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Honda (NYSE: HMC) announced today that 10 of its 14 North American manufacturing plants are now operating with zero waste to landfill, while the remaining four plants are functioning with “virtually zero” waste to landfill.

The announcement marks a significant milestone on the company’s “Green Factory” initiative.

Honda has dramatically reduced the waste it sends to landfills – from 62.8 pounds in fiscal year 2001 to an estimated 1.8 pounds per automobile in the current fiscal year. Among all of its 14 plants in North America, Honda now sends less than one-half of 1% of operating waste to landfills.

Remaining waste product is either recycled or used for energy recovery, the company says.

Honda Manufacturing of Alabama, in Lincoln, Ala., became the first zero-waste-to-landfill auto plant in North America at the outset of production in 2001. Honda Manufacturing of Indiana, in Greensburg, Ind., also started production as a zero-waste-to-landfill plant in 2008.

Since the establishment of zero-waste-to-landfill production in its Alabama plant in 2001, Honda has undertaken a major initiative at plants throughout the region to eliminate landfill waste. To understand what comprised each plant’s landfill waste, Honda associates went “Dumpster diving,” looking at the composition of the waste material resulting from all of its production activities.

On the basis of these findings and subsequent investigations, Honda associates at all 14 plants in North America have identified and implemented hundreds of waste-reduction and waste-recycling initiatives.

These initiatives run the gamut, from the reduction of offal (metal scrap) in stamping processes, to improved parts packaging for ease of recycling, to the minimization of paper and plastic waste from cafeterias.

As a result of these efforts over the past 10 years, the company has prevented an estimated 4.4 billion pounds of waste material from being sent to landfills, which is equivalent to the amount of household waste produced by 2.8 million Americans, roughly the population of Chicago, in a single year.

Many of the waste-reduction and recycling activities were undertaken through Honda’s associate involvement programs, including its “NH Circle” quality circles, where teams of associates throughout the company engage in an annual competition to improve efficiency, cost and waste reduction.

Examples of waste reduction initiatives include:

Engine plants in Ohio, Alabama and Canada are reusing virtually all leftover sand from aluminum and ferrous metal casting operations. In FY2010, the three plants recycled a total of 9,400 tons of sand, which is used as mulch and landscaping material, and in concrete products.The Marysville Auto Plant initiated a program to reduce the amount of offal by reducing the size of steel sheets used to stamp new body parts. The program, which significantly reduces the environmental impact of transporting and recycling the steel, is now being adopted by other Honda factories in North America around the world. Honda Power Equipment in Swepsonville, N.C., initiated a closed-loop system for recycling aluminum scrap from the machining trimming process, melting the scrap into ingots that are recycled into die-cast operations.

The East Liberty, Ohio, auto plant built a recycling bin for bolts, other unused fasteners and parts packaging, enabling the factory to recycle more than 22 tons of steel each year.

Within the past year, all four Honda plants in Ohio completed their initiative to eliminate more than 500 metric tons of cafeteria waste produced annually. The plants joined with other Honda plants in North America in transitioning to washable dishware and to disposing of solid waste through composting, recycling and energy recovery.The Marysville and East Liberty, Ohio, plants also recently began washing and reusing thousands of plastic caps each day that are used to protect parts during shipping.

The only two remaining landfill waste streams in all of Honda’s North American production activities are: paper, plastic and food waste from associate break rooms and cafeterias at Honda’s Mexico automobile and motorcycle plants, where there exists no more environmentally responsible means of disposal; and a byproduct of the paint pretreatment process for aluminum body panels at both the East Liberty and Marysville, Ohio, auto plants, which, due to EPA regulations, is non-recyclable.

Honda says it is working with the EPA to identify an alternative means of disposal.

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SOURCE: CIWM, OCTOBER 2008

With commodity prices rising at unprecedented rates the viability of landfill mining is now being looked at seriously, with landfills regarded as untapped mines of valuable resources, such as plastics and metals.

