By Greentech Lead America: Covanta Energy, a sustainable
waste management and renewable energy provider, has opened a new metal
recycling system at its Energy-from-Waste (EfW) Facility in Fairfax County, VA.
The system is specially designed to recover very small particles of non-ferrous
metal.
Covanta partnered with Steinert US, for non-ferrous metal
recovery systems. The partnership is supporting the implementation of new
non-ferrous systems at many Covanta facilities that currently do not have them
and enhances systems that are already in place, as in the case of Covanta
Fairfax.
“Improving efficiency and sustainability are key
aspects of our culture and as such, we are continuously looking for new ways to
recover value from waste and divert materials from landfills. I’m proud of the
way our team recognized the opportunity to recycle additional non-ferrous metal
and quickly got this new system up and running,” said Seth Myones,
Covanta’s chief operating officer.
The production of new aluminum, copper, and other metals
from raw metal materials is a carbon intensive process that negatively impacts
the environment. The recovery of non-ferrous metal at Covanta’s EfW facilities
for recycling avoids a tremendous amount of greenhouse gases.
For every ton of municipal solid waste processed at
Energy-from-Waste facilities, greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by the
equivalent of approximately one ton less of carbon dioxide emissions. This is
possible due to the avoidance of methane from landfills, the offset of
greenhouse gases from fossil fuel electrical production and the recovery of metals
for recycling.
The new small non-ferrous recovery system at Covanta
Fairfax will annually prevent the creation of 15,000 tons of greenhouse gases,
equivalent to planting over 340,000 tree seedlings.
“The new recycling system at the Energy-from-Waste facility
complements our recycling initiatives very nicely and is a great example of how
energy recovery and robust recycling programs can go hand in hand,” said
Joyce Doughty, director of Fairfax County’s Division of Solid Waste Disposal
and Resource Recovery.
Covanta’s 41 EfW facilities in North America recycled
over 400,000 tons of ferrous and over 15,000 tons of non-ferrous metal, the
equivalent amount of steel that would be used to build five Golden Gate Bridges
and in the production of over one billion aluminum beverage cans in 2011.