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New UserNorthampton company makes coal substitute for cement kilns
29 Sep 2014
Decades in the hazardous waste business taught Joe Kotrosits and Steve Detwiler about the gold in the things people throw away.
Not just cash. The two former hazardous waste company executives say tons of trash that winds up in landfills can be as good as gold to industry.
For months, Renewable Fuel, Kotrosits' and Detwiler's company based in Bala Cynwyd, has been taking in recycling company cast-offs — piles of wood and plastics that can't be reused — and turning them into a replacement for coal.
The partners don't say their product, called Refuel, pumps fewer chemicals into the atmosphere than the coal many cement companies use to fire their plants. But it does take hundreds of tons of non-biodegradable trash out of local landfills every week.
And that aspect alone makes it an improvement over coal, said Julia F. Nicodemus, an assistant professor of engineering studies at Lafayette College.
"I'd rather live next to something using natural gas as a heat source than coal or trash [because it burns very cleanly]," Nicodemus said in an email, "but I think overall a trash-based process is better in terms of the environment and human health."
Since the mid-1990s, hundreds of companies that turn municipal solid waste to a fuel source have sprung up around the U.S.
A 2003 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report said the waste-to-fuel industry is responsible for reducing mercury and volatile metal emissions by 99 percent.
Patti Flesher, a spokeswoman for the Portland Cement Association, said about 70 percent of the cement kilns in the U.S. use alternative fuel sources — most to supplement their fossil fuels. Many burn scrap tires and some use unused oil.
A smaller percentage use a category called "other," which could be waste, she said.
Kotrosits and Detwiler said a company in Florida is doing what they do — grinding down non-recyclable materials from recycling plants and selling it as industrial fuel.
Refuel burns easier, Detwiler said. While anthracite coal burns well for a long time, it doesn't ignite easily, he said. Refuel lights up quickly, Detwiler said. And, it's cheaper than coal, which sells for about $75 a ton.
Adam Garber, field director at Philadelphia-based PennEnvironment, said how safe Refuel is depends on what's actually being burned.
The product might create less carbon dioxide, but other kinds of materials could create other health problems, he said.
Still, the kinds of chemicals cement kilns can burn are governed by state and federal laws, such as the Clean Air Act, said Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman Colleen Connolly. Any new fuels require air quality permits, she said.
Renewable Fuel received its DEP permit months ago.
Renewable Fuel landed its first two contracts with local cement kilns recently and others are in the works. They wouldn't disclose which plants are using Refuel, but the company chose Northampton because it's within a few miles of six Lehigh Valley cement companies.
Already several local recyclers are trucking hundreds of tons of material they can't process and dropping it off at the 44,000-square-foot space the company rents on Horwith Drive.
"People produce a lot more trash than there is coal," Detwiler said during a recent interview in the trailer that serves as Renewable Fuel's office.
A few feet away, a mountain of paper towel wrappers, cat food bags and milk cartons spill from the loading dock of the Scott Lubricants building the company rents in Northampton.
Hulking machines grind the piles of trash into particles 1-inch in diameter, which are heaped like gray snow drifts in a corner of the factory floor.
In September 2013, the Northampton Borough Council voted 9-0 to approve Kotrosits' and Detwiler's application to set up shop off Horwith Drive. Council member Anthony Lopsonzski Sr., took a job with Renewable Fuel after it opened for business.
The company has 15 employees, some whose duties include thumbing through the pile, winnowing out items like wire and other kinds of metal that can't be converted to product. They also take out PVC insulation around wire.
Recycling companies pay Renewable Fuel a tipping fee to bring in their trash. The fee varies from contract to contract, and Detwiler and Kotrosits say those fees are confidential.
Source: http://www.mcall.com/