Essay on Lycoming County Landfill Processes

Introduction

Since 1978, Lycoming County government through the Lycoming Management Services adopted the 1973 license to operate the landfill. The facility is located adjusted to the Allenwood Federal Correction Complex at the federal Bureau of Prison properties on a 513 acres parcel of land to serve a regional site of Lycoming County offices, Union, Columbia, Northumberland, Snyder, and Montour. On 7th April 2017, HVAC Industry established the Environmental Impacts program in Lycoming County, Landfill. PPL Renewable Energy developed, maintained, operated, and owned renewable and green energy projects in the mid-Atlantic and northeastern United States. The projects capitalize of electrification of about 25,000 homes using green energy, including solar panel insulation, wind, and landfill gas-to-energy to several states, such as New Hampshire, New Jersey, Vermont, and Pennsylvania.

The company's chief program capitalizes on the recycling program. Their work team comprises of the pre-lease center which, has 18 fulltime employees. HVAC Industry has a collection program at local industrial sites for cardboard and office paper. They also collect curbside in thirteen different municipalities and commercial tote ranging between 500 and 650 gallons from more than 100 establishments. In Lycoming alone, the company has 25 drops off collection points. In the collection program, HVAC Industry utilizes 30 trailers, a commercial tote collection truck, three truck tractors, four rolls of vehicles, and two curbside collection truck which all constitutes approximately 150 containers. In 2017, the company's recycling facility processed and shipped 12,530 tons of waste daily representing to an approximated 320,000 tons annual waste tonnage. Landfill produces 30,000 to 60,000 gallons of leachate daily and 5418 tons of crushed and chipped wood.

The industry's new recycling facility has shipping docks utilizing incoming and outgoing materials. They package different kinds of materials which include old newspapers, mixed office paper waste, magazines, cardboard, tine ad aluminum cans, and natural or colored HDPE in bales weighing from 1200lbs to 2100lbs. The southern section of the facility has nine shipping docks and five overhead doors for unloading thus, enabling the company to manage litter smoothly. Receive material is sorted into bins before being supplied to the conveyor belt. After the classification and sorting of the elements, the conveyor belt fed them in the Nexgen two ram balers and packaged into steel cans that are taken to the sorting room for processing.

In Montgomery Pennsylvania, a new landfill gas-to-energy facility established at the Lycoming County Resource Management services landfill in the partnership of Lycoming County commissioners and PPL Renewable Energy. Establishment of the landfill gas-to-energy systems produces environmental benefits for the area. The primary advantage to the immediate community is the production of electricity and emission of methane by using renewable energy. The landfill is used by PPL to power four six w megawatt Caterpillar engine generators using the methane produced from the disintegrating waste. An estimated renewable voltage of about 50 million kilowatts per hour is provided by the methane run engines yearly. This energy is used to electrify an approximate of 4,000 homes. The county's facilities also benefit from the generators heat production, whereas the power plants provide sufficient power supply for the region's electricity grid and the Allenwood Federal Correctional Complex.

The adoption of this green energy production has positively impacted on the environment by helping to eliminate an annual emission of an approximate 340,000 tons of carbon dioxide, which, is equitable to removal of about 6700 cars from the road, a cut down of 80000 barrels of importable oil, or reforestation of about 73000 acres of pine coverage. According to the PPL Global president, Rick Klingensmith, the establishment of this new facility has reduced greenhouse gas emissions and offered a dependable source of renewable energy expanding the power grid.

Conclusion

This paper has discussed the Lycoming County Landfill processes in the production of green energy which is inspirational to me. The inspirational capacity to process and ship 12,530 tons of waste daily is interesting to me. The grand idea revolving around the operation of the landfill's operations and position provokes my interest to understand on their production of green energy. I think that the communal existence of the facility with the community surrounding it is excellent as it gives peaceful coexistence among them.