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<br />Today's landfills are a major improvement over the past, although it must be pointed out <br />that all of the "old teclmology" landfills are still with us. Once closed, landfills must be . <br />monitored indefinitely. Environmental researchers have expressed concerns about the <br />long term effectiveness oflandfillliners. The plastic can be degraded by contact with <br />household chemicals; compacted soil can erode and shift; seams can fail and membranes <br />can be accidentally punctured. (7) <br /> <br />Energy production <br /> <br />Both landfills and incineration are used to produce electric energy. Incineration uses <br />Refuse-derived Fuel (RDF) produced by resource recovery plants like the facility at <br />Newport. Subtitle D landfills collect gases from the decomposition of waste, gas that <br />would otherwise pollute the air, and channel it to generators. TIris is called Landfill Gas <br />technology or LFG. The "bioreactor" technology that recirculates water to speed up <br />decomposition in a landf1l.l merely accelerates the rate at which the total amount of gas is <br />produced; it does not increase the total amount of energy a landfill is capable of <br />producing. (8) <br /> <br />How do the energy production technologies compare? According to a 2001 study, the <br />most common method of generating power with LFG requires 750 tons of municipal <br />solid waste to power one home for 20 years. If the theoretical maximum of energy <br />production could be achieved - which has not yet happened - the amount could be <br />reduced to 455 tons ofMSW. However, energy production from an individual landfill <br />varies greatly from year to year. It peaks in the first 5 to 10 years and then tapers off as <br />the decomposable material is exhausted. (9) <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />RDF technology, on the other hand, requires only 280 tons of material to power a home <br />for 20 years. It uses a higher percentage of the waste: RDF can malce use of materials <br />that do not readily decompose under landfill conditions, such as plastic bottles and <br />organic material that is shielded from moisture by plastic. RDF energy production is <br />constant: on a given year the energy output can be between 32 to 54 times more than <br />LFG for the same amount of waste. (l0) <br /> <br />The bottom line is that, of the two technologies, RDF is by far the most efficient <br />converter of municipal solid waste to elech'icity. <br /> <br />Risk and Future Liability <br /> <br />Concerned residents have asked about the small print notice they receive from their <br />haulers once a year advising them that they may be liable for damage caused by the waste <br />they put into the trash. Ash from RDF, they pointed out, is much more difficult to link to <br />individual residential sources; thus the risk ofliability would be lower if Falcon Heights' <br />refuse conld be guaranteed to go to Newport. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />City of Falcon Heights Final Report on Organized Collection <br />October 13, 2004 <br /> <br />20 <br />