Waste to Energy Facility

The field trip to the Covanta Waste to Energy facility was extremely interesting and full of technology and systems I never knew existed. When I first think of a waste to energy facility I picture an area where the trash is separated and then burned in order to create energy. During our sit down with one of the facility leaders I honestly was surprised about how much information he threw at us about the importance of the organization of each individual step throughout the process of making the energy from all of Lee County’s waste. Among the many facts he discussed the ones that stuck out to me were the 1,800 tons of solid waste the facility processes in a single day and the average amount of energy they turn that waste into which I believe was about sixty megawatts of pure clean and renewable energy that the entire facility uses to operate with.

 

          There are about twenty one different steps involved in this process starting with the collection of all materials in the big pit that holds around a few hundred tons at a time and ending with the separation of the fumes from combustion, metals leftover, and the leftover ash.

 

 

Before visiting this waste to energy facility I figured most of our counties waste went straight into a landfill or a furnace. Visiting this facility first hand definitely changed my view about how I deal with my waste by making sure that all recyclables are actually recyclable and rinsed off before thrown away and also making sure all unwanted electronics are carefully and correctly dealt with. It is more comforting to realize how useful our everyday unwanted items are still used. Overall I was very impressed with the Lee County’s waste management system ensuring that all waste collected is never wasted.

 

         The Public Policies on More-Sustainable Consumption chapter can easily be connected with what we both learned and saw during our visit to the waste to energy facility. First of all the majority of consumers around the world buy things they will either barely use or not use them at all which in turn will turn into waste. If the consumer market cut down on unnecessary materials then the amount of waste would drastically decrease worldwide. As said in the chapter there needs to be a push for a more sustainable consumption system since research shows that well-being is rarely connected to consumption.