The Good from Garbage

Americans throw away 125 million tons of garbage every year. In the past, it has been routinely picked up, hauled away and dumped somewhere--out of sight and mind. But lately, as disposal costs mount and dumping sites in metropolitan areas get scarcer, cities have been thinking anew about their solid wastes. What they have found is that from 70% to 80% of the refuse consists of paper, cardboard, wood, plastics and food scraps. The rest is mostly glass and metal. Their conclusion: with a little modern alchemy, municipal garbage can be converted into municipal gold.

Manufacturers are already paying for recovered steel (from $60 to $30 per ton) and aluminum ($300 per ton); the metals can easily be recycled to make new products. Beyond that, the great mass of combustible refuse can be sold to power companies or factories as a supplementary fuel that could lessen U.S. dependence on high-priced foreign oil by as much as 150 million bbl., or about 7% per year. Everybody thus benefits from the efficient use of solid wastes, especially the municipalities that can turn the headache of garbage disposal into the pleasure of profit.

Sort, Shred, Burn. About 25 major cities across the nation are now going into the garbage game, and at least another dozen are considering taking the plunge. Most of them are following the path blazed first hi Europe and now in St. Louis, where the Union Electric Co. has contracted to take all the trash from the city and seven surrounding counties. It will sort and sell the metals to recyclers, shred the combustible materials and burn them along with coal to create electrical power. When the system goes into full effect in 1977, Union will reduce its annual purchases of coal by 1 million tons. Similarly, the Coors brewery near Denver, a Georgia-Pacific plant in Toledo, Ore., and several other companies are also creating power by burning garbage in furnaces. Further variations on this basic formula are being planned in Chicago, Columbus, Los Angeles, Milwaukee and Washington, D.C., among other cities.

Another process, called pyrolysis, will be used in Denver, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Baltimore, Seattle and Charleston, W. Va. Refined by Monsanto, Union Carbide and other companies, the technique involves new, virtually oxygen-free furnaces to convert organic trash into oil or gas. In El Cajon, near San Diego, Occidental Petroleum's Garrett Research and Development Co. and the Environmental Protection Agency are jointly building a test pyrolytic plant that when completed in 1976 will have a capacity of 200 tons per day. For every ton of garbage that goes in, 1 bbl. of oil will come out, ready for sale to San Diego Gas & Electric Co. If the system were used nationally, San Diego officials say, the oil from garbage could amount to anywhere from 8% to 15% of the U.S.'s energy requirements.

Still other communities have other solutions. In New Orleans, for example, most of the terrain is marshy, and sanitary landfill is needed more than fuel. So the city will get landfill from garbage processed by a private contractor. Around Boston, nine communities will pay Wheelabrator-Frye Inc. $13 per ton to burn their garbage, which will produce steam for sale to a neighboring General Electric factory. Nashville, Term., which already burns 25% of its solid wastes to produce steam to heat and cool 23 downtown commercial buildings, now plans to double the input (and output) by 1978.

Most ambitious of all are Connecticut's plans for its garbage. Last year a quasi-public Resources Recovery Authority was set up to manage a garbage collection and re-use program for the entire state. By 1985 it is expected to handle 10,000 tons of solid wastes daily in ten regional collection centers. The first will soon be built in Bridgeport by Garrett Co., which will sort garbage and sell every component--the metals, the fuel and even the ashes (for landfill or highway construction). If all goes well, the authority will earn $100 million a year by 1985; that will more than cover its costs. For then" part, Connecticut residents will save the $100 million that they used to pay for municipal garbage disposal. "There are no technological problems with garbage any more," concludes Rita L. Bowlby, an authority official. "All that is needed is initiative."

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