Air emissions from advanced, or chemical, recycling facilities are regulated by federal, state and local agencies and are likely to be below most permitting thresholds, according to a report prepared by Eugene, Oregon-based sustainability firm Good Company for the American Chemistry Council, Washington.

The findings demonstrate that these emissions are similar or lower than those from other common facilities, such as hospitals, college campuses, food processing and auto manufacturing.

Advanced recycling technologies can provide a solution for plastics that cannot be mechanically recycled economically. The processes turn end-of-life plastics into new compounds that can be used to create new plastics, waxes, lubricants and lower-environmental-footprint fuels. These emerging technologies can present significant opportunities to recover end-of-life plastics, and if brought online at scale can provide an important step forward in recovering plastic waste and making new products without virgin materials, according to the analysis.

“Our analysis shows that the emissions produced by pyrolysis-based advanced recycling technologies were below both common facilities air emissions and the threshold for Title V permits,” says Josh Proudfoot, co-founder and principal of Good Company.

Advanced recycling facilities are regulated by the federal Clean Air Act and state and local regulatory authorities ensure that the facilities must meet strict criteria for operating, the analysis notes.

“This is promising news for an emerging industry that has great potential to help solve the plastic waste challenge and displaces virgin materials, taking us one step closer to total recovery of plastics,” Proudfoot adds.

The report looks at emissions for six criteria air pollutants, commonly known as CAPs, from pyrolysis-based advanced recycling facilities and compared them with publicly available U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) air quality standards and federally reported air emissions data. The analysis found emissions from advanced recycling facilities to be very low.

Additionally, it found that these facilities produce very low levels of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), well below EPA permitting requirements.

The report, titled “Comparison of Pyrolysis-Based Advanced Recycling Air Emissions to Common Manufacturing Emissions,” is an update to a 2017 report also released by Good Company. The 2021 report looks at advanced recycling facilities that can process up to 55,000 tons of post-use plastics annually, whereas the 2017 report looked at facilities that can process up to 15,000 tons annually, demonstrating rapid growth and commercialization of the industry while continuing to produce emissions that are well below federal permitting requirements.

The range of facility sizes is averaged to 55,000 tons of plastics annually and includes smaller and larger facilities—all still regulated under the Clean Air Act.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) announced on March 18 it has found per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination in groundwater at 59 closed landfills in 41 counties in the state. Groundwater at each of these sites exceeded the Minnesota Department of Health’s (MDH’s) health-based guidance values for PFAS. Overall, the MPCA has found PFAS contamination in groundwater at 98 of the 101 tested sites in the closed landfill program.

Fifteen closed landfills tested have PFAS contamination that exceeds state health-based guidance values by at least 10 times. The MDH has developed health-based guidance values to represent levels for various PFAS in drinking water that it considers safe for people, including sensitive populations, over their entire lifetime.

“The MPCA has found PFAS contamination in almost every closed landfill it oversees,” MPCA Commissioner Laura Bishop says. “Once again, our assessments tell us that PFAS is everywhere in our environment. That’s why the agency needs the ability to use dedicated funds more flexibly to rapidly respond to these urgent contamination incidents.”

In order to rapidly address unexpected environmental releases or incidents, the MPCA requested the ability to use funds in the Closed Landfill Investment Fund (CLIF) during the 2021 Minnesota legislative session. Under current state law, the MPCA must wait until the legislature appropriates funding before responding to a contamination incident. Legislative delays or gridlock could put Minnesota communities at risk.

At the Gofer Landfill, located in Martin County, multiple PFAS have been detected in groundwater at concentrations 1,343 times the health risk limit at the landfill. PFAS contamination has been detected in nearly all of the monitoring wells at the landfill, in an adjacent creek and one off-site temporary monitoring well. According to the MPCA, all drinking water wells within a mile of the landfill have been tested and PFAS was not detected in any of the drinking water wells. The agency is further investigating to identify the area of contamination coming from the landfill. Gofer Landfill closed in 1986.

