DEP Awards $863,000 Grant to Promote Continued Growth of State's
Recycling Industry
The DEP has awarded a $863,429 grant to Penn State University to
create the Pennsylvania Recycling Markets Center at Penn State-Harrisburg
to encourage the continued growth and economic health of the Commonwealth's
recycling and reuse industry, which already leads the nation in employment,
payroll and sales numbers.
"The success of our recycling program is proof that environmental
stewardship can be a driver for sustained economic growth," said
Secretary McGinty, who made the announcement at the Penn State Harrisburg
Campus in Middletown, Dauphin County. "This center will assist
in developing healthy, accessible markets for Pennsylvania's recycled
materials."
Pennsylvania's recycling industry comprises more than 3,247 recycling
and reuse businesses and organizations that generate more than $18.4
billion in gross annual sales, pay $305 million in taxes and provide
jobs for more than 81,322 employees at an annual payroll of approximately
$2.9 billion.
The mission of the Recycling Markets Center, or RMC, is to expand and
develop more secure and robust markets for recovered secondary materials,
stimulate demand for products with recycled content, and research and
maintain up-to-date market trend data. The center will be the lead organization
to develop recycling markets in Pennsylvania, working with environmental,
technical assistance and economic development organizations to support
generators, haulers, processors, manufacturers and end-users of recycled
materials and products.
"Our job is to create the center, and get it up and running. However,
the RMC will have its own board of directors and staff, and will operate
as an independent entity," said Dr. Charles A. Cole, Berg Professor
of Environmental Engineering and Director of the Environmental Training
Center at Penn State Harrisburg, which, as the parent entity, will review
such items as RMC strategic plans, business plans and financial reports.
"The center is an exciting prospect and will continue Pennsylvania's
leadership in the important field of recycling, by showing the way to
develop new markets for recycled products."
DEP earlier this month awarded $485,270 in recycling markets infrastructure
development grants to finance equipment purchases that will increase
the use of Pennsylvania-generated recycled feedstock at Waste Not Technologies
LLC of Saylorsburg, Monroe County, and St. Jude Polymer Corp. of Frackville,
Schuylkill County. The increased ability of manufacturers to locate
and consume materials from state recycling programs will encourage the
development and expansion of Pennsylvania's recycling industry, directly
benefiting both our environment and the economy.
"The RMC is the next logical step in our recycling program,"
Secretary McGinty said. "For us to recycle more of our trash instead
of sending it to landfills, which is better for our environment, we
must make sure there are viable local markets for all the recycled materials."
Act 175 of 2002 requires DEP to develop a recycling program plan, including
a market-development program, and formulate strategies to make recycling
programs in Pennsylvania self-sufficient. Market development programs
will be financed by the Recycling Fund, which is supported by a $2 per
ton fee on all materials disposed of in landfills in Pennsylvania. Act
175 extended the Recycling Fund fee through 2008.
Governor Rendell has proposed an $800 million bond referendum to expand
and enhance Growing Greener. Part of this initiative would provide $25
million a year to the Recycling Fund to assist municipalities with existing
programs that give more than 10 million Pennsylvanians access to recycling.
The money also will help 42 municipalities newly mandated to recycle
as a result of the 2000 federal census. However, the Legislature did
not pass the Governor's initiative before adjourning for summer.
For more information on Pennsylvania's recycling market development
programs, visit http://www.dep.state.pa.us,
Keyword: "DEP Market Development."
Demonstration Grants
DEP has awarded $137,600 in Waste Recovery Demonstration Grants
for two public-private partnerships to develop innovative resource-recovery
projects in Philadelphia and McKean counties. These projects are for
public and private entities working in partnership to develop innovative
waste-recovery processes.
Liberty Township, McKean County, in conjunction with RecycALL Inc.,
will receive $100,000 to develop and demonstrate a manufacturing process
that utilizes mixed broken glass derived from the processing of recyclables.
The glass will be used as a raw material in the production of concrete
products such as highway barriers and drainage outlet boxes.
Philadelphia, in partnership with the White Dog Café, will use
$37,600 to establish an on-site, in-vessel, food-composting demonstration
project. The project will highlight composting operational needs and
issues in an urban setting while producing a compost soil amendment.
DEP offers up to three Resource Recovery Demonstration Grants worth
as much as $100,000 each year to municipalities, counties and solid
waste authorities to fund up to 75 percent of the cost of developing
unique and innovative demonstration projects that recover energy or
materials from solid waste. Grants are funded under the Solid Waste
Resource Recovery Development Act, known as Act 198 of 1974. Demonstration
projects must recover at least 50 percent of the solid waste entering
the system, either in the form of energy or materials. Eligible costs
include education, final engineering, capital costs, and testing and
evaluation.
PENNDOT Recycling Initiatives
Tarrtown Bridge Project Tire Shred Embankment Project
The Tarrtown Bridge Project, which will use approximately
750,000 tires as lightweight geotechnical fill, is ongoing. The tire
shredding and bridge construction contract was awarded to A&L Construction
(Belle Vernon, PA). The PENNDOT Strategic Environmental Management (SEM)
Program Office developed the geotechnical subsurface and embankment
model for the Tarrtown project to model slope stability, embankment
movements, and settlement, and developed trigger values for the instrument
alarm system designed to monitor temperature, pressure and voltage in
the fill area. This project used tires from two municipal cleanups,
thus saving disposal costs for DEP and the associated municipalities.
