Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Burn Baby Burn

Wheelabrator Technologies Incinerator
Concord, NH
1/14/11 
Guide: Mr. Rob- supervising Manager 



Even before we were let into the Wheelabrator Technologie's trash incinerator, we were strictly told "no pictures or video to be taken of any kind!" An omanis sign to begin with. But once we were in we were given our hard hats and ear plugs and made our way to the first room. We were met by a man named Rob. Wearing a white hard hat and yellow ear plugs. Thats all to say about him.

The Trash is dumped here
                                                                                                                                                                      
And ends up here 
The Boiler House is where the view of the furnace is. All the trash that is coming to the facilities is being burned here for energy. That means everything....plastic, small pieces of metal, and any toxins that are being released. The heat from the fire is used to produce steam to make energy. But the toxin in the smoke have to be taken care of. The smoke runs through a series of first the spray driers and fabric filters. These remove sulfure, sulfure dioxide, heavy metals- arsenic and dioxin, and many others. Once they are removed, we were told by Rob, that they were neutralized so they could be put into a landfill and not considered toxic waste......But hey who knows....they could be just dumping toxin waste into our grounds with any regulation because technically they arent "toxic."

Wheelabrators landfill is in Franklin, NH where the plant dumps 200 tons of ash every year. This is a privet landfill. There is an estimated of 200 tons of ash for every 500 tons of garbage. But the percent of this trash that is recyclable is unknown. On our drive out of the plant waiting in line to dump their load was a "Franklin Recycles" truck. Yeah right Franklin recycles.....more like "lets tell our people that they are doing good for the environment but than lets just dump their recyclable, which they worked hard to separate, right into the incinerator. I guess it just too much work to follow through on what you told the public you will do sometimes....But clearly the incinerator is ok with helping continue this practice by purchasing those recyclables.  Whatever brings in the cash, Right?

This system as you see above being used today. But by 2017 this building will be decommissioned and a new plant will be built. Hopefully it will be a bit better than the current one. Actually by 2017 hopefully we will have a better system of disposing of our waste than burning it and we will be recycling much more. The possibility of this is extremely likely we are on a green trend. 






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