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Trash Talkin

Is winter over yet? I’m thinking we gotta be half way through ? Right?

Actually it has been a great winter for the snowmobilers, sledding and ski enthusiast! Even the ice fishing has been good locally so we shouldn’t complain Well, I was invited to a City Council workshop recently to trash talk and I have to say that I received a lot of trash talking back at me from the Council haha! It must be human nature to trash talk because we had a lot of fun and positive discussion at the workshop and I was very grateful to be invited More specifically, the City contract for solid waste and recycling is up for renewal and it was asked of me to provide a solid waste and recycling 101 of sorts to the Council The Council was well versed in many facets of these topics, which created a very robust discussion, which probably took more time than any of us expected, but all agreed it was a beneficial trashtalking event I would like to dive in to a few of the topics we discussed with the first one being our waste to energy commitment In the late 1980 s our three Counties of Sibley, Le Sueur and Nicollet came together with Blue Earth, Martin & Faribault Counties to commit our cities residential trash to the waste to energy system where our garbage goes through a process and then turned into electricity Waste to energy is considered to be a more environmentally sound method of disposing of our waste rather than putting it in a landfill to decompose over the centuries Our Counties waste are a smaller percentage of this process as Ramsey and Washington Counties contribute the majority of waste tons to the waste to energy system There are about another dozen Counties in Minnesota that participate in waste to energy systems and we consider ourselves lucky to be a part of this system as some Counties (metro fringe Counties) have tried to get their waste into this system but there is just not enough capacity to handle the extra tons of waste

When addressing the environmental aspects of this process – I would like to point out that our local incinerator operates at a temperature of 1800 to 2200 degrees F, which ensures nearly complete destruction of organic waste The emissions system use electrostatic precipitators, which captures most of the fine particles that try to escape They also use a baghouse filter system, which also removes most of the suspended particles that result from the combustion process Some systems are even mining the ash for more metals after the combustion process and sometimes the ash is clean enough to be used in cement products

One of the other items we discussed (which deserves more detailed information at another time) is organics collection and composting

Recent waste surveys conducted by consultants and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) indicates that our waste stream is comprised of 24 to 33 percent organics that could be composted So the next questions are how to collect, how much does it cost and is there capacity to process those tons The “how to collect” would be a Blue bag collection system where residents would put their organics into a blue

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Jbag and place it in their trash cart The blue bags would then be separated and transported to an organics processor and turned into compost Our Cities could ask for a Blue bag organics collection bid but my sources tell me that the cost of processing, transportation and handling would not be affordable yet The other big question is capacity Or - is there enough capacity or organic processing locations that have enough room to process these tons into compost These locations have to be permitted which can be very expensive and difficult and sometime acreage space is limited The blue bag collection system is in its infancy and has more maturing to do for it to be environmentally sound and affordable but it will get there in time That’s all for now folks Please do your best at embracing our wonderful winter, ha! Visit us - at www tricountyrecycling org or the Nicollet County waste wizard for recycling & waste information or give us a call at 507-381-9196

And remember to make every day Earth Day!

Nicollet County