A partnership with a waste-to-energy company could provide up to 80 to 120 jobs for Carroll County and potentially increase the lifespan of the Carroll-Grayson-Galax Regional Landfill by up to 100 years.
Joe Mitchell of Waste Tech, a part of a larger company called Trilogy, addressed the Carroll County Board of Supervisors on July 1 about the possibility. He said the company is trying to address something every country struggles with “from Lee County to Washington, D.C.” He said for years the company tried to recycle but found that didn’t work as well as it should, if it all.
Mitchell said the company takes Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) trash steams and treats them. He said the technology has been around for about 20 years and consists of two main technologies. The first is called an anaerobic digester.
“Disney has had one for about 40 years treating the food scraps in Florida. And they make power, which is one thing we can do, but we chose not to do that because we have to deal with the power companies and they don’t want to pay much money for it,” Mitchell said. “So what happens is we take this whole trash stream, we dump it into a building that is under vacuum so it doesn’t stink and we take this whole trash stream in and sort it electronically and mechanically and some hand-sorting and we send it in two different directions.”
Mitchell said about 62 percent of the trash will go into an anaerobic digester, which converts it into two items. The first is “Food Grade CO2,” which is bottled and sold to greenhouses. The other is a methane that’s used to put into natural gas lines. Plastics and tires are also converted.
“Some of the plastics we can’t do, but all the tires we can do. Out of that we produce something called carbon black, which is in all the tires you drive and cars you drive, and we get tire oil out of it, a real crude diesel. If you put a sulfur trap in it and get sulfur out you can blend it with diesel,” Mitchell said. “The other thing is we take the metal out of the tires, the steel-beds out of the tires, and out of this we have five products — one is natural gas, one is CO2, and then the tire oil, the carbon black and the methane. That is what it all ends up doing.”
Mitchell said Trilogy is able to do that after purchasing an anaerobic digester company. One of the engineers from the company is an expert who helps the company get nearly twice as much gas and CO2 out of the process as any other country in the world. He noted the company is almost ready to start the process for a facility in West Virginia. Currently the company is also beginning the same process in Page County and Wise County in Virginia. Mitchell said it’s something that has concerned him since he was a young man in his thirties serving on the Washington County Board of Supervisors nearly 40 years ago.
“We dug up a landfill that had been there for 20-some years. I was amazed some of the metal had not rusted. I was amazed the plastics and tires were just like they were when we put them in there, and I was also amazed I could read the Bristol Herald Courier that was from 20 years ago,” Mitchell said. “So we take that methane, which is an unwanted thing from the EPA, and we do that in a matter of a few hours so we don’t have any methane leaking because we don’t put anything in the landfill that has methane. It’s not like a reclamation project where you try to suck it out of there. Some places it has worked and others it didn’t. The good news is how much ever the figure is to put a new cell in a landfill per acre, and I know it keeps going up tremendously, you only put 5 to 10 percent of that MSW stream in your landfill so you can just imagine what a landfill stretcher that is.”
Mitchell said the county would need three things that are essential if it were to start a similar facility. The first would be 12 acres of land, the second is a natural gas line, and most importantly, he said, is that gas line has to have the capacity to put out 2.74 million cubic feet per day.
“The other good thing that I think all of you will like to know is this actually costs you zero dollars. And it costs you zero dollars because this is something the EPA and Department of Energy has called a REN, renewable energy identification number, and with that REN they subsidize the gas. It is not like Atmos or Appalachian Gas selling gas. They take this and use it for people using transportation like FedEx or UPS. So there is huge subsidy from the federal government for that. That is why the natural gas plant makes more money than all the rest of the stuff combined.”
Mitchell told supervisors the cost for a 500- to 600-ton unit is $75 million, noting Trilogy has an arrangement with a bank where the bank puts up 80 percent of those funds. The other $15 million can be a public-private partnership or can be obtained through investors.
“It is 10 to 15 years before you have to make any changes. I don’t know exactly how much garbage Carroll County has. Page County has about 800 tons because they are getting three or four other counties with them. In Wise County, because of the level of population down there, we will probably have to get it from seven or eight counties,” Mitchell said. “And then also down there we have the ability to bring some in on a rail spur. Some counties won’t let you bring outside waste in and I understand why. But we are going to be able to do some, so there we are going to build a 600-ton unit for intown garbage. When we get that done we will do another 600 ton unit for out-of-town garbage.”