Their exploitation will raise interesting legal issues. The concept of waste remaining waste until recovered or disposed of is familiar. That being so, how quickly after deposit at a landfill is waste finally “disposed of”? Is it immediately, or must we wait, perhaps until it has biodegraded? But that would be a meaningless test for inert wastes.

With “landfill” being the deposit of waste onto or into land, and with the new Waste Framework Directive stipulating that “land” is excluded from its remit, it begs an interesting question as to the point at which waste deposited “into” land simply becomes part of the land, and therefore no longer a waste.

Landfills still subject to closure and aftercare requirements under the Landfill Directive would create a regulatory headache, but mining a historic landfill might create fewer difficulties. The activity would not fall naturally into any existing PPC category and if the contents are not waste, presumably no environmental permit would be necessary. However, unless you exploit 100 percent of what you excavate, you are presumably re-creating waste from the material you then re-discard.

Perhaps, as with carbon capture and storage, if progress starts to be made, the legislators may step in and fill the regulatory gap.

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SUGAR LAND, TX, Jul 15, 2011 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas) — Most states have government-backed incentives and regulations regarding air quality. Many of these are aimed at increasing the use of renewable energy.

California focuses on meeting ambitious environmental goals every year. The state’s environmental goals are reflected in a renewables portfolio standard (RPS), a Bioenergy Action Plan, and Executive Order S-3-05. The current state goal is to have electricity retail sellers produce 33% of their power from renewable sources by 2020. The Altamont landfill gas (LFG)-to-liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility near Livermore, California, is an example of a currently operating renewable energy project. The facility is a joint venture between Linde North America (Murray Hill, New Jersey) and Waste Management .

The facility is considered the world’s largest LFG-to-LNG plant.

For details, view the entire article by subscribing to Industrial Info’s Premium Industry News at http://www.industrialinfo.com/showNews.jsp?newsitemID=183026 , or browse other breaking industrial news stories at www.industrialinfo.com .

Industrial Info Resources (IIR), with world headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas, is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. IIR’s quality-assurance philosophy, the Living Forward Reporting Principle(TM), provides up-to-the-minute intelligence on what’s happening now, while constantly keeping track of future opportunities.

For more information send inquiries to oilandgasproductiongroup@industrialinfo.com or visit our website at www.industrialinfo.com .

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Another $300,000 is likely to be sunk into Palmerston North’s old Awapuni landfill, New Zealand, to rescue gas generation and recycling projects.

The redevelopment of the city’s dump, closed in 2007, has already run $4.1 million over budget.

City council water and waste manager Chris Pepper resigned when the overspending scandal broke in March.

The council’s Audit and Risk Committee met yesterday for an update on whether the gas generation project could be saved.

It has recommended spending $150,000 in an attempt to increase the production and capture of methane gas from the landfill, and another $150,000 on a pre-sorting area to make the recycling process work better. The gas project is the one needing most urgent attention.

At the current rate, it is not going to produce enough gas to generate electricity to satisfy a carbon credits deal under the Kyoto Protocol with the Austrian Government. The penalty for failing to get to within 80 per cent of its target by the end of next year could be $600,000.

The council set up a separate review panel chaired by Ross Linklater to analyse what went wrong, to make in-house improvements to ensure such overspending did not happen again, and recommend a way out of the fiasco.

Cr Linklater said the immediate issue was how to increase methane production. Consultants Tonkin and Taylor had suggested several improvements that were starting to be put in place.

“I don’t think it’s a lost cause,” said project director Simonne Eldridge.

Methane collection was still more of an art than a science, she said, and it had proven to be consistently harder to achieve than optimistic assessments dating back to 2002.

But a lot had been learnt about how to manage landfill gas fields better in the years in between.

