For many of us, our lives are ruled by routine. We wake up, and have a routine for everything – from whether we brush our teeth or wash our faces first, to which route we travel, to our workout regimens at the gym. Some people prefer eggs in the morning, some prefer cereal. But in today’s world – there is one routine most people can agree on. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. This trifecta of sustainability has been engrained in our minds for years. But sometimes, something more is needed. What if this isn’t enough? What if I want waffles one morning?
Okay, okay. The real question at hand here is this: What do we do when we’ve exhausted the “reduce, reuse, recycle” routine? What is the next step in sustainability? There are several sources of renewable energy, such as solar power and wind power, but not every day is sunny with a billow in your sail. The folks over at Covanta Energy are offering an additional solution to the ongoing effort of sustainability – Energy-from-Waste (EfW).
Trash being sent to an EfW facility is happy trash!
With 35 EfW facilities in the United States, Covanta offers trash producers a long-term alternative to filling landfills with waste. Annually, Covanta processes over 17 million tons of waste, and produces about 9 million megawatt hours of clean, renewable electricity. In addition, Covanta produces 10 billion pounds of steam that are sold back into the industry, and recycles 400,000 tons of metal per year – that’s enough to build over 275,000 hybrid vehicles! To break it down, each ton of waste processed at an EfW facility like Covanta produces approximately 550 kilowatt hours of electricity and about 50 pounds of recycled metal. Unlike other methods of creating renewable energy, our country’s constant stream of trash allows for a constant supply of clean energy. However, EfW does not compete with recycling efforts. Rather, Covanta and the like are an add-on to the aforementioned trifecta — so we can now think of it as: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Recover.
In addition to the energy produced, we should consider the the impact of EfW facilities in terms of climate change. Approximately 63% of global warming is attributable to carbon dioxide emissions, closely linked to the generation of energy. In conserving our energy use, we decrease the demand for fossil fuels, and in turn reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Recycling and reusing will prevent trash from ending up in landfills, which are hot sites for the production of methane, which accounts of 18% of greenhouse gasses. But for the remaining waste – waste that arrives at EfW facilities – this trash actually has a negative impact on climate change.The EfW industry reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 20 million tons each year! For each ton of trash that enters an EfW facility, one less ton of carbon dioxide is released as a combined result of avoided landfill methane emissions, fossil fuel power generation, and the transportation of waste and metals production.
Energy from Waste facility in Newhaven
So let’s review. EfW produces clean, renewable energy, creates industrial-friendly steam, recycles metal, and has a negative effect on climate change. So alongside the daily sustainability grind of reduce, reuse, recycle, we are now equipped to continue our efforts for a greener tomorrow, with the trash we can’t recycle as our weapon. I guess you could say Covanta and EfW facilities are really thinking outside the box… or outside the landfill.
#THINKFWD 