l' IIINE 't1l1E · 'l'llllSII (~1\NS November 1978 RAIN Page 5 The authors of the following article are members of Oregon Appropriate Technology, a small a.t. research and.consulting group that grew out of the Lane County Office ofAppropriatf Technology. The level on which they are focusing heredrawing together the straightforward facts on the economies and options in solid waste recovery-may feel,a little new to some ofyou. But its pragmatic, community -scaled approach is extremely important. What pans out is,that there are genuine alternatives to more high-tech, low-job government scams, in which our new values and tools not o·nly improve the community, but are cost-effective as well. Just read on. (Oregon Appropriate Technology can be reached at P. 0. Box 1525, Eugene, OR 97440.) - SA NC)'I' 'l'IIE I.1\NI) by Dan Knapp, Tom Brandt and Don Corson Other Examples Tell the Same Story Another mechanized facility, in La Grande, Oregon, was scheduled to begin operation at about the same time. Unlike Lane County's system, the La Grande plant worked. Bu~ the refuse-derived fuel (RDF) was full of rags and plastic scraps that clogged the feed screws serving Boise-Cascade Corporation's bo~lers, and there were also metal fragments that activated protective shut-down devices. And so La Grande's fuel was rejected by the only market within economical shipping distance. A load of the shredded ferrous material was rejected by the closest detinning facility-in S,eat~le-for the same reason: , too dirty,·plus the additional objection that the cans were wadded up instead of opened, making detinning impossib.le even if the material was clean. As unmarketable materials piled up around the new resource recovery facility, a large citizen's committee was convened to study the situation. Their recommendations: close the plant, reopen the landfills, sue the manufacturer to recover the county's costs,'investigate·the consultants who provided the estimates of how much material and income the plant would recover. . . In San Francisco at about the same time, a large mechanized ferrous recovery facility operated by Los Angeles Byproducts- one of the first plants of its kind- was abandoned due to the collapse of its market after four years of operation. And down in San Diego, an even more high-tech plant costing around $14 million is experiencing similar problems, with an added twist. Besides the usual recovered fractions, this plant is designed to make what its backers call "pyrofuel," which is a very low-grade fuel oil made by burning garbage in an oxygen-starved atmosphere. The pr.oblem is that this "garboil" is highly corrosive; it corrodes the pipes and pumps it passes through, the containers it is stored in, and, if it is ever manufactured and burned in quantity, it will also corrode the boilers where it is fired. Interestingly, the plant has a futuristic "linear induction motor" to recover aluminum, copper and brass (it uses electricity, but acts like a magnet in reverse). But the nonferrous material doesn't make its pass by the linear induction motor until after it is shredded into bits and pieces. This mixes the aluminum, brass and copper so that it can't be ~old as aluminum, brass or copper ($600, $700, and $900 per ton) but instead must be sold as mixed nonferrous at $27. Still, the plant op·erators have determined that it is cost-effective'to put the ~ixed nonferrous product through one final process to restore its value: handsorting. Disappearing Markets , -Until recently, county solid waste officials maintained a mood of steadfast optimism that markets for the fuel and ferrous fractions would be found. But developments like these have dampened things considerably. - Since the major materials recovered arr unmarketable so far, it is hard to estimate the prices they would bring if they were •marketable. Top price for clean, flattened and delabeled cans is only in the $20-25 range, but the shredded ferrous is too contaminated to be sold on this market. Refuse-derived fuel prices guessed at in solid waste circles seem to be in the $2-3 per ton area, well below the price paid for recycled paper and cardboard. And so the conclusion is inescapable: even if markets can •be found for mechanically recovered materials like RDF or ferrous, their price per ton will still be far below that for handsorted materials. Right now their price is zero. Meanwhile, the high value metals like aluminum, copper and brass are shredded and/or buried as usual. continued+
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