Connecticut’s top environmental officials want to overhaul the waste-to-energy industry by drastically reducing the amount of fuel fed into the incinerators, although still ultimately burning — rather than burying — the state’s trash.
“Too much goes into those incinerators now that has an economic value,” said Dan Esty, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection at a Connecticut League of Conservation Voters environmental summit in December.
The proposed revamp comes as waste-to-energy operators such as the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority face economic pressures from the spiraling descent of electricity prices caused by the prevalence of natural gas, forcing them to seek revenues elsewhere.
“If we have no garbage, we have no energy, and we go into a death spiral,” said Paul Nonnenmacher, spokesman for CRRA, which was formed in the mid-1970s.
Connecticut burns more of its post-recycled municipal solid waste than any other state. Less than 11 percent of the state’s waste ends up in landfills. The next closest state is Massachusetts at 29 percent.
While Connecticut’s state environmental officials don’t want a greater percentage of trash to end up in landfills, they say far too little of the material is recycled before being sent to the incinerators. Much of that material — such as hard plastics, mattresses, yard trimmings, and food waste — could be put to a better use than being burned for a kilowatt of electricity.
“Waste is wasteful,” said Macky McCleary, DEEP deputy commissioner for environmental quality.
Connecticut’s recycling rate is 24-25 percent, below the national average of 28 percent. Officials at DEEP and the state’s Recycling Work Group are working to double or even triple the recycling rate over time, reducing the state’s overall waste.
The state already is working with large producers of food waste such as grocery stores and restaurants to keep organic materials out of landfills through either composting or building digesters that capture the gas from decomposing food to use as fuel for power generation. The state legislature passed a law last year requiring these food users to send their waste to the nearest anaerobic digester, although none have been built in the state yet.
“We are not there yet in terms of infrastructure,” McCleary said.
To increase the rest of the recycling rate, DEEP wants to work with construction and demolition companies to keep more of their waste materials out of landfills. The agency also plans to partner with municipalities with low recycling rates to increase those rates.
Ultimately, municipalities and heavy waste producers will benefit from increased recycling, McCleary said, as their trash hauling costs will decrease.
Unfortunately for CRRA and other waste-to-energy operators such as Covanta Energy, increased recycling means less fuel and less electricity produced by their plants.
“The world in which CRRA was created is much different than it is today,” McCleary said.
CRRA is the state’s biggest recycler, but the majority of its revenues come from the electricity produced in Hartford and Preston waste-to-energy plants and from the waste disposal fees charged its 50 municipal clients.
Those waste-to-energy plants are becoming less economical. The abundance of domestic natural gas and the ensuing drop in commodity cost has decreased the wholesale price of electricity in New England.
“That reduces the price we can get for our electricity,” Nonnenmacher said. “The price of electricity has dropped so quickly and so far that it has left a big hole in our revenues.”
CRRA can raise its disposal fees to offset the loss of electricity revenues, but once disposal becomes too expensive, then its municipal clients will seek out other haulers, who can dispose of trash more economically. Once the level of trash feeding the incinerators falls below a certain threshold, the waste-to-energy plants and CRRA are no longer economically viable, Nonnenmacher said.
Other waste-to-energy operators such as Covanta Energy, which has 31 municipal clients for its plants in Bristol, Wallingford, and Preston, are bundling their service to municipal clients, offering composting, recycling, and waste disposal services as well as consulting on electronic recycling and organics.
“We have a true win-win,” said Steve Diaz, Covanta vice president and regional business manager. “We provide towns with the services they want.”
Covanta is looking to secure a long-term deal with its 14 municipal clients around the Bristol facility when its contracts expire in June 2014. Like its other deals in Connecticut, towns will be encouraged to recycle and reduce the waste sent to the company’s waste-to-energy plants.
“When you look at Covanta, we are more than just (waste disposal), especially when it comes to Connecticut,” Diaz said.
Covanta has been in talks with DEEP about opening and operating one of the state’s first anaerobic digesters to take in food waste from grocery stores and restaurants.
State support for waste-to-energy will be important if the recycling, disposal, and electric price trend continues, Nonnenmacher said. If CRRA becomes too expensive for its municipal clients, more trash could be hauled by those that would put it in landfills.
“We are here to follow whatever directions the state gives us,” Nonnenmacher said. “We hope that the state will help us.”
While officials at DEEP continue to support waste-to-energy — and it is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s preferred form of waste management — private environmental groups oppose the incinerators because of the greenhouse gases and toxins that can be emitted when trash is burned.
Data from CRRA’s facilities show their emissions are well below the acceptable health thresholds. Environmental prefer increased recycling and then putting the remainder of waste in landfills with gas collectors to capture the emissions from the decomposition process.
However, McCleary said, incineration is a more productive use of waste than burying it and Connecticut must continue its tradition in waste-to-energy, although in a reduced format where recycling takes preference.
“Waste-to-energy is acknowledged in Connecticut and in countries across the globe as a critical part of an advanced disposal system,” McCleary said.