Along the banks of the Minnesota River in Scott County, the Louisville Sanitary Landfill operated for 22 years until it closed in May 1990. According to MPCA reports, seven out of 12 active groundwater monitoring wells report PFAS exceedances. The MPCA will sample nearby residential water supply wells as well as Gifford Lake and the Minnesota River.

In addition to PFAS contamination, an underground fire started at the landfill in late 2020.

With the discovery of PFAS contamination in groundwater, the MPCA will expand its water monitoring  statewide to ensure drinking water is monitored and the full extent and magnitude of the contamination is known, it says. Ongoing samplings of groundwater around these sites will help determine the impact of PFAS contamination while informing the need for additional remedial actions. Significant PFAS contamination in groundwater can be addressed by installing an engineered system to pump groundwater that will control the movement and reduce the impact of the contamination. The MPCA plans to conduct feasibility studies to determine how best to treat groundwater and leachate contaminated with PFAS.

In February 2021, the MPCA, along with other state agencies, released Minnesota’s PFAS Blueprint—a strategic approach to protect families and communities from PFAS. The blueprint included immediate, short- and long-term strategies that state agencies, the Minnesota legislature, industries and local governments can consider to prevent, manage and clean up PFAS contamination. An identified immediate need was responding when PFAS are found in closed Minnesota landfills, and a short-term strategy centered around developing plans to monitor PFAS in groundwater at active landfills.  

Carving out his own path in the waste industry is something that Willie Goode aspired to ever since he was young.

Goode, who started working on the back of his uncle’s waste truck at the age of 15, took to the industry right away. Blessed with a football player’s size and an even bigger work ethic, he got accustomed to doing whatever it took to service the company’s customers.

Whether it was getting up early to spend the day throwing trash in the back of a truck, or jumping behind the wheel to drive the truck at the age of 15 before he technically had his license (Goode says he was a better driver than his coworker his uncle partnered him with), he was committed to getting the job done right.

With plenty of years of practice behind the wheel, Goode eventually took a job as a roll-off driver at AmCo at the age of 20. Then, in 1991, Waste Management purchased the company.

It was at this time that Michael Magee met Willie Goode.

Magee, who was Waste Management’s president of the Washington, D.C., metro area, was told by Goode’s boss that Willie was someone with a bright future.

“I was told by his boss that Willie was a sharp young man that really needs to be in management, and that we should consider giving him a job,” Magee says. “We had just bought the company, and were looking for talented managers and supervisors. After meeting with him, I thought he’d be a great fit, so I offered him a job as a supervisor at Waste Management, and he turned me down.

“He said, ‘Mr. Magee, I really want to have my own business. I think that this is a good opportunity for me to go out and buy a truck. And, if everything goes well, I’m going to have three trucks—one for me, one for my brother and one for my cousin—and we’re going to start a little trash company.’ I instantly liked the guy.”

Goode quickly put his dreams into action. After purchasing a truck, he set off on his own, founding C and G, a D.C.-based commercial waste management company. In 1992, Goode changed the name to Goode Trash, and a few years later after noticing that none of the top waste companies had “trash” in their name, changed it again to Goode Companies Inc.

A partnership formed

Shortly after Waste Management purchased AmCo, Magee was faced with a problem.

Magee says that Waste Management was under a collective bargaining agreement with the Teamsters in D.C. and there was a significant amount of collection work set aside for minority businesses, as well as labor-intensive manual pickup work that the union would not do.

Faced with the problem of finding a suitable subcontractor to take on the work, one name came to mind.

“I offered that work to Willie as his first big book of business as a minority subcontractor to Waste Management, and he took that on and that started our business relationship. I’m not saying that it launched his business, because he already had bought his truck and was doing his own thing, but that really forged our relationship, and he did a great job,” Magee says.

