Dive Brief:

• The County Administrator in Hagerstown, MD, announced that an investment firm plans to construct a waste-to-energy (WTE) facility at the site of the county’s 40 West landfill. 
• America First, Inc., based in West Virginia, has finalized a 20 year contract with the county; the firm will finance the $12 million WTE plant.
• The project calls for the facility to be completed in phases. Plant capabilities will initially include sorting waste and recyclables, some of which can be converted into clean-burning fuel pellets. The second phase will see the production of synthetic liquid fuel.  

Dive Insight:

The project is expected to get underway in 2015. As per the terms of the contract, the county expects to receive a percentage of revenue from the sale of fuel pellets and syngas. Officials estimate the county could see about $600,000 collected during the first phase, and as much as $2 million per year after the second phase of the project is completed. 

The project will also promote landfill mining, which will extract commodities from the trash buried at the landfill site.