A 15-20 minute training video is available for Tennessee local governments operating Solid Waste Convenience Centers or Recycling Centers.  The video is geared toward front line staff working with the public to ensure proper disposal, recycling, safety, and community relations.  The video was produced with funding from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and with help from UT-Center for Industrial Services.

If you would like to receive this training DVD contact either  Kim Raia or Mike Stooksberry at CTAS.

Curious about how your trucking operations stack up against industrial fleets?  This ATRI study suggests that marginal costs for truck operations are $1.73 per mile and $83.68 per hour.  See the link here:
An Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking

US EPA produced this manual with good insight into planning, siting, and operating solid waste transfer stations.  Among many useful tools, the manual shows how to work through capacity calculations and shows best design technologies for safety and capacity throughput.  See the document at this link:

transferstation_epa

–Copied in entirety from SWANA November Members Newsletter–
In October, three significant actions were taken that will effect municipal solid waste operations throughout the United States. As the impacts of these actions play out, look for future communications from SWANA to keep you up-to-date and informed on the decisions that are impacting your operations.

President Signs Rail-Based Transfer Station Legislation

On October 16, 2008, the President signed into law the Clean Railroads Act of 2008. This legislation closes the loophole that has allowed solid waste transfer stations to operate unregulated along rail lines. Under previous law these facilities were under the jurisdiction of the Surface Transportation Board, which had no infrastructure to monitor them, but the new law will require these facilities to adhere to state and federal standards.

For more information on the law see October’s MSW Solutions.

EPA Updates Definition of Solid Waste

On October 7, 2008, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a final rule updating the definition of solid waste. This ruling would change the definition so that hazardous materials sent to recycling or reclamation facilities would not be considered solid waste, and thus would be exempt from the Subtitle C hazardous waste regulations. The goal of this rule is to encourage recycling of hazardous materials and the USEPA estimates that this change would exclude 1.5 million tons of hazardous materials from the Resource Conversation and Recovery Act’s hazardous waste regulations.

It is not clear what impact this change would have on municipal solid waste management facilities such as Subtitle D landfills, transfer stations, Waste-to-Energy facilities or Material Recycling Facilities. If these excluded materials actually go to bona-fide hazardous materials recycling operations there would be no impact on municipal solid waste management facilities. If, however, this creates a loophole through which hazardous materials escape regulation, they may find their way to municipal solid waste facilities or, even worse, be open dumped.

This rule makes waste screening at municipal solid waste facilities even more important. Municipal solid waste managers need to know where their wastes are coming from and need to put in place practices to detect and screen out prohibited materials.

The materials targeted are “hazardous secondary materials” and are generated mostly through metals and solvents recycling. The rule excludes materials from the federal hazardous waste system that are:

* generated and legitimately reclaimed under the control of the generator;
* generated and transferred to another company for legitimate reclamation under specific conditions; or
* determined by EPA or an authorized state to be non-wastes on a case-by-case basis via a petition process.

Not regulating them would save the USEPA millions in regulatory costs and would ease the regulatory burden on legitimate recyclers. However, we need to be vigilant to assure that they do not have an unintended adverse effect on the municipal solid waste practices.

The rule will become effective on December 29th.

EPA to be Sued by Environmental Group

On October 23, 2008, the Environmental Defense Fund announced its intentions to sue the Environmental Protection Agency for failure to update their air pollution standards for landfills. According to Section 111(b)(1)(B) of the Clean Air Act the EPA must review its new source performance standards every eight years. The last time these standards were updated was in 1996.

Section 111 of the Clean Air Act requires EPA to set a best demonstrated technology standard for controlling emissions. EDF’s position is that technology has advanced significantly over the past decade and the new standards should reflect these changes. In 1996, methane emitted from landfills was mostly controlled by flaring. Today, much of this methane can be captured to create energy.

EPA’s Landfill Methane Outreach Program has been working with small landfills to harness this potential energy.

EPA has 60 days to respond to EDF’s notice, a copy of which can be found here http://edf.org/documents/8713_NOILandfillNSPSOct2008.pdf.

EPA released an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) soliciting public input on the effects of climate change and the potential ramifications of the Clean Air Act in relation to greenhouse gas emissions.

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/downloads/ANPRFactSheet.pdf

According to LGEAN:  “The ANPR solicits public input as EPA considers the specific effects of climate change and potential regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. In the advance notice, EPA presents and requests comment on the best-available science, requests relevant data, and asks questions about the advantages and disadvantages of using the Clean Air Act to potentially regulate stationary and mobile sources of greenhouse gases. The ANPR also reviews various petitions, lawsuits and court deadlines before the agency, and the profound effect regulating under the Clean Air Act could have on the economy. The notice’s publication in the Federal Register begins a 120-day public comment period.”
See the LGEAN website for other Environmental News impacting Local Governments.

I would like to know if anyone else has a Comprehensive Standard Operating Procedure Manaual for their Public Works or Solid Waste Department. We developed ours last year and want to give our employees some examples of others to see how they can be done and some better ideas of doing various tasks. We are going to review and update ours every year and would like comments and other examples if available. I know of a few other departments across the state that are also developing their SOP and I am sure we would all benefit from sharing this information. Shawn Lindsey

–From Chattanooga Times Free Press–

Chattanooga, TN - After the decision last year to scale back curbside recycling from weekly to monthly, Mayor Ron Littlefield said he wants the city to increase the service to twice-a-month pickup in a year.

The city will need to buy more environmentally friendly trucks for the expanded service, he said, and he plans in the upcoming capital budget to propose funding to buy the vehicles, although he acknowledged that he has no estimates on how much money will be needed.

“Just how we work our way into (twice-a-month pickup) is something that we have to plan for,” he said earlier this week.  Full article found here.

The City of Athens is going to be using an ARC GIS extension called Network Analyst which helps you find the most efficient routes for destinations using your current road network. We are applying this software to our Residential and Commercial Garbage Routes. We need to know if anyone else is doing this and what their experience has been. We are looking for any way possible to save on fuel cost if anyone has other ideas they would like to share.

Memo on Fuel Savings

Fuel-and-energy-savings-plan-2008-2.doc

SWANA is offering online short courses in May geared toward Transfer Station Design. These are affordable ways to earn SWANA credit without leaving your office. Check out the link for information on registration and fees. The courses will detail how design can improve health and safety, plus go over what Construction and Operation factors should go into design criteria.

The three 75 minute courses can be used to secure 3 SWANA CEU hours toward your certification.

Public Works Magazine highlighted the key points to the recent Supreme Court decision on Solid Waste Flow Control. This latest ruling seems to favor public agencies over private.