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91 <br />Memorandum <br />To: Board of Orange County Commissioners <br />From: Solid Waste Advisory Board <br />Jan F. Sassaman, PhD, Chair <br />Subject: SWAB Recommendations <br />Alternative Waste Processing Technologies Report <br />by GBB to Orange County <br />Dater September 24, 2008 <br />At its August 7, 2008 meeting, the Solid Waste Advisory Board received a detailed <br />presentation from Harvey Gershman of Gershman, Brickner and Bratton (GBB) on Waste <br />Processing Technologies. Gershman's presentation was based on a study conducted for <br />the County that evaluated those technologies that might provide an alternative to <br />landfilling municipal solid waste (MSW) generated in Orange County that is not <br />separated and recycled or composted. The BOCC is scheduled to receive a similar <br />presentation on GBB's study results. <br />The GBB study calculated that at Orange County's current level of MSW generation of <br />fewer than 200 tons per day, the cost of financing, building, owning, and operating a <br />waste -to- energy plant would cost about $100 per ton after sale of electricity generated <br />from the heat recovered from incineration and sale of scrap metal recovered from the <br />residual ash. The cost per ton of owning and operating a facility declines with larger <br />.facilities, such as those investigated in the study that ranged from 600 to 3,000 tons per <br />day in capacity. <br />Current cost of landfilling waste at Orange County's landfill is $49 per ton; quoted tip <br />fees at nearby transfer stations in Durham are $40 at the City -owned facility and $42 per <br />ton at Waste Industries' private facility. Both the City of Durham and Waste Industries <br />truck the MSW delivered to transfer stations to remote private landfills, each about ninety <br />miles away from Durham; thus the tipping fees charged are assumed to cover the costs of <br />operating the transfer station, transport, and landfilling at the final destination. The GBB <br />study concluded that is it not economical in the short-run to consider a stand alone waste <br />combustion facility to handle waste from only Orange County and that the other <br />emerging technologies investigated in the study are at present not mature, practical, <br />proven, or appropriate for managing large quantities of mixed solid waste. <br />Consequently, at its September 4, 2008 meeting, the SWAB made the following <br />recommendations with respect to the County's near -term solid waste strategy. <br />1. Concentrate near -term solid waste management efforts on getting the <br />County's transfer station sited, permitted, designed, built, and operating, <br />