Mitchell said the group visited a Virginia Association of Counties meeting last October and were surprised to learn how many counties have shut down their landfills and started shipping waste elsewhere. He said Abingdon’s trash currently is shipped to Bluntville, Tenn., “which pretty much puts you at the mercy of Waste Management, you have all those transportation costs, and it is not working too well.”
“In fact, Scott County told me recently their price to go to Sullivan County went up 35 percent in a year. So if we are ever going to get a handle on this trash we are going to have to automate it and get it done,” Mitchell said. “The other thing I will tell you is gravy on top of this, is one of these 500- to 600-ton per day units will create somewhere between 80 and 120 good-paying jobs. It is a 24/7, 365 process.”
In describing the process to supervisors, Mitchell said it would reduce solid waste to about 5 or 10 percent, meaning if you had 600 tons, you would only put 30 to 60 tons per day in the landfill.
“About 62 percent of the trash that comes in, the stuff that will decay and cause you problems later on with methane, we treat immediately, so there is no recycling. One of these things takes 18 to 22 months to do. It is a lot of engineering they have to look at the waste strength and the space and all that,” Mitchell said. “The gas line is like the electric grid. They don’t take it out molecule by molecule, but as long as someone disburses they get their REN number and that is how somebody makes money. We will leave you more details if you are interested.”
Laurel Fork District Supervisor Jody Early said if a minimum of 500 to 600 tons per day is required, that is a lot of trucks coming in and out in the absence of rail service. Mitchell agreed, but noted the county could bring in a lot of trash in the 60- to 80-mile radius around it with the Interstate 77 corridor.
“So it kind of forces, whether we like it or not, a regional approach,” Mitchell said. “But that is the sweet spot, that 500 tons, and if you wanted more we could upgrade it.”
Early said he personally liked the idea of doing something like the plan Mitchell described in order to help solve issues with the Hillsville landfill while also providing energy “we need so badly.” He asked if the county has to pay for garbage that is brought in, or if the county gets paid to take garbage?
“They pay you to take it,” Mitchell said. “And when the whole plan is done, I want to assure you this, Joe (Lotts) and I would never do anything to hurt a county. Once you have served on a board, like you guys do, you kind of know how it works and so we will never do anything to hurt anybody. Now the company as they put this thing together will ask you for some of the tipping fee. But the whole thing is put together in a package and then the negotiations start. Anything that we take away in tipping fee we will make up with the plant, so it doesn’t hurt you. The way I see this is you get 400 tons of garbage and whatever your tipping fee is and you only bury 5 to 10 percent of it. That is a huge deal. And the other thing is that you never have to put those liners and all the stuff it requires in the landfill. That is huge savings to you guys.”
Mitchell said the food grade carbon dioxide is bottled. Besides the carbon black and tire oil, more uses are being found, he said. It can now be put in concrete to make it harder or it can be converted to make hydrogen.
“We have traveled the world over and looked at the tech and I can tell you with 100 percent confidence the USA is sadly 10 to 15 years behind the rest of the world on what they are doing with their trash,” Mitchell said. “As these landfills close there is fewer places to put trash. What will happen to tipping fees? They have gone up about $20 per ton the past five years around Charlottesville. Around DC it’s higher. Tipping fees will go up and the landfill problem will only get worse. The EPA has numerous articles saying the amount of methane coming out of landfills is two or three times worse than they thought it was. That means it will get tighter and tighter and tighter. In Washington County they haven’t had a landfill since the one closed in the 1990s...This solves your problem. It is the best technology in the world. Trilogy has tied up legal agreements in all the U.S., all of Canada and all of the Caribbean. If you get the best tech out there you will have to talk to Trilogy, and locally you will have to talk to us.”
Fancy Gap District Supervisor Ronnie Collins asked Mitchell about the potential for 80 to 120 jobs. Mitchell said those would be for running the plant and assorted equipment. Collins also asked how the jobs paid?
“Better than most industries in Southwest Virginia pay,” Mitchell replied.
Early also asked about training, and Mitchell explained the company has a long association with community colleges over the years and will develop some workforce training to help in that regard.
“Think about it,” Mitchell said. “We will be glad to come back and go into private session.”
Later in the meeting during Board Member Time, Early said he thought the company is providing leading-edge technology that could put Carroll County ahead of the curve.
“Our landfill is slated to be open about another 40 years. If he is accurate with percentages, it could be active for another 100 years,” Early said. “We should at least ask the (Economic Development Authority) to look into that at least for jobs, then find out the next steps down the road to make it happen if we decide to go that way.”
No further action or discussion was taken on the potential project.
Allen Worrell can be reached at (276) 779-4062 or on X@AWorrellTCN
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