17414_Authority_April_2024

10 The Authority | APRIL 2024 By Karen Gross, Communications Manager, Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority Rethinking Solid Waste for a Sustainable Future The role of the Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority (LCSWMA) is to manage the nearly one million tons of municipal solid waste and recyclables that waste collectors and residents bring to its facilities. LCSWMA’s award- winning Integrated System, which has an outstanding history of environmental excellence, consists of a Transfer Station Complex, one of Pennsylvania’s top environmentally performing landfills, a Household Hazardous Waste facility, and two waste-to-energy facilities. The lynchpin to LCSWMA’s Integrated System are the two waste-to-energy (WTE) facilities (Susquehanna Resource Management Complex and Lancaster WTE) where a combined 2,000 tons of waste is combusted per day. The waste-to-energy process converts municipal solid waste into an energy producing, sustainable resource that offers many benefits to the community. At the Lancaster Waste-to-Energy Facility, LCSWMA generates about 36 megawatts of electricity at any given time. The facility itself consumes six of those megawatts and 25 are sold into the local power grid—enough to power more than 20,000 Lancaster County homes and businesses. The remaining steam is sent to Perdue AgriBusiness, an adjacent business partner that utilizes the steam for its soybean processing, replacing the need for fossil fuels. At the Susquehanna Resource Management Complex in Dauphin County, LCSWMA generates about 23 megawatts of electricity of which 90 percent is sold to the Department of General Services to power nearby Pennsylvania State government buildings. The benefits of waste-to-energy go beyond sustainable energy production. The combustion process reduces waste volumes by 90 percent which preserves landfill capacity and something very important to the Lancaster County community - farmland! LCSWMA’s 96-acre landfill in Conestoga began operating in 1989. Without waste-to-energy, Lancaster County likely would have needed two more landfills of the same size. In fact, the existing Frey Farm Landfill would have reached capacity in 2001. By launching an innovative vertical expansion project in 2017 that includes a nearly one mile Mechanically Stabilized Earth (MSE) berm, the landfill is expected to provide capacity until 2038! Another benefit of waste-to-energy is that it reduces greenhouse gas emissions by eliminating the creation of methane if the waste had been landfilled. Plus, the process allows for metal recovery and recycling as ferrous and non-ferrous metals are extracted after combustion and sent to market for recycling. Although the combustion process is not emission-free, emissions from the waste-to-energy facilities are strictly and consistently monitored by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and publicly reported. LCSWMA has an outstanding history of operating below the DEP’s permitted emissions limits, and the facility operates up to 99 percent below current federal emissions standards. Waste-to-energy is LCSWMA’s secret sauce to managing waste as a resource to protect and benefit the communities it serves, but there are other innovative partnerships and initiatives that are creating opportunities to help reduce its carbon footprint. For decades, LCSWMA’s leadership and staff have explored opportunities Continued on page 38.