She said the council should appoint a site manager to closely monitor its condition. It should plan to reduce the liquid content of some areas of the landfill to help gas collection, sink more wells, stop leaks and thoroughly survey the area to find the richest gas producing pockets.

The committee recommends the review panel should have the power to sign off another $150,000 worth of spending as soon as it can be shown to be a good investment.

City Networks general manager Ray Swadel said while action was needed urgently, the bad experiences of the project’s past highlighted how important it was to make the right decisions based on quality information.

Ratepayers’ response to recycling with the roll-out of kerbside bins saw a dramatic increase in the volume of recycling arriving at the facilities.

However, the project accounted for $1.1m of the total project overspending, and still excluded a pre-sorting area that was flagged as a serious omission back in 2009.

There were health and safety risks for staff who carried out pre-sorting in the area where trucks unloaded. The area was uncovered, exposing staff to all weathers. Material was damaged when it rained, and some blew away when it was windy. For $150,000, it is proposed to set up a mechanised, pre-sort and in-feed process.

Next week’s council meeting has to approve the recommendations.

- The Manawatu Standard

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A project in Wewoka, Oklahoma will use landfill gas to fuel a nearby brick factory, reducing approximately 30,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas pollution per year in the process.

The project is being financed by eBay, Esurance, Designtex, Ceres, Brighter Planet, and College of the Atlantic through the purchase of NativeEnergy’s Help Build carbon offsets.

The project developer is landfill gas to energy specialist, Enerdyne Power Systems and the landfill is owned by Sooner Landfill, LLC, a subsidiary of WCA Waste Corporation and WCA of Oklahoma, LLC.

NativeEnergy is a provider of verified carbon offsets and renewable energy credits. NativeEnergy’s Help Build carbon offsets help finance construction of Native American, family farm, and community-based carbon reduction projects.

Wells will be installed at the Wewoka landfill to capture the gas which will be delivered through a half-mile pipeline to the Commercial Brick Corporation’s kilns.

Bob Hartsock, President of Commercial Brick Corporation, said the favorable long-term contract for the gas from the landfill will pay for the investment to retrofit the burners in his kilns and help the company remain competitive in a challenging market.

Jeff Bernicke, President of NativeEnergy, noted: “This project shows that well-planned environmental initiatives can deliver local economic and social benefits too. We’re pleased to play a central role in this project and are thankful for the substantial participation of key customers.”

eBay, Esurance, Designtex, Ceres, Brighter Planet, and College of the Atlantic have already made significant purchases of carbon offsets from the project.

By purchasing NativeEnergy’s Help Build carbon offsets the companies are providing upfront funding to the project and in return they will receive a share of the project’s long-term verified carbon reductions.

The Wewoka Biogas Project is NativeEnergy’s fiftieth Help Build project. (http://landfill-gas.com)

William Brinker, Vice President and Operations Manager of Enerdyne, said:

“This is a perfect example of how to make a small project work. WCA Waste wanted the gas from their project to be put a beneficial use, and Commercial Brick was looking for a way to control their fuel costs. With the two properties adjoining, this was a perfect match! Thanks to the capital and carbon funding provided by NativeEnergy’s Help Build program, we were able to bridge the gap between all of the parties and build a successful project.” 

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Pittsboro, NC – Computer equipment and televisions will be banned from disposal in North Carolina landfills as of July 1, as required by NC Session Law 2010-67 passed last year by the General Assembly. This means, as of July 1, these items cannot go in the trash.

The law provides that televisions and computer equipment, which includes laptops, desktops, monitors, printers, scanners and peripherals such as mice and keyboards, cannot be disposed in any NC landfill. Other components of the law are designed to create statewide recycling opportunities for discarded electronics and to place significant responsibilities on electronics manufacturers to help fund and create those opportunities.

All computer manufacturers are required to offer at least a free mail-back program for their own equipment, and some will offer additional kinds of recycling options. A number of retailers also offer recycling of electronics, as do some nonprofit and charitable agencies. A comprehensive list of recycling options for residents and businesses can be found at p2pays.org/electronics/.

