Puerto Rico's Waste Management Dilemma

[chacho_keva]

Originally Posted by davsot

Public Private Partnerships.

I just don't understand how the Island went crazy building oil power plants and they don't even want to invest in renewables. Because after all remember, the PR electric power authority is a govnerment company!

And if LA built it publicly why can't PR?

And if LA built it publicly why can't PR?

The answer to this question may have something to do with the time in which LA built it's WTE facility (i.e., 1988) vs the time in which PR's WTE will be built, if at all.

In the 80's construction costs were lower. Also, LA's WTE facility is of the mass-burn type. This means that it does not have front-end processing equipment necessary to sort out recyclables and undesirable materials from the fuel stream. In 1998, the proposed WTE facility for Puerto Rico did require front-end processing equipment. Obviously, the less equipment, the lower the construction costs.

In addition, back in the 80's WTE plants installed pollution control equipment in accordance with Best Available Control Technology (BACT) standards. If I'm not mistaken, BACT has been replaced by a more stringent standard known as MACT, which stands for Maximum Achievable Control Technology. This adds to the overall costs.

[chacho_keva]

Originally Posted by banevader

The smaller states have it worse...but all states have issues w/ waste disposal. There needs to be an immediate plan on what is to be done in the future about this.
Personally,I've never been a "fan" of landfills.
I live down the highway from one and (this is sad) it's the highest point in the county where I live.
And a real eyesore.

I'm in favor of burning waste for energy if they can work out scrubbers to prevent pollution.

Personally,I've never been a "fan" of landfills.

I personally do not know of anyone who is a "fan" of landfills or WTE plants for that matter. In an ideal world, there would be no need for either one.

Unfortunately, landfills and WTE plants are a necessary evil. Therefore, given that they're needed, we may as well do our very best to make them function as close to perfection as possible.

In my opinion, in order to make these function as close to perfection as possible, we - the general public - need to share information and have discussions, just as we're doing through this post.

The more questions are asked and answered, the closer to perfection the process should be.

[chacho_keva]

This is a well written article which clearly defines PR's waste management dilemma.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...ts-own-garbage

Of all the problems plaguing PR, this one, I dare say, seems to be the least mentioned. PR is close to running out of landfill capacity. Part of the solution resides in Waste-To-Energy (WTE). Unfortunately, WTE has been widely rejected by uninformed doomsday protestors. These are the same protestors who've failed to provide an equal-to or better-than solution. Mind you, several densely populated islands around the world (e.g., Japan, Taiwan, Hawaii) have implemented WTE as a part of their waste management scheme. Meanwhile, the waste keeps piling in PR's dwindling landfills.

I once asked the following question to a WTE opponent:

What happens when all of PR's landfills reach capacity? I never got an answer.