Dive Summary:
- New recycling standards and cap & trade regulations raise concerns about the future of Long Beach, California's waste-to-energy facility
- California Assembly Bill (AB) 341 requires that 75% of waste be source reduced, recycled or composted by the year 2020. Waste treated at a WTE facility does not meet this requirement.
- More troubling for the facility, the California Global Warming Solutions Act will require the plant to drastically reduce it's carbon emissions or purchase offsets.
- Officials from the WTE facility contend that overall carbon emissions would drastically increase if the plant is shutdown, however, there is no guarantee the facility will continue operating after a local power company's contract to purchase energy from the plant expires in 2013
From the article:
Long Beach officials are questioning the future of the local waste-to-energy plant as it comes under new environmental regulation and does not meet the guidelines of California’s new solid waste recycling goals.
The Southeast Resource Recovery Facility (SERRF) is a solid waste processing plant at 120 Pier S Ave. that burns trash from regional municipalities and converts it to power. SERRF is a joint project of the City of Long Beach and the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County, established to address the closure of a nearby landfill in 1980 and divert waste from other landfills.
Its services have remained valuable to assist local jurisdictions in meeting the 50 percent landfill diversion rate by 2000, that was mandated by the Integrated Waste Management Act, or Assembly Bill 939, passed in 1989. Cities like Long Beach are able to receive diversion credits for taking up to 10 percent of their solid waste to SERRF.
While its waste diversion processes are still applicable for municipalities under AB 939, they do not apply to the new statewide 75 percent recycling goal. On July 3, Long Beach Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal raised this issue before the city council, noting that there may a problem with “blurring the lines” between the definitions of diversion and recycling.