In preparation for the ban, Chatham County is expanding its existing electronics recycling program. Special recycling containers called E-Cycle Stations will be set up by July 1st at all 12 county Collection Centers to accept electronics weighing less than 50 pounds from county residents with a current decal. Residents are required to use these new containers and should not place electronics in the trash compactors or in bulky item bins. Collection Center attendants will show residents where to carefully place or stack these items. Due to privacy and safety concerns, all items in the E-Cycle Stations become the property of Chatham County and cannot be removed.

If electronic items are in good working order, and residents choose to leave them in the Swap Shop, they should make sure that all personal information has been removed from data storage. Residents are also encouraged to seek donation opportunities through local nonprofits and repair service companies. Call the Waste Management Department for guidance at (919) 542-5516.

During regular business hours (M-F, 7am to 4pm), the Chatham County Main Waste Management Facility at 720 County Landfill Road offers an E-Cycle Station for county residents disposing of electronic items weighing over 50 pounds. This E-Cycle Station is also open to small businesses and nonprofit organizations, and residents that live in the town limits of Pittsboro, Siler City, and Goldston. Anyone recycling electronics at this facility must first sign in at the county Waste Management office, and should bring someone to help unload heavy items. A decal is not currently required to recycle electronics at this location.

As outlined in the law, the General Assembly recognizes that discarded computer equipment and televisions are rapidly growing and complex waste streams. The disposal ban will help address the potential for toxic materials found in some electronics to enter solid waste landfills.

The ban also helps divert highly usable materials to a growing electronics recycling industry in the state. North Carolina is home to a number of major national and regional electronics processors with investments of plants and equipment exceeding $50 million that employ more than 300 North Carolinians.

“By capturing valuable materials for reuse and reducing our dependence on landfills, electronics recycling can help us achieve both our environmental and economic development goals,” said Dee Freeman, secretary of the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources. “I encourage all North Carolinians to join in this effort to make the electronics disposal ban a success.”

Computer equipment and televisions join a list of other materials banned from disposal in North Carolina, which most recently have included plastic bottles, wooden pallets and oil filters. These bans have resulted in increased recycling of the materials and have helped spur further growth in the state’s recycling economy.

For a list of all items accepted in Chatham County’s Electronics Recycling Program, visit chathamnc.org/wastemanagement or call Teresa Chapman with the Chatham County Waste Management Department at (919) 542-5516.

For details on the new state law, please visit portal.ncdenr.org/web/wm/sw/electronics, or contact Scott Mouw with the Division of Environmental Assistance and Outreach at scott.mouw@ncdenr.gov or (919) 715-6512.

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An ambitious plan to build a huge shopping, office and housing complex on top of an old landfill in St. Petersburg has been scrapped, the developers acknowledged Tuesday.

A group called Florida Gateway Development I LLC had proposed buying the Toytown landfill along Interstate 275 from Pinellas County. There, it planned as many as 2,100 housing units, up to 1.5 million square feet of shops and restaurants and up to 2 million square feet of office space.

Florida Gateway Development I was comprised of Industrial Realty Group of Los Angeles and Bear Creek Capital of Cincinnati.

However, Pinellas County leaders hadn’t heard from the developers recently and began having doubts about the project.

On Tuesday, Pinellas County’s economic development department got official word that the developers were pulling the plug. Bill Tippmann, a consultant working for the developers, sent a letter to Pinellas County saying economic conditions hadn’t improved enough for the developers to keep making the necessary commitments to keep the project alive.

Florida Gateway Development I was facing a July 1 deadline to put up a $350,000 deposit on the Toytown land.

Tippmann did not return calls from The Tampa Tribune in recent days.

The Pinellas County Commission is expected to talk about what to do with Toytown at its July 12 meeting. An unnamed company from Germany has proposed building a solar energy field in Pinellas County, possibly at Toytown, said Mike Meidel, the county’s economic development director.