After Magee was transferred back to the Colorado market in 1996, Goode Companies continued to grow its operations and customer base. With an eye on further expansion, Goode partnered with Bruce Bates in 1996. Bates, like Goode, also grew up in the waste business, working for his father’s trucking company from the time he was a teenager. At the time Goode partnered with Bates, Bruce was running Bates Trucking on his own following the death of his father and older brother.

Shortly after partnering together, the pair won a contract to service Montgomery County, Maryland, after which Bates and Goode formed Unity Disposal. They then partnered to form Team Transport, a long-haul trucking business that hauled waste from New York and Philadelphia to landfills in Virginia.

After years of building these businesses together, they decided in 2014 to combine their two roll-off operations, open up a construction and demolition (C&D) recycling facility that they dubbed Recycle One, and blended the Team Transport division all under a new banner—WB Waste Solutions LLC.

In 2015, Magee says he was ready to retire and settle down in Colorado after decades in the waste business. That’s when he got a call from an old acquaintance.

“Willie and Bruce wanted me to make an investment in WB Waste, and asked if I would come along and help them try to continue to grow,” Magee says. “At the time, they had just received a permit to expand Recycle One from a C&D transfer facility to a MSW and C&D transfer facility. So, they were expanding their footprint, and I agreed to make my investment and became a partner in WB Waste.”

A combined effort

Besides Magee, Goode and Bates—who serve as the company’s owners—WB Waste now employs a staff of 220. Together, the company serves the D.C. metro region, including Baltimore, as well as customers in Maryland and northern Virginia, Richmond and Chesapeake, Virginia. To handle the company’s hauling needs, the company boasts a roster of 170 collection trucks and tractor trailers.

Presently, WB Waste owns and operates four transfer stations, a material recovery facility and a landfill that have been acquired or purchased through a combination of organic and M&A activity.

In all, the company now owns and operates Steel Street Transfer Station in Chesapeake, Virginia, which is a C&D transfer and processing facility; Skinquarter Landfill, which is a greenfield C&D landfill in Richmond, Virginia, that opened in August 2019; Tri-County Recycling, a single-stream and clean recyclable and C&D transfer facility in Hughesville, Maryland; Olive Street Processing, a single-stream material recovery facility in Capitol Heights, Maryland; Recycle One Processing, which is a C&D and MSW transfer facility in Hyattsville, Maryland; and Federal IPC, which is a C&D and MSW transfer station and processing facility in D.C.

The company also has six truck terminals that double as offices and garages where the company conducts business and where its vehicles are serviced.

While all of its facilities complement one another, Magee says the opening of the Skinquarter Landfill was especially instrumental in giving the company the autonomy it needed.

“It gave us a tremendous amount of freedom,” he says. “Now, being vertically integrated, like with many of the big public companies, it gave us the flexibility to be able to internalize waste that we were otherwise paying somebody else to get rid of, so it was huge. It was probably the single-biggest strategic move that we have been able to make over the last five years.”

Despite the company’s recent history of strategic growth and expansion, one thing WB Waste couldn’t plan for was the downturn in business created by the COVID pandemic.

Magee says that being a company focused on commercial roll-off work and waste processing in large metro areas resulted in a substantial drop in volumes.

“We saw our volumes drop pretty significantly last year, especially in the months of March, April and May, which are normally some of our busiest months,” Magee says. “The hotels closed, the restaurants closed, so a lot of our trash volume went down. Initially, we were probably down close to 35 percent right out of the gate. It recovered since then a little bit, but we were still down at the end of the year. When comparing March 2019 through December 2019, to the same period last year, we ended up down about 20 percent in volume year over year.”

Compounding this hit in volumes were challenges brought on by riots in Washington, D.C., in summer 2020 following the death of George Floyd, as well as the Capitol riots at the outset of this year.

“Between the riots last year and this year, and disruptions around the presidential inauguration, we’ve had some difficult things to deal with that are not exactly friendly to us trash guys working in Washington, D.C., but we’ve weathered those storms pretty well,” Magee says.

