Class Five (4/28/2015)

     Today, Brandon, Kean and I met during our lab time and discussed the possibility of meeting with Katie Sniffen, an old Drexel student who has worked with methane capture.  We decided to email her and ask for any data or information she could give us since she no longer lives in Philadelphia.  In addition, we talked about the possibility of interviewing another professor here at Drexel, but decided to wait and focus on the research and Final Report Draft for week seven.
     Brandon, Kean and I also discussed our interview with Christopher Sales from Friday, April 24th.  Next, we created a plan to organize all of our data for our group meeting on Sunday, May 3rd in order to assure that we are not missing anything important that we need.
     Unfortunately, Shaden did not show up to day.
-CB

Meeting Friday April 19th

     On Friday, Kean and Colin Burlingham went and met with Christopher Sales, an expert in resource recovery from waste and biodegradation of environmental contaminants.  Unfortunately, we were not able to ask all of the questions that we had prepared as we ran out of time, but Professor Sale was very helpful with everything he could tell us.  One important thing Professor Sales helped us with is giving us the contact information for a landfill plant near by so we can acquire data for this area.  In addition, we all continued to research more on our topics.  Our interview questions are posted below: 

-CB

Christopher Sales

Environmental Engineer

CAT 381A

Questions

·      Tell us about you:

§  Compare populations

·      Per capita

§  Percentages of trash incinerated? (Metals? Plastics? Ect)

§  CO2 regulations?

§  Methane and CO2 released from landfills

§  Talk to his student

·      Sandtown Landfill Felton Delaware

·      Methane management system

§  Scholar.google.com

§  EREF

·      Environmental Research and Education Foundation

§  Contact Professor Sabrina Spatarie

·      Works on life cycle assessment

§  Compare technologies

·      During waste assortment how often can errors occur during the process? For example plastics being mixed in with metals.

§  Inert vs combustible

§  Energy per weight

·      In landfills, specifically what kinds of pollutants are contained in the liquid run-off?

§   ?

·      With landfills being the most common method of waste disposal in the United States, what will happen when there is no longer any viable area to hold landfills?

§   ?

·      What kind of alternatives do you think could be viable in place of landfills?

§  Compost

§  Recycle

§  Waste water treatment plant

·      What kind of harm has the island of plastic in the Pacific Ocean done to the environment thus far? Would it be more or less environmentally beneficial to dispose of this waste?

§   ?

·      What do you believe is a more efficient system of creating energy: the use of incineration to burn trash or the use of methane capture to generate energy?

§   ?

·      What are your thoughts on adding incineration plants on the outskirts of Philadelphia to help eliminate trash and generate energy? 

§  Public relations problems

§  Need to prove to people

·      Educate them

·      Slow but release of CO2 and Methane from landfills

§  Running out of landfill space

·      Philadelphia used to have incineration plants but no longer does.  What do you believe the reason for the removal of these plants is?

§  Unknown

§  Either money or public perception

·      Methane is approximately 20 times stronger than CO2.  Does methane biodegrade in the atmosphere?

§  Find half life of methane

§  Will degrade eventually

·      Dr Decaro / Dr Warren

·      Could we recover more waste before incineration?

§  Compost

§  Waste water treatment plants

·      Controlled methane production from food waste

·      Use about 5% of all energy needed in US

·      Anaerobic digestion

§  Recover rare earth metals

·      Mining is bad

·      Large amounts of CO2 are produced in the importation and exportation of trash into and out of Sweden.  In your opinion, is this process better for the environment than just building new WTE plants or landfills?

§  Depends on location

§  Produce less waste

§  Increase recycling

§  Can capture CO2

·      Scrubbers

·      Can be turned into fuel

o   Through hydrogen

§  Landfills

·      Methane and CO2 released all over

§  Incineration

·      Contained pollutants

·      In landfills, methane is a large pollutant.  What is a useful product of methane, which doesn’t harm the environment if possible?

§   ?

·      Do you think incineration is the solution to the solid waste crisis?

§   ?

·      Do you think incineration can remove the need of landfills?

§   ?

·      Do you think its reasonable to require all hospital waste to be incinerated to protect the public against infectious diseases?

§   ?

·      Do you think the pollution control equipment’s are good enough to eliminate pollution concerns?

§   ?