However, Meidel said the Toytown site may be too valuable for a solar field alone.

“I personally don’t see it as highest and best use for that property,” he said.

Some people have suggested building a new stadium for the Tampa Bay Rays at Toytown, even though it never got past the hypothetical stage. Any stadium developer probably also would want to build a larger retail complex, so that sports fans could visit nearby shops and restaurants, Meidel said.

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The only way it is possible to define the zero waste philosophy is to study the schemes which describe themselves as zero waste projects around the world.

However, let me make it clear, nowhere that I know of does it mean literally “zero waste” to landfill. As I said, this is a term coined by politicians rather than waste management engineers.

The “Zero Waste” or “No Waste” goals in the places which were studied by the Green Alliance in 2006, were found to mean in effect no un-recycled waste, and not much more.

Yes, most are articulated as Zero Waste to landfill, however, none of the places in question at that time seemed to be planning an increase in incineration for example, which would reduce the waste tonnage greatly, and some appear to have ruled it out (Canberra, Kamikatusu, New Zealand, Philippines) citing negative public opinion.

Some of the Zero Waste goals have target dates attached (Kamikatsu, Japan, 2020; New Zealand, 2020; San Francisco 2020). For others, “Zero Waste” provides a notional target with some interim targets (Bath, Philippines).

Canberra’s target of no waste by 2010 is acknowledged to mean in practice 95 per cent diversion from landfill.

Those municipalities espousing zero waste will nevertheless be some of the highest recycling rate achievers, and studies appear to show recycling rates are and will be raised to between 37 per cent and 80 per cent

The experience of a Flanders, France experience was thought in 2006 to indicate that household recycling rates of 60 per cent ought to be obtainable in the UK with the right mix of instruments – although until the new UK government was elected in May 2010, it was expected that local authorities would be allowed to charge householders extra for non-recycled (black bag) waste, as way to achieve these high goals. However, the Conservative/Liberal Coalition has already announced that no such an incentive will be allowed by the new UK Government.

A common feature to many of the Zero Waste targeted schemes is rigorous source separation and collection of recyclables, but so far, in no case, does this appear to be mandatory.

In many places zero waste recycling is driven by pricing of landfill (Bath, Canberra, Flanders, New Zealand) and variable charging of householders (Flanders, San Francisco).

All case studies assume that good markets will exist from now onward for most recyclates, although some will always be awkwardly distant (China and India). So, this raises questions as to whether the goal of zero waste is sustainable, in a market sense, or whether recycling will continue to suffer from the recessionary effect on China’s need for imported secondary materials.

The notions of designing out waste, changing the nature of products and making producers responsible for the consequences of wasteful consumption are still not really on the agenda for zero waste advocates, but shouldn’t they be?

Beyond European or European-style agreements on recycling of packaging and WEEE, there seems little real appetite for imposing more biting producer responsibility. The “Cradle to Cradle” concepts of beneficial products and continual recycling of biological and non-renewable materials are being developed, but are not yet necessarily a part of the Zero Waste philosophy in many places.

The UK is well investing heavily to take a lead on waste prevention with large amounts of landfill tax money being channelled into bodies such as WRAP, Envirowise, BREW, and the Centre for Sustainable Design. Let’s hope they will soon be able to produce some truly ground-breaking ideas and initiatives to actually achieve close to what the public must think the politicians and the waste industry mean by zero waste..

Underpinning the philosophy of zero waste is an aspiration for continuous improvement that goes beyond being compliant with legislation, targets or contracts. While practically delivering zero waste is a significant challenge, the desire to do more and do it better is perhaps the most important lesson we can draw from these case studies.

Zero waste had been portrayed as utopian and undeliverable, yet getting as close to it as possible is worth striving for, and the zero waste concept is already delivering results. Let’s hope the backwash from the press and media, and the public when they realise that most of the landfills will stay open, is not too great.

