2009-06-23_PWETC_AgendaPacket - Laserfiche WebLink

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15) Will I lose the ability to share a garbage container with my neighbor? No. The contract can provide for opt out provisions such as garbage sharing or taking your residential garbage to your business. What they couldn't do is refuse garbage service and then sneak their bags into a dumpster. 16) Low polluting CNG trucks aren't available and current model trucks have to meet lower emissions standards so how would this clean up the air? Pre-2007 trucks do not have to meet lower emissions standards and there are many older trucks currently operating in Roseville. By contracting the City can require that all vehicles meet the lower emissions standards. A recent study by the State shows that there are fewer vehicle miles traveled by garbage trucks in cities with organized collection. Fewer miles traveled will result in fewer emissions. 17) Landfills must meet state and federal environmental standards, so disposing of stuff there is not bad. All new landfills must be lined so that leachate does not get into the ground water - as has happened with the 3M landfill. Metro area landfills also capture landfill gas from closed sections and burn it before it can enter the atmosphere. Even so, the U.S. EPA calculates that landfills are responsible for nearly two percent of all greenhouse gas emissions in the country. Roughly a third of all garbage collected in Ramsey County is shipped to Wisconsin landfills that do not capture landfill gas. And the metro area landfills do not capture landfill gas from the active dumping areas. As a result the EPA calculates that landfills with capture systems only capture 75% of all the methane produced. Waste is not processed before being dumped in a landfill. At processing facilities steel and aluminum are captured for recycling -approximately 5% of the material processed at the Elk River plant is separated as recyclable metal. 18) There's not a shortage of space for landfill disposal in this country. There are no new landfills being sited in Minnesota. The three metro area landfills in Inver Grove Heights, Burnsville and Elk River are all projected to run out of space within 20 years. 19) Landfill gas is collected and burned to generate electricity just as is done with RDF. The U.S. EPA estimates that landfills with gas capture systems only capture 75% of all the landfill gas produced. And not all gas that is captured is burned to produce electricity. Some is simply flared so that the methane is not released into the atmosphere. Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas many times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2). If waste is processed into refused derived fuel (RDF) no methane is produced in the incineration process.