April 10, 2012

Waste to Energy Plant Field Trip
Geri Coppola

Advantages of Waste Energy

1.       This process produces less carbon emissions that are being released into the air.

2.       This process reduces the amount of garbage that is going to the landfills.

3.       This process is better for the environment; it is cleaner, more reliable, and a more renewable resource than coal burning.

4.       This process reduces our dependency on our fossil fuels.

5.       This process helps to recover and recycle metals that are in the garbage.

 Disadvantage of Waste Energy

      1.       Initially, it is very expensive for a waste energy facility but then becomes profitable.

I really enjoyed this field trip. It was very interesting to see how they can burn garbage and make that into energy.

Kelly Siegrist

Advantages

1. Waste to energy allows us to get rid of landfills which, are not only an eyesore,  can leak harmful toxins into the environment.
2. Creates a renewable energy source.
3. After a while, the factory pays for itself plus more.
4. Allows for recycling of metals and many other materials.
5. It creates jobs, from the front line, to the engineers that build the new technology.

Disadvantage

1. I wasn't able to ask, but I wondered if they burned plastic.  Plastic is highly toxic when burned and releases dioxin which may not be able to be taken out by high concentrations of heat or by scrubbers.  That could be one disadvantage.

This field trip opened my eyes to how sustainable Lee county is.  I have been to the incinerator back home in Broward county, and it was not a 0 input facility.  They burned trash and converted it into waste, but it did not have a good separating system, and it had smoke coming out of the stack.  Also, more was produced than just ash such as in Lee county.

Kealy Stapleton & Tom Ruch
Advantages

1. Allows for using renewable energy without having to disrupt natural resources.

2. The facility is not only efficient but it also environmentally friendly and that is something the the surrounding county can take pride in.

3. The most obvious advantage is that it reduces garbage going into landfills that has an indefinite decomposition time. We are making positive changes towards changing our detrimental environmental habits.

4. Is beneficial to the economy by creating jobs.

5. Recycle metals and other materials.

Disatvantage

They are very costly to build and it seemed like when politics and permitting gets involved, it can become very complicated, which is a shame because all of our landfills should be doing this.

Kealy- This was not my favorite field trip because of the smell and I didn't really understand a lot of what was going on because I am not very familiar with this sort of thing. I did enjoy learning that there was such an environmentally friendly facility because I had no idea that it was in Lee County before this field trip.

Tom- It was really interesting learning about how the facility works. It is cool to know that technology allows us to do these sort of environmentally friendly things.