opportunities for waste material, rather than just constantly needing to feed the material into the incinerator rendering all materials management efforts moot.”

In addition to the disposal infrastructure, Casella is also committed to putting the landfill gas generated by the decomposition of waste to a higher and better use through renewable energy projects like the one set to come online in September 2022 at NCES in partnership with Rudarpa, Inc. The facility is designed to capture the landfill gas which is currently being flared and separate it into marketable gases, with primary emphasis on methane and carbon dioxide. Once processed, the RNG will be transported by truck for injection into existing pipeline facilities owned by Liberty Utilities, providing natural gas for residents of New Hampshire. The emissions reduction from converting the landfill gas into transportation fuel is estimated to be 78,000 tons of

greenhouse gas emissions annually, which is equivalent to taking more than 15,000 passenger cars off the road.

In Dalton, the local economy would experience an economic windfall proposed at $2 million annually paid directly to the town, free curbside trash and recycling pick-up, and other benefits as part of a Host Community Benefit Agreement.

“The Host Community Benefit Agreement is the best way for Dalton residents to realize the full benefits of hosting this kind of facility in their town, while also providing them with the necessary avenue to give input on the development and operation of the facility,” said Oliver.

Conversely, closure of the NCES facility without new annual disposal capacity coming online would result in the loss of more than a dozen North Country jobs as well as all of the economic benefits previously outlined. In addition to the significant capacity shortfall, it would also result in the loss of competitive balance in the marketplace, which could lead to drastically increased costs to the residents of New Hampshire.

THE QUESTION OF “OUT-OF-STATE” TRASH

There is concern among some regarding the amount of waste currently being brought into New Hampshire that originates from outside of the state. Currently, around 50% of the landfill material in the state comes from somewhere

other than New Hampshire. It’s important, however, to put this into context as it pertains to Casella’s current NCES operation and the proposed GSL.

In 2020, NCES safely and securely disposed of more than 177,000 tons of waste generated by New Hampshire residents, businesses and municipalities, which is more than 80% of the total municipal solid waste accepted at the site.

“We understand the concerns posed by some regarding the importation of out-of-state waste, and have voluntarily taken steps to reduce the amount of out-of-state material we accept over the last five years,” according to Oliver.

The other consideration to be made is that modern landfills, for good reason, are now regional in nature when compared to the antiquated “town dump” model of yesteryear. Managing waste based on geographic boundaries instead of utilizing regional resources to improve efficiencies makes little sense in today’s modern society, especially when considering how highly regulated and highly engineered each modern facility is.

While more than 80% of the NCES-bound trash is generated inside New Hampshire, a majority of the out-ofstate waste is contaminated soil used as alternative daily cover, which provides the additional benefit of preserving natural resources such as virgin soils. New Hampshire also benefits by having the ability to export 40,000 tons of recyclables to facilities in Massachusetts, as the state currently lacks the infrastructure necessary to process the materials in-state. Ultimately, by adopting this regional approach, Casella has minimized an emphasis on state — or even community — borders, while accentuating the need for a sound management plan that ensures both environmental protection and fiscal responsibility.

Rudarpa and Casella break ground on Renewable Natural Gas Facility in 2021.

“Creating unnecessary borders on how we manage recycling and waste makes very little sense in a region such as New England, where disposal capacity, recycling facilities and transportation infrastructure are in high demand and short supply,” said Casella Chairman and CEO John W. Casella. “By allowing for shared resources to cross state lines, we can minimize the amount of infrastructure necessary to achieve maximum economic and environmental benefits for the communities we serve. This is not dissimilar from the way most of society operates; it is only when it comes to the end of the supply chain that we question where it began its journey.”

ENVIRONMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS

While noting that the infrastructure in place to serve us has long been the target of criticism, regardless of the industry, Casella points out that “none of society’s current solutions to disposing of waste are either completely perfect or completely imperfect, but the goal should always be to limit the potential for risk to public health and the environment, and to continuously improve upon what we know to be true today through sound research and development.”

The modern landfills Casella operates today are vastly different than those of the past, and allows the company to monitor, evaluate and mitigate risk constantly. And, should the initial systems fail, on-site redundancies are in place to ensure that any potential issue remains on-site and does not

harm the external environment surrounding its landfills.

“Operating facilities like these is not without risk, that is virtually impossible, especially when dealing with humans,” Casella said. “But we have developed a culture in our company that, when mistakes happen, we quickly identify them, we quickly address them, and we quickly learn from them so that we do not repeat them. At our core, that is why we have been able to build a successful business. We do not pretend to be perfect, we do not pretend that the work we do is easy, and when mistakes happen we own them and move forward, together.”

On-site greenhouse at NCES is heated by geothermal loops providing plants for the community.

Last May, a release of leachate (the wastewater created when rain and snowmelt make its way through the waste mass and into the collection system) occurred when a pump alarm failed, and a storage tank overflowed. However, the redundant systems of the landfill worked to ensure that the overflow was contained on-site and did not penetrate the external environment.

“All of it was captured in an on-site retention pond,” Oliver said. “None of it found its way off-site, and none of it found its way into the environment. We were able to recapture the leachate, dig out the drainage pond and clean it up. While we can all agree that it would have been a better scenario if it never happened, the silver lining is that we were still able to recover from the issue without any harm to others.”

The same measures will be taken at GSL, and because this is a new site, there is significant opportunity to include new technology.

Some residents of Dalton and other nearby towns have voiced concern about the proximity of the landfill to the area’s local recreation area known as Forest Lake State Park. The park is home to a small lake with several camps and vacation homes as well as permanent residences, and is one of New Hampshire’s first state parks, although today it is locally maintained and receives little to no funding from the state.

In addition to a permitting and regulatory process that includes local, state and federal controls, the proposed site for GSL in Dalton also benefits from a natural ridgeline that protects Forest Lake further and is located at a lower elevation than the lake itself. n

The NCES landfill is well-sited, well-run and technologically advanced.