Waste-to-Energy Plant
Despite the typical approach, two towns in Florida have elected not to send electronic waste for recycling at its current contracted processor. Instead, these municipalities are shipping it off to a waste-to-energy plant.
Since October of 2022, Pinellas County, which includes St. Petersburg, Clearwater, and other cities, has been diverting all e-scrap materials away from a contracted recycler to an energy plant run by Covanta, that is owned by the county itself. The city of Clearwater then followed suit in May of 2021 by discontinuing its e-scrap collection days.
Residents of Pinellas County and Clearwater are now able to place electronics like TVs, monitors, CPUs, laptops, tablets, and cell phones into regular garbage bins. However, individuals must ensure that all rechargeable batteries have been removed prior to disposal, due to the potential fire risks.
Speaking on the decision to manage e-waste internally, Emily LeMay of Pinellas County’s recycling and outreach programs stated, “Ultimately, we felt it was best for us to manage the e-waste in house via our Waste-to-Energy facility than send it to a third-party company.”
The Reason Behind the Change
Though it was not due to any issues with the current e-scrap recycling contract holder, local authorities provided various explanations for its decision to modify existing downstream e-scrap management strategies.
“We felt it was best to manage e-waste in house because we can, via our Waste-to-Energy Facility, recover the metals and can burn the hard plastic casing to create energy,” LeMay reported in a county statement. “There are limited markets for the hard plastic casing, so it is more likely to be landfilled if it leaves Pinellas County.”
At a public meeting held 12 months ago, Paul Sacco, the director of the county’s solid waste division, discussed how opportunities to recycle household electronics were very limited. Additionally, he suggested that it would be best for the county to handle materials in-house, to get maximum benefits.
County officials observed that locals were failing to utilize the household hazardous waste (HHW) center and recycling collection events, opting instead to simply discard electronic waste into regular trash bins.
“Prior to this change, approximately 6,800 tons of electronic waste had already been disposed of as regular garbage and was being processed at the Solid Waste Disposal Complex each year compared to a mere 460 tons of electronic waste collected through the HHW Center’s programs annually,” LeMay stated.
The New Protocol
Despite no longer receiving material, an agreement between A1 Assets and county officials in Lake Mary, Fla. remains in effect. Initially approved back in 2018, this five-year contract is set to expire on October 22nd, 2023.
“We want to be clear that this decision has nothing to do with A1 Assets,” the statement explained. “A1 Assets continues to provide service to our Business Electronics & Chemical Collection events and will continue to do so as a subcontractor to Republic Services/US Ecology once their direct contract with us expires in October 2023.”
E-Scrap News questioned whether a municipal solid waste incinerator could effectively recover precious metals from printed circuit boards. In response, county officials asserted that the waste-to-energy plant uses specialized magnets and an eddy current separator to extract ferrous and non-ferrous metals from the resulting ash.
“Both technologies are necessary and complementary to recover the metals for cleaning and scrap sales,” the statement noted.