Visit the web-site: www.green-alliance.org.uk .

Introducing ambitious Europe-wide targets for the separate collection of both food and garden waste could offer environmental and cost benefits worth more than €7billion (£6 billion) between 2013 and 2020, according to a report published as part of the European Commission’s work on potential new EU bio-waste legislation.

The study, entitled ‘Assessment of the options to improve the management of bio-waste in the EU’ was published earlier this year with little fanfare by consultants ARCADIS and Eunomia, to look at the relative benefits and costs of various potential policy measures to deal with bio-degradable waste.

It emerged as the European Parliament’s environment committee is set to consider a draft report this week (April 28) drawn up by one of its members that urges the European Commission to develop proposals for a specific bio-waste directive by the end of 2010.

This could provide renewed momentum for supporters of separate legislation on bio-waste, in the face of recent indications that the Commission did not wish to pursue a legislative proposal.

The consultants’ report concluded that, in all cases where separate targets for collecting the two waste streams were included, there would be a “significant” net benefit to society. The benefit would be increased even further if the food waste was treated using anaerobic digestion (AD), due to the reduced greenhouse gas emissions that brings, it added.

It compares the approach with a ‘baseline’ scenario which assumes EU member states meet the targets for diverting waste from landfill set by the EU Landfill Directive, including a “minimum quantity” of treatment of bio-waste to reach this goal.

The targets outlined in the report as a “high ambition” scenario are 60% for food waste and 90% for green waste to be reached by 2020, with all garden waste above a 2006 baseline level being treated using in-vessel composting and food waste being sent for either IVC or AD.

The report also claimed that there were longer term benefits from providing additional treatment of bio-waste, explaining that: “The additional treatment of source separated bio-waste develops a significant annual benefit to society from 2020 onwards.

“This is of great importance since, given that nearly 40% of the total benefit occurs in 2020, the continued benefits, beyond the period modelled in this study, will remain significant,” it added.

The report is intended to support the Commission’s continuing work on potentially developing a separate legislative proposal for bio-waste, such as a possible ‘Bio-waste Directive’.

A green paper looking at future options for managing bio-waste in the European Union was published by the Commission in December 2008, raising hopes that a separate legislative proposal could be brought forward.

Read the full news items at Organics Recycling.

With over 500 subscribers to this blog we reasoned that some of you my have experience of landfill fires which you may be able and willing to send us.

The research is non-profit making, and your information on landfill fires just might make a difference someday, especially if it put you in danger and the message you send us about it may help others not to make the same mistake!

He’s doing an MSc (Sustainable Waste Management) at the School of Civil Engineering and the Environment at Southampton University.

This is the enquiry he has made:

“My dissertation is on the subject of the “Detection and Treatment of Landfill Fires”

The aim of my paper is to review current ‘good practice’ for avoiding and extinguishing landfill fires by talking to experts around the world and gathering together the best information as a guide for European landfill operators, local authorities and Fire and Rescue Services in the UK. I want to provide a balanced view of ‘what works’ and ‘ what doesn’t work’ for MSW, C&D. Industrial and tyre wastes. The Fire College have said that they would be interested in parts of the dissertation if these can be translated into Guidance Notes.

This is my Wish List of research information:

* Documented / anecdotal reports of landfill fires:
* How were they started – deliberate (in the Third World), arson, spontaneous combustion, lightning, etc
* How were they treated – successes and failures.
* Fugitive emissions information – water and air.
* Geotechnical information – formation of ‘sink holes’, collapse, effect on containment system
* Any academic papers on the subject
* Introduction to anyone who has suffered a fire.

Any help will be most gratefully received and fully acknowledged and I will be very happy to let you have a copy of my dissertation, once it is accepted.”

Can you help? Use the comments form below or email any private communications to info@wastersblog.com