GreenYes Digest V98 #245

GreenYes Mailing List and Newsgroup (greenyes@ucsd.edu)
Fri, 22 Jan 1999 17:24:51 -0500


GreenYes Digest Fri, 20 Nov 98 Volume 98 : Issue 245

Today's Topics:
Fwd: Coal waste
Recycling in Cyberspace
Use Less Stuff Day
Visiting Florida

Send Replies or notes for publication to: <greenyes@UCSD.Edu> (please add
a descriptive Subject header)
To unsubscribe, email: <greenyes-Digest-Request@UCSD.Edu> with the
message: unsub greenyes-digest
For problems you can't solve otherwise, email: <postmaster@ucsd.edu>
The GrassRoots Recycling Network's Web site is: http://www.grrn.org

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loop-Detect: GreenYes:98/245
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 22:35:18 EST
From: DavidOrr@aol.com
Subject: Fwd: Coal waste

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

--part0_911532919_boundary
Content-ID: <0_911532919@inet_out.mail.aol.com.1>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII


--part0_911532919_boundary
Content-ID: <0_911532919@inet_out.mail.aol.com.2>
Content-type: message/rfc822
Content-disposition: inline

Return-Path: <owner-eadvocate-l@igc.org>
Received: from relay30.mx.aol.com (relay30.mail.aol.com [172.31.109.30]) by
air05.mail.aol.com (v51.29) with SMTP; Thu, 19 Nov 1998 14:11:15 1900
Received: from igcb.igc.org (igcb.igc.apc.org [192.82.108.46])
by relay30.mx.aol.com (8.8.8/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0)
with ESMTP id OAA23194;
Thu, 19 Nov 1998 14:11:02 -0500 (EST)
Received: (from majordomo@localhost)
by igcb.igc.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id LAA26840;
Thu, 19 Nov 1998 11:07:51 -0800 (PST)
Received: from imo14.mx.aol.com (imo14.mx.aol.com [198.81.17.4])
by igcb.igc.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id LAA26714
for <eadvocate-l@igc.org>; Thu, 19 Nov 1998 11:07:14 -0800 (PST)
Received: from Agmeltzer@aol.com
by imo14.mx.aol.com (IMOv16.10) id FUNa002365
for <eadvocate-l@apc.igc.org>; Thu, 19 Nov 1998 14:06:51 -0500 (EST)
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 14:06:51 EST
From: Agmeltzer@aol.com
Message-ID: <e3888c67.36546c4b@aol.com>
Precedence: bulk
Sender: owner-eadvocate-l@igc.apc.org
Subject: Coal waste
To: eadvocate-l@igc.org
X-Mailer: AOL 3.0 16-bit for Windows sub 64
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Dear fellow advocates:

The article below contains the details of a new project being planned in
Pennsylvania that aims to convert coal ash and incinerator waste into floor
tiles. Although at first glance it seems like a sensible use of waste products
and a sustainable integration of energy and materials into consumer goods, I
have trouble being to trustworthy of industrial developers.

Does anybody have information on, or prior experience with, this type of a
facility? Please post comments to the listserv, as there are others who may
have interest as well. Thanks.

Alec Meltzer

Pennsylvania Consumer Action Network
3001 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
(215) 382-1390
(215) 382-4680 fax