Class Four (4/21/2015)

     During our class time in week four, we focused on doing heavy research.  We are all still working on the same topics that were assigned previously, but we are having trouble finding accurate data for the waste produced by landfills and the capturing of methane for energy.  Due to this, we will be attempting to contact more landfills in countries throughout Europe.  In addition, today Colin emailed Professor Christopher Sales, a specialist in biodegradation of environmental contaminants and resource recovery from waste.
-CB

Meeting Friday April 17th

     On Friday, Shaden, Brandon, and I (Colin) met up at Joes Coffee at 2pm to prepare for our meeting with Professor Charles Nathan Haas, an expert in environmental engineering.  Unfortunately, Kean had a lacrosse game and was unable to join us, but during this time, we went over all the questions we had come up with to make sure we covered everything required for our interview.  At 2:30pm, we then went and met with Professor Haas in Curtis 251.  He helped us a lot with our project and answered every question to the best of his abilities.  Professor Haas helped show us that it will be hard to compare the different types of waste from the transportation of trash, landfills, and incineration plants.  Another big topic that he pointed out was the use of ash after incineration.  Large amounts of ash are created and this can be sold for a profit to be used for many different reasons such as fertilizer or building materials.  This meeting was a big help and we are going to try and schedule more meetings in the future to help us along this project.  The interview questions and answers are located below:

Background Information on Professor Haas

o   Teaches

§  ENV302

§  Senior design

§  Environmental engineering 300 (intro environmental engineering)

§  Guest lecture in 201

·       Results of Incineration:

o   Bottom ash

§  Left at the bottom of the furnace after incineration

o   Gas from combustion

§  Lots of pollutants

§  Captured by air pollution control devices

·       Create solid or liquid waste material

·       Residual pollutants left in gas

o   CO2à climate change

o   Small amounts of Sulfer dioxide and nitrogen dioxide

§  Smog

o   Small amounts of heavy metals and organic contaminates

§  Possibly toxic

·      What are your general views on trash incineration?

§  It was oversold

§  Very popular in 70s/80s

§  People were overly optimistic to economics

§  Underestimated its complexity

·      Especially with upfront material separation

§  Case study in Harrisburg

·      Contracted out to private company

·      Gone into bankruptcy

§  Not eliminating waste

§  Changing ground water problems to air pollution problems

·      Incineration plants (at least the one I've been to) claim that all the waste is water vapor.  Do you think this is better than the methane and runoff caused by landfills?

§  Find a way to compare the two

§  Life cycle analysis

§  Illuminate all inputs and outputs

§  Assign value to adverse effect with inputs and outputs

§  Landfills

·      Leaking

·      Methane gas

·      Failure of liners

·      Ground water contamination

·      Not all parts of the country are suitable

·      In Sweden, the focus of our project, they import trash from other countries in Europe.  This causes pollution from trucks.  Is this better in your opinion than the pollution caused by landfills?

§  Importing Widely used

§  Barge or rail

·      Why aren’t incineration plants used widely in the US?

§  Large upfront investment

§  Philadelphia used to have incinerators

§  For reasonable size flow, 100 million dollar investment

§  Few private investors want to take the risk

§  Complexity and financing

·      In total, Sweden gets about 8% of their energy from these plants.  In your opinion, is this worth the damages done to the environment?

§  Land is more valuable in Europe

§  More open space in US

§  Availability to cite landfills is difficult

§  Methane capture is easier technology to implement

·      Capturing significant amounts of green house gasses

·      More compared to incineration

§  Can generate electricity from methane by combustion or fuel cells

·      Is there a long-term effect caused by these incineration plants?

§  Other than direct pollution:

§  Long life

§  How to clean

§  What do you do with it

§  Local contaminates

§  Needs to be restored

·      This process creates a large amount of ash.  Can this ash be disposed of in an environmentally friendly way? Can this ash be sold or used?

§  Ash has value

§  Used in construction

·      Asphalt and concrete

·      Bricks out of ash

§  Google ash and reuse

·      Can we recycle more of what is incinerated?

§  Higher amount of front end recycle in Sweden

·      House hold and business level separation

§  Mixed recycle in most of US

§  Separate bins for paper, glass, metal, ect

·      In some states

§  Purer recycle = higher value

§  Left over has higher combustion value

·      What would stop countries from incineration other than financial?

§  Air pollutants dispending in atmosphere depends on weather

§  High frequency of stagnant air doesn’t have dispersion in atmosphere

§  Social acceptance

·      NIMBY

·      Not in my back yard

·      Local objections

·      Remote facilities:

o   Not much population

o   Not many communities

o   Locals wont agree to being dumping ground

o   Regional rivalries

o   Citing is large issue

o   Some states allow local land use to be preempted

§  Most do not

o   All goes back to economics    

•   Conclusion:
• Technically phisable but economically not realistic

-CB