Steinert partners with Covanta on first-of-its-kind metal recycling system
New system installed at Virginia energy-from-waste facility
Covanta Energy Corporation, a world leader in sustainable waste management and renewable energy, announced in June (2012) the inaugural operation of a new metal recycling system at its Energy-from-Waste (EfW) Facility in Fairfax County, Virginia. According to the company, this first-of-its-kind system in North America is specially designed to recover very small particles of non-ferrous metal, and its operational commencement represents a key milestone for Covanta’s organic growth initiative.
“Improving efficiency and sustainability are key aspects of our culture and as such, we are continuously looking for new ways to recover value from waste and divert materials from landfills,” said Seth Myones, Covanta’s chief operating officer. “I’m proud of the way our team recognized the opportunity to recycle additional non-ferrous metal and quickly got this new system up and running.”
In March (2012) Covanta announced a strategic alliance with Steinert US, Inc. for non-ferrous metal recovery systems. The partnership is supporting the implementation of new non-ferrous systems at many Covanta facilities that currently do not have them and enhances systems that are already in place, as in the case of Covanta Fairfax.
“We are proud to have achieved one of the highest recycling rates in the state at 47 percent and work hard to continually improve the recovery of recyclable materials,” said Joyce Doughty, director of Fairfax County’s Division of Solid Waste Disposal and Resource Recovery. “The new recycling system at the Energy-from-Waste facility complements our recycling initiatives very nicely and is a great example of how energy recovery and robust recycling programs can go hand in hand.”
In 2011, Covanta’s 41 EfW facilities in North America recycled over 400,000 tons of ferrous and over 15,000 tons of non-ferrous metal – the equivalent amount of steel that would be used to build five Golden Gate Bridges and in the production of over one billion aluminum beverage cans.
Covanta says the recovery of non-ferrous metal at their EfW facilities for recycling, material that would have otherwise been lost in landfills, avoids a tremendous amount of greenhouse gases, as the production of new aluminum, copper, and other metals from raw metal materials is a carbon intensive process that negatively impacts the environment. The new small non-ferrous recovery system at Covanta Fairfax will annually prevent the creation of 15,000 tons of greenhouse gases, equivalent to planting over 340,000 tree seedlings.
Recovering energy from waste after efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle have been employed is a critical component of managing Covanta's residual waste. The company says for every ton of municipal solid waste processed at Energy-from-Waste facilities, greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by the equivalent of approximately one ton less of carbon dioxide emissions. This is possible due to the avoidance of methane from landfills, the offset of greenhouse gases from fossil fuel electrical production and the recovery of metals for recycling.
Covanta Energy Corporation is an internationally recognized owner and operator of large-scale Energy-from-Waste and renewable energy projects and a recipient of the Energy Innovator Award from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Covanta’s 45 Energy-from-Waste facilities provide communities with an environmentally sound solution to their solid waste disposal needs by using that municipal solid waste to generate clean, renewable energy. Annually, Covanta’s modern Energy-from-Waste facilities safely and securely convert approximately 20 million tons of waste into 9 million megawatt hours of clean, renewable electricity and create more than 9 billion pounds of steam sold to a variety of industries.