By Anne Barnard
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
NEW MORGAN, Pa. -- Development here has been raising hackles since
1988, when this Berks County borough -- population 15 -- voted to split
from Robeson and Caernarvon Townships.
Neighbors of the borough grumbled when the Conestoga Landfill opened
here in 1994. In August, some of them filed a federal lawsuit over proposals
to add an auto racetrack and a juvenile detention center to New Morgan's
landscape.
Now, though, a Delaware County-based company has a plan that aims to
please environmentalists, nearby residents and development boosters alike:
It wants to manufacture porcelain floor tiles on the landfill's property,
using
recycled methane gas and wastewater collected from its rotting garbage in
the process.
The Terradyne Group, whose office is in Media, won approval Tuesday
from the Pennsylvania Economic Development Financing Authority to issue
$85 million in tax-free bonds to build a $117 million plant on land to be
leased from Browning-Ferris Industries (BFI), the giant waste-disposal
company that owns the landfill.
Using a method patented by Vortec Corp. of Collegeville, Terradyne and
Berks County officials said, the plant would manufacture the tiles from
industrial waste materials: coal ash from two Pennsylvania Power & Light
Co. stations and possibly from trash incinerators; and by-products from
lime, sand and gravel processing. It would use the gas and water in the
heating and cooling process.
The plant would generate $75 million in construction work, and its 170
employees could be drawn from a 20-mile radius in Berks, Chester and
Lancaster Counties, said Tom McKeon, director of community and
economic development for Berks County's Industrial Development
Authority.
And while some nearby residents and at least one county official remain
skeptical, McKeon hopes the Terradyne plan will blunt any lingering public
anxiety about the landfill.
"We're seeing this as turning the landfill to our economic advantage," he
said.
McKeon envisions the project as the first of many that would make use of
Berks County's burgeoning waste-disposal industry, which has helped make
Pennsylvania the nation's largest importer of out-of-state solid waste.
BFI vice president Michael Dougherty said the plan would dovetail with the
concept of "eco-industrial parks" -- clusters of symbiotic industries using
one another's waste -- outlined in a recent report by Gov. Ridge's 21st
Century Environment Commission.
Steve Morgan, spokesman for the state Department of Community and
Economic Development, said the plan was one of the first Economic
Development Financing Authority projects to fit that bill -- after a Beaver
County factory approved last year to use coal ash from a neighboring power
plant to produce synthetic gypsum for making wallboard.
Jeffrey D. Barnes, the Center City entrepreneur who heads the Terradyne
Group, said that at full capacity the plant would use 4,300 cubic feet of gas
per minute -- the equivalent of burning 1,000 gallons of oil per hour -- to
heat ash to 2,700 degrees to make tiles.
He said the landfill would produce that much; its methane is now simply
burned off.
Barnes, who lists coal and paper recycling among his previous ventures, said
Terradyne's profit would come from the low cost of energy and materials
that would otherwise be considered waste.
But he still faces some hurdles: Dougherty said BFI wants to lease 33 acres
to Terradyne and acquire another 33 acres in New Morgan from
Morgantown Properties, the company that owns most of the borough.
Berks County must approve the change in landfill's 426-acre footprint.
County Commissioner Mark Scott said that before voting to change the
boundary, he would check BFI's compliance history and make sure the
change would not extend the life of the landfill. His fellow Republican, Glenn
Reber, said it would not, and added that he and Democratic Commissioner
Randy Pyle had pushed hard to attract Terradyne to the site.
In New Morgan -- whose population is now estimated at 40 -- Terradyne
expects the plan to sail through hearings Dec. 10 before the Borough
Council and the Planning Commission. The two bodies have identical
members.
"They adjourn one meeting and call the next," said Bob Twombley of
Media, Barnes' partner.
But in the view of neighbors to the borough, Terradyne is walking into a
volatile situation.
"We do have a problem with any new construction in New Morgan right
now," said Kathy Brill of Mohnton.
She is one of a group of residents of surrounding communities that filed a
civil rights suit in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia in August against New
Morgan, its officials, and Raymond Carr, a Chester County developer,
restaurateur and antique-auto collector who runs Morgantown Properties.
The suit calls New Morgan a "sham borough" created by Carr and his
companies to evade zoning strictures, and asks the court to enjoin it from
acting as a government. The defendants have asked that the suit be
dismissed.
In 1985, Carr and his company, the Pickering Group, bought the
abandoned Grace iron mine from Bethlehem Steel Corp., 4,300 acres in
what was then part of Caernarvon and Robeson Townships. After the
townships tangled with Carr over a proposed trash-to-steam plant, the
borough seceded, sparking a long legal battle that ended in 1992, when the
state Supreme Court approved New Morgan's formation.
"Some people would call New Morgan a company town," said County
Commissioner Scott.
Under the Terradyne plan, besides selling land to BFI, Morgantown
Properties would provide the plant with surface water from the abandoned
mine.
Barnes, Terradyne's head, said he hadn't paid much attention to local
politics. "Our interest is solely in the project," he said.

--part0_911532919_boundary--

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 21:51:57 -0500
From: "Roger M. Guttentag" <rgutten@concentric.net>
Subject: Recycling in Cyberspace

Dear List Members:

Some of you may be familiar with a column that I write for Resource
Recycling called Recycling in Cyberspace. I am always looking for new
directions and issues to explore as part of my ongoing effort to help waste
reduction and recycling professionals use the Internet more effectively.
Currently, I write four types of columns:

1. Detailed site reviews in those cases where the site is large and complex
enough to warrant this treatment (e.g. EPA)

2. Category surveys where sites relating to a specific topic are discussed
(e.g. grasscycling, market development)

3. Critique surveys where my objectives are to show examples of how the
Internet is being used effectively by waste reduction / recycling oriented
sites as well as to suggest certain developments when I don't see them in
evidence in the sites that I track. (e.g. recycling equipment
manufacturers, state recycling organizations).

4. Tool columns that discuss how to use the Internet more effectively (e.g.
site promotion)

I would like to ask the readers of my column (all three of you) if you have
any suggestions regarding topics or issues that you would like to see
addressed in 1999 (and beyond.............!). Are there any format changes
you would like to see (more opininated commentary, blue-sky suggestions,
interviews with webmasters)? Feedback and comments of any kind will be
appreciated. Replies to the lists or to me directly are both fine.

Sincerely,

Roger M. Guttentag
215-513-0452
215-513-0453 (fax)

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 08:36:40 -0800
From: Paul Tapley <Paul.Tapley@sonoma.edu>
Subject: Use Less Stuff Day

Subject: Use Less Stuff Day

On the way to work this AM I heard mention of today being ULS day. This is
the first I've heard or seen of ULS this year. Anyone heard more, is it being
promoted in your community? Any publicity going on out there, or events at
your site?

Paul Tapley
Recycling Coordinator
Sonoma State Univ.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 21:30:29 -0500
From: "Roger M. Guttentag" <rgutten@concentric.net>
Subject: Visiting Florida

At 08:08 PM 11/18/98 -0800, Myra Nissen wrote:
>I will be visiting southern Florida next week. Anyone know of any
>recycling facilities or materials exchanges over there that would be fun
>to visit?
>
>Myra Nissen
=========================================
Dear Myra:

Here are my recommendations:

Palm Beach County MRF - 561-640-4000 (PB Solid Waste Authority)
Broward County MRF - 305-765-4202 (BC Office of Integrated WM)

Roger M. Guttentag
215-513-0452
215-513-0453 (fax)
Read Recycling in Cyberspace in Resource Recycling
November, 1998 - Market Development
December, 1998 - Composting

------------------------------

End of GreenYes Digest V98 #245
******************************