Agenda - 12-01-2008 - 3d - Laserfiche WebLink

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