PENNDOT also held two tire amnesty days, and a tire collection day for
tire dealers, replacement and automotive companies to supply clean car
and truck tires for no tipping fee in order to obtain the tires necessary
for the project.
Post-Consumer Shingles in Hot Mixed Asphalt (HMA) in a Paving
Demonstration Project
Evidence that PENNDOT's SEM Program Office is becoming recognized
for promoting recycled materials reuse is that contractors are now beginning
to initiate material substitutions on PENNDOT projects. A contractor
initiated the project for this project with no cost substitution. This
project was conducted even though the first post-consumer shingle project
conducted by PENNDOT was evaluated in May -June 2004 as not being successful.
As a result, PENNDOT SEM Program Office has opened dialogue with the
contractors to address perceived issues and performance in anticipation
of possibly conducting additional demonstration project projects.
Septic Sand
Recycled glass manufactured to meet the specifications for
fine or coarse aggregate in DEP's on-lot sewage system regulations had
been acceptable for use as a replacement for aggregates in on-lot systems
for many years. However the required approval process of this material
by the Department on a site-by-site basis made its use impractical.
In February 2004, a listing was added to the alternate aggregate section
of the Alternate Systems Guidance to help remove previous barriers from
the use of recycled glass in on-lot systems. Glass sand for on-lot systems
including free access intermittent sand filters and recirculating sand
filters now requires approval only by the sewage enforcement officer,
and not by the Department, on a site-by-site basis, which is the same
requirement that all aggregates have. As a result, one MRF has depleted
their stockpile of about 8,000 tons of broken glass cullet within a
few months of approval of this requirement.
Rails to Trails Project
PENNDOT is working with a local conservancy group to construct
an embankment for handicap access to an old rail trail with the use
of crushed glass as fill material. It is estimated that approximately
22,500 tons of glass cullet will be needed for the 700 linear foot section
of the trail that needs to be filled to meet existing grade. DEP provides
support for such projects through a Memorandum of Understanding with
PENNDOT's Strategic Environmental Management Program Office (SEM). Funding
in the amount of $90,000 from the SEM Program Office will offset additional
design and purchase costs associated with utilizing the glass cullet.
Crushed Glass-Dredge Material Blends
DEP is supporting a demonstration project through PENNDOT's
SEM Program in conjunction with the Army Corp to utilize dredge material
from the Delaware River to blend with crushed glass in order to enhance
the physical properties of the material so that it can be used in embankments
or as structural fill material. If this project is successful, this
method may be utilized in metropolitan areas in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh
and Erie, where PENNDOT can receive dredge material provided for free
by the Army Corp and blend it with locally crushed glass, thus saving
on transportation costs of appropriate soils into these urban areas.
This use will require a beneficial use permit from DEP and language
for the permit will be developed as part of the project. Field-testing
is now complete and modeling efforts will be underway shortly.
Workshop on the Engineering Applications Using Crushed Glass
DEP and PENNDOT will conduct the second crushed glass workshop
in Spring 2005. The purpose of the workshop is to share new information
on crushed glass applications in transportation and other engineering
applications. The last workshop brought together PENNDOT district engineers
and glass processors, and resulted in renewed interest in using glass
as an alternative to aggregate in transportation projects.
Glass Processors Update
All of the glass processors in PA have been visited by DEP recycling
staff, and a new listing of these facilities is available on our website
at http://www.dep.state.pa.us,
PA Keyword 'Market Development.'
The
Hartford Marathon
Mansfield
celebrated its first Festival on the Green on Sunday afternoon,
September 19, 2004.
Waste stations included can and bottle recycling, Hosmer Mountain Soda
bottle return and composting. Food vendors were asked to serve food
on paper plates or bowls and beverages in recyclable containers. Attendees
were provided with knives, forks and spoons made from corn. Volunteers
guided fair attendees in the disposal of their waste. At the end of
the day 71 pounds of paper plates and cups, napkins, corn-based forks
and spoons, and food went to the transfer station for composting. 29
pounds of bottles and cans were recycled, Hosmer Mountain Soda got their
bottles back for reuse and the remaining 82 pounds went to the trash
incinerator. Of the 182 pounds of waste produced, 55% of it was either
recycled or composted. Mansfield used 20 "trash stations"
in total. Clear StreamTM Units (see photo) were placed next to the trash
barrels and composting buckets. The town of Mansfield owns 10 Clear
Stream™ Units and had borrowed the other 10 from the town of Middletown
and Granby. 
As
solid waste disposal costs in Connecticut continue to increase, one
of the priorities of the DEP is to promote the beneficial use of certain
materials that otherwise would be burned or landfilled. Beneficial use
is defined as using a solid waste in a manufacturing process to make
a product or as an effective substitute for a commercial product. (See
Connecticut General Statute 22a-209f for more information.) 
The
third beneficial use general permit would allow spent residential asphalt
roofing shingles to be stored, processed, beneficially used as Ground
Asphalt Aggregate (GAA) in sub-base, aggregate base and/or hot mix binder
applications where it will be covered with a top course of asphalt pavement.
Hot mix asphalt top course cannot be produced with GAA. This general
permit will assist in the removal of this waste stream from our landfill
and provides the mechanism for reusing our finite resources. 
The
ReCONNstruction Center Goes International
Electronics
Recycling Update from Nova Scotia (and Atlantic Canada)