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Waste Processing and Landfilling The Ramsey /Washington County Resource Recovery Project (RRP) traces its history to a landfill that polluted groundwater in the late 1970s. The two counties jointly managed this landfill. After the pollution was discovered, county commissioners decided that there must be a better way to handle waste. This led to recovering energy from waste, and later to joint work on waste education and organics recovery. Processing waste to recover materials and energy is one of many tools in the waste management hierarchy used to reduce risk to health and the environment. In 1987, both counties entered into a 20 -year agreement with Northern States Power Company, and later NRG Energy, Inc., to process waste into fuel (known as refuse - derived fuel or RDF) and recover metals from waste to sharply reduce the amount of waste being landfilled. As the 20 -year agreement with NRG Energy, Inc. was drawing to a close, the counties saw an opportunity to further explore a shift to less government involvement and a more market -based approach for the delivery and processing of waste at the Newport facility. The counties have worked with Resource Recovery Technologies, Inc. (RRT), through a 6 -year Processing Agreement since 2007. In accordance with the processing agreement, RRT has the responsibility to secure waste by contracting with haulers and to continue production of RDF. The RRP places a heavy emphasis on minimizing the counties' dependence on landfills. Since 1987, most of the waste generated in Ramsey and Washington Counties that hasn't been recycled has been delivered to the Resource Recovery Facility in Newport, Minnesota. Most of the waste is delivered by licensed waste haulers, but citizens also deliver waste to the facility. The RDF produced at RRT- Newport is delivered to Xcel power plants in Red Wing and Mankato and sometimes to Great River Energy in Elk River. Metals are recycled locally. The remaining residue is landfilled. Currently, waste delivered to the Resource Recovery Facility is weighed at the scale house, dumped onto the tipping floor, and fed into one of two processing lines. An oversized bulky waste shredder is used as needed to shred items too large to be processed directly through the processing lines. Non - processible waste (as defined in the Service Agreement) and waste delivered in excess of processing capacity is transferred to a landfill. Small amounts of other materials, such as car batteries and tires, are sometimes found in the waste and separated by RRT for proper management. Waste is shredded in a large hammermill, ferrous metals are removed by magnets, aluminum is removed with an eddy- current separator, and the waste is sorted using a series of screens and blowers. The result is four waste streams: 1) RDF, primarily composed of lightweight materials; 2) ferrous metals recovered for recycling; 3) aluminum recovered for recycling; and 4) residue, comprising the remaining materials. The Processing Agreement between the RRP and RRT requires RRT to manage and make available to residents of the two counties a location for depositing waste. Residential waste has been accepted at the Newport facility since the facility's inception. (Prior to 2009 RRT also provided for a drop -off site for citizen waste at the St. Paul Transfer Station; RRT's arrangement with the transfer station terminated in 2009.) A total of 1,081 tons of citizen waste was received in 2010, compared to 1,051 tons in 2009. Under the Processing Agreement, RRT is responsible for contracting with waste haulers for a supply of waste, assuring that at least 280,800 tons per year of waste are under contract, and meeting certain performance guarantees. RRT has entered into contracts with 79 haulers through 2012 and has met the minimum tonnage requirement. In 2010, a total of 303,703 tons of waste from Ramsey and Washington counties was delivered for processing by haulers and citizens. This tonnage is a slight decrease from the 2009 amount of 317,589 tons. The long -term trends in both waste delivered and processed is shown in Figure 5. RRT- Newport is Ramsey County Solid Waste Master Plan 2011 -2030 Page 143 Approved by the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners on 3120112