{"id":41116,"date":"2016-09-12T14:53:15","date_gmt":"2016-09-12T18:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=41116"},"modified":"2016-09-12T14:53:15","modified_gmt":"2016-09-12T18:53:15","slug":"lee-county-waste-to-energy-facility-processes-10-millionth-ton-of-waste-into-renewable-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2016\/09\/lee-county-waste-to-energy-facility-processes-10-millionth-ton-of-waste-into-renewable-energy\/","title":{"rendered":"Lee County Waste to Energy Facility Processes 10 Millionth Ton of Waste into Renewable Energy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-41117\" title=\"Lee County Waste to Energy Facility\" src=\"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Lee-County-Waste-to-Energy-Facility-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Lee-County-Waste-to-Energy-Facility-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Lee-County-Waste-to-Energy-Facility-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Lee-County-Waste-to-Energy-Facility.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Lee County this week is celebrating a milestone \u2013 10 million tons of municipal solid waste has now been converted to clean, renewable energy.<\/p>\n<p>The Waste to Energy Facility in Buckingham began operations in December 1994 as a method of diverting the community\u2019s waste from landfill disposal. Recovering energy and metals from the waste rather than simply landfilling the material has allowed the county to:<\/p>\n<p>\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Generate 59 megawatts of energy every hour &#8211; enough to continuously power 30,000 single family homes<\/p>\n<p>\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Recycle 400,000 tons of ferrous and 44,000 tons of nonferrous metal<\/p>\n<p>\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Saved 13 million cubic yards of landfill space \u2013 roughly equal to waste piled 10 feet high on 720 football fields<\/p>\n<p>\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Offset 10 million tons of greenhouse gases<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->The WTE facility is the cornerstone of the county\u2019s integrated waste management system, which includes robust recycling programs ensuring only the lowest-value waste is combusted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMany Lee County residents are enthusiastic recyclers, but are unaware that the county also uses the trash they set at the curb in a sustainable manner \u2013 converting the waste to energy and retrieving metals from the resulting ash,\u201d said Keith Howard, Solid Waste Director. \u201cThis disposal method reduces the county\u2019s reliance on fossil fuels for electricity and eliminates methane emissions that would be caused by landfilling the waste.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The facility has operated 24\/7 for the past twenty-two years without any environmental violations. The plant was built and is operated by Covanta in a public-private partnership with the county.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lee County this week is celebrating a milestone \u2013 10 million tons of municipal solid waste has now been converted to clean, renewable energy. The Waste to Energy Facility in&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":41117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41116"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}