Posted on 01/02/2016 11:14:25 AM PST by JeepersFreepers
In 2011, the Austin City Council hired two companies to handle materials. Austin Resource Recovery, headed by Bob Gedert, originally estimated an annual net income of $488,000 for the program. That estimate was based on projections of $5.25 million in annual revenue from the sale of recyclables against about $4.8 million in processing costs.
In the latest fiscal year, a review of city records shows Austin got a shade under $3 million for its recyclables, even as processing costs hovered around $4.8 million. The city lost $1.9 million last fiscal year and a $2.7 million in the two previous years as recyclable materials have fetched less on the open market than the cost to process them.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Hmmm...that was “unexpected”.
Actually, it IS possible to profitably recycle...but as soon as the government gets involved, just like everything else, it turns into crap.
Quelle surprise. /s
If I thought that stuff that I throw away had any value,
well ... then I wouldn’t be throwing it away.
They probably forgot to allow for the graft and corruption that is endemic in government.
Aluminum isn’t worth what it once was even a few years ago, so the payout from recycling aluminum cans isn’t there. Industrial metals in general have fallen.
It doesn’t matter that it is unsustainable, we all “feel” better don’t we?
I help save my town money by NOT recycling.
Nothing I would like better than to see Austin with all of its feel good programs go belly-up...
But all the do-gooders still get to feel good at others' expense.
Our county commission sold the public on a new single-stream recycling facility afew years ago with the claim that it would be a money maker. It now loses $300K per year.
I have a good sized towing trailer load of scrap metal that will sit until things come back if they do.
Not just there... also in Montana
(still haven’t found out how this person obtained this job/position. She always had her nose buried in a book at the library when I visited)
Any successful recycling program is going to lose money. Only the liberals think ‘we’re smart enough to make it work’.
I wouldn’t be surprised. You’re probably close to the truth there if not quite there. I agree with your statement.
It’s not with a lot of joy that I come to that conclusion, because we are a large population and we are a consumable society.
We have a lot of trash. If we could recycle most of it at a profit and reuse it, that would be a great outcome.
I do wonder if they are thinking smart in how they are gong about it. Perhaps they are and it could never work.
I’d sure like to have some very capable people review the processes before tossing in the towel.
Even burning some of the waste to create energy should result in some profit.
Increasing landfill is not optimal.
Yes it is, when commodity prices are up. Right now they are way down.
I have a friend that owns and runs a salvage yard and at the prices he can pay people just are not bringing scrap to his yard.
There’a SIMPLE SOLUTION. Privatize it.
If the :politically correct” environmentalists are SERIOUS about clean energy, they would promote a technology called “Plasma arc trash reduction”, a process by which ALL forms of trash are reduced to their constituent atomic structure, then the heat generated by this process is used to drive electric power generation. The primary products of this process are “syngas”, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, both of which are excellent fuels that may be used to drive the generation of electric power, and a silica slag which contains practically all other components of whatever went into the trash stream.
The volume of the slag that comes off is about a quarter to a tenth of the volume of the original trash, and it may be mined for various metallic content, as it is a higher grade of ore than is most of the material that is hauled up out of the ground by various mining operations all over the world. It may be hot-formed into building blocks, and depending on how it is cooled (rapid quench or slow radiant cooling), it forms various grades of igneous stone. Or it may be crushed as aggregate for concrete or for road building purposes.
Once up and running, the operating temperature of the plasma torch is about 33,000 degrees F., about three times the temperature of the sun’s surface. The syngas generated is about 2,200 degrees F., and is passed over a heat exchanger to generate superheated steam, in the process of cooling it. Once cooled, the stream of hydrogen and carbon monoxide may be separated, yielding up pure hydrogen which may be used to power a fuel cell, or burned directly in the presence of oxygen to yield a very hot flame, which may be used to further produce power through the medium of superheated steam. Carbon monoxide itself is an excellent fuel which when combined with oxygen, forms carbon dioxide, a safe, NON-POLLUTING fraction of our atmosphere, and one that is vital for the photosynthesis of oxygen and carbohydrates in green growing plants. The carbon dioxide may also be captured, cooled and compressed into either liquid CO2, or allowed to become “dry ice”, an intensely cold and solid form of CO2, and an important industrial product.
The hydrogen, of course, when combined with oxygen, becomes water vapor.
Empty out our land fills and turn those blighted acres back into “greenfields”, divert all the existing and continuing waste stream into electric power, reduce need for and dependence on fossil fuels, assure a continuous supply of building materials that will prove to be the equal of our current supplies, and provide a way of reclaiming metallic elements otherwise lost when merely dumped in a hole in the ground. And not only the land fills, the sewage sludge that is now dumped there could go through this plasma arc, with the decomposed fecal matter adding its bit to the “syngas”, and simultaneously extracting all the dreaded metals like cadmium and mercury from circulation in the soil and groundwater.
I don’t see a downside. Most elegant solution.
It has been estimated that perhaps fewer than a dozen of these processing units could both clean up all the existing waste dumps, and the current waste stream, for a municipality the size of New York City, and generate enough electricity to keep it lit and industry-capable, without tapping into outside sources.
There is a place to spend the funds for infrastructure that does NOT have to be only for the roads and bridges. This is infrastructure that actually IMPROVES our environment. And generates a number of useful by-products, not the least of which is relatively cheap electric power.
And carbon-neutral to boot. NO fossil fuels are used once the cycle is started.
Can’t get greener than that.
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