Green Landfill Closures

Reuse and recycle of construction and demolition (C&D) debris is more than good economic sense.  It also represents significant environmental benefit in terms of reduced emissions of greenhouse gases.

Taylor Recycling, LLC (Taylor) of Montgomery, New York, a family owned C&D debris recycler, knows first hand of the multiple benefits.  Taylor receives and processes approximately 300 tons per day (tpd) of C&D debris.  Taylor invests significant efforts to recover marketable recyclables which are reused/recycled into new products representing significant energy savings.  Such recyclables include:

• Cardboard and Paper to the Paper Market
• Ferris Metals
• Unadulterated Wood
• Plastics
• Gypsum
• Asphalt, Brick & Concrete

The wood is further separated to cull virgin and untreated/unpainted (unadulterated) wood to be chipped and cured for distribution as landscape decorative mulch.

Following the sorting, separating and recycling process, the remaining residue is passed through a shredder and reduced in size.  This processed material is successfully used for landfill daily, intermediate and final cover system components.  In most respects, it performs even better than natural earth material.

Case Study

Approximately 15 miles from Taylor’s plant, the Town of Monroe, Orange County, New York was faced with the closure of the old Town dump with an approximate nine (9) acre footprint.

Initial efforts to bid the construction work were not successful.  The design called for approximately 49,000 cubic yards (cy) of soil to grade and shape the landfill prior to the installation of a conventional geomembrane/soil cap.  The Town rejected the bids and did not award the final cover construction contract due to poor response and extremely high bid pricing.

The Town went back to the drawing board and negotiated an agreement with Taylor to furnish the rough grading and subbase material.  Under the agreement, Taylor furnished approximately 42,000 tons of the processed residue and paid the Town in excess of $100,000.  The Town rebid the final cover construction without the rough grading and subbase items.  The final contract for the landfill cover construction was nearly one-half the original bid amount.  But the $1.5 million savings in material supply and construction cost is only part of the story.

Avoided Fuel Consumption:

If earth materials were used for the rough grading and subbase items as originally envisioned, substantially more fuel would have been consumed:

• Taylor’s material would have been hauled to landfills approximately 250 miles away.  At 25 tons per truckload a total of 840,000 truck miles would have been logged between Taylor’s plant and the permitted disposal facilities.  This translates to a fuel savings of more than 133,000 gallons.

• Use of Taylor’s material also avoided the mining, processing and transportation of an equivalent volume of soil and select fill from the local market.  This saves an additional 102,000 truck miles. 

Based upon industry experience for excavation, loading and hauling this translates to an additional saving in fuel consumption on the order of 20,000 gallons.

• The avoided fuel consumption realized through the beneficial use of Taylor’s material significantly reduced the production of significant air pollutants and greenhouse gases.

In addition, the production of significant amounts of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, particulates, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are avoided. 

Transportation Risks:

Industry statistics indicate a highway fatality rate of 2.5 deaths per 100,000,000 truck miles driven.  The Monroe project resulted in a reduction of more than 850,000 miles compared with having to haul the material at a permitted landfill and haul natural sand to the landfill.  This translates into a substantially reduced risk of death due to traffic accidents.