“One thing I’m proud of with WB Waste is that our employees were very well taken care of throughout all this upheaval—we didn’t lay off one person through this whole thing,” he continued. “We’ve kept our employees and our payroll intact. And we are hoping that this year, as we come out of the winter, business is going to be a lot more robust than what we’ve had over the last year, and we’re prepared for that. So, we’re hopeful for the rest of 2021, but certainly are optimistic about 2022.”

When looking forward to the company’s prospects for the future, Magee points to WB Waste’s recent history as an indication of its upward trajectory. He says that the company has quadrupled in size over the last five years and that its plans are to continue to find avenues to advance the business.

“I would say that there is a lot of runway ahead of us, and a lot of room to maneuver, and we’re going to continue to pursue opportunities for growth over the next few years,” he says.

Asked what has helped the company find success in the competitive landscape in which WB Waste operates, Magee says that the unique structure of the company and the people involved have been instrumental in allowing the company to flourish.

“We bring a unique history. Willie and Bruce grew up in this city, and I have an intimate background in running a big waste company here,” Magee says. “So, from solely an owner’s perspective, there’s probably no group that knows this market better than we do. I also bring some of the back office [knowledge] and other discipline of the public companies with my background. Willie and Bruce have taken the risks and have been tremendously successful from an operations perspective, which is why we complement each other so well. It’s all any of us have ever done in our adult lives, and we just know this market, so I would say that that’s really what sets us apart.

“We’re also all very accessible as owners and all active in the day-to-day business. We don’t build a lot of layers within the company, and we’re not big on titles. We have great managers and employees, but we are truly all teammates that take care of each other. There’s not a day that goes by that the three of us aren’t deep in the trenches asking questions and being involved in decision-making. It’s probably a nontraditional structure than what you would see in a lot of big organizations or other organizations of our size, but it works really well for us.”

This article originally appeared in the March issue of Waste Today. The author is the editor of Waste Today and can be contacted at aredling@gie.net.

Redwave has expanded its product portfolio of sensor-based sorting technology to include conveyor belts specially optimized for the recycling sector.

Redwave is headquartered in Austria, with branch offices in Germany, China, Singapore and the United States.

"In the past, we often had to live with compromise solutions when purchasing standardized conveyor belts,” says Redwave Managing Director Manfred Hödl. “In many cases, the systems lacked adaptability with regard to customer conditions and needs, such as a small footprint. In addition, we were dependent on the supplier with regard to delivery dates.”

For these reasons, Redwave says it has developed conveyor belts specifically designed for the recycling industry. "We know the recycling industry and how different materials behave on conveyors in the course of several years. The choice of scrapers, belts, etc., is already made during the planning and design process," he says.

The right conveyor belt optimizes the performance of sorting equipment and improves throughput, according to the company.

The requirements for conveyor belts in the recycling industry differ significantly from the requirements of other industries, Redwave says. Even within the recycling industry, the requirements vary based on the material being processed.

Redwave conveyor belts feature improvements of the chute connection for feeding the sorting machines. They offer easy accessibility, which plays a major role during cleaning and maintenance because contamination and blockages are not uncommon in recycling plants. For example, removable sheet metal cladding and swiveling floor panels make cleaning easier and minimize the amount of maintenance required, the company says. External lubrication points also improve accessibility and offer time savings.

Dust also can be an issue in recycling facilities. For this reason, Redwave has developed belt seals (covers and gutter seals) that are adapted for the material the recycling plant handles.

The conveyor belts are installed in Redwave systems as troughed belt conveyor, sliding belt conveyor and chain belt conveyor. Their modular design allows the length of the conveyor to be modified easily and also allows additional equipment (sensors, weighing system, scraper) to be retrofitted easily, according to the company.

Redwave says it purchases quality parts from well-known European manufacturers. These high-quality parts, such as the drive system, bearings, rollers and belts, guarantee long service life.

Using Redwave Mate, a form of artificial intelligence, the conveyor belts are networked into the entire sorting system to aid with optimizing the sorting process.