In the Waste Expo exhibit hall, which opened this morning, two overriding influences are apparent: the struggling economy and the green movement. An endless array of environmentally friendly products is on display, and most of the big players are at pains to demonstrate their commitment to green principles. They are catering to an eager throng of attendees looking for ways to attract customers and do business more efficiently in the midst of a recession.

Lee Lydic, the national fleet development manager for Truck-Lite Co. Inc., a Falconer, N.Y.-based manufacturer and distributor of truck visibility products, is a good example of the type of waste professional walking the floor. Lydic said he had exhibited at past Waste Expos, but couldn’t afford to exhibit in the current economic climate. Nevertheless, he said he was very impressed with the show, noting that he was finding many products worth getting excited about, such as the new LED headlights featured on the trucks Mack was showing at its booth.

“You’ve got the top truck manufacturers, the top body manufacturers and the top container manufacturers,” said Lydic, adding that the quality of the vendors he had met with was high.

Among those exhibitors displaying on the floor is Erie, Pa.-based Eriez Manufacturing, which produces equipment for screening and separating recyclables. Eric Confer, a technical sales rep for Eriez, said that traffic so far was a little slower than in previous years, but that everyone who had stopped by the booth was eager to learn about the company’s products: “We’ll take quality over quantity any day,” said Confer. He also noted a greater interest in recycling this year, with firms looking to add recycling to their operations, or improve the efficiency of existing recycling programs.

Terry Creamer of Western Cascade Container, a solid waste container manufacturer based in Kelso, Wa., said he had already seen several interesting products, including a new backing camera, and had spoken to a range of hook-lift manufacturers. This was Creamer’s first time attending the show in 10 years, and he said he was impressed with how far the show had come in that time.

The exhibit hall will be open 10:00 – 5:00 on Wednesday and 10:00 – 1:00 on Thursday.

The “Getting Credit for Green Initiatives” session on Monday afternoon featured three speakers from Georgia-based waste companies that had real-world experience in helping companies “green” their image or had earned their own reputation as green firms. The session kicked off with William “Dolph” Winders of Atlanta-based Balch & Bingham, a legal firm specializing in environmental issues. Winders set the tone, pointing out that “going green” improves public perception and is just good business. Citing Dupont, WalMart, and Hewlett-Packard as part of the 10 percent of Fortune 500 companies that understand this metric, he emphasized that green is not a color that is going to go out of style.

“He who controls the youth controls the future,” said Winders, pointing out that schools and universities are the greenest places in the United States. “Green is cool in school. And in 10 to 15 years, those students are going to be your customers.”

Among the ways Winders suggested waste companies could go green were:

• creating conservation easements and wetlands

• earning LEED certification for buildings

• converting fleets to biodiesel

• pursuing landfill-gas-to-energy projects

• redeveloping brown fields

• food waste composting

• purchasing carbon offsets

Winders also added that “new ideas get the most green press,” citing as examples bioreactors, plasma arc technology and the Valero project, which will produce gasoline from municipal solid waste (MSW).

Timothy Lesko of Greenco, Norcross, Ga., the leading organic recycling company in the Southeast, talked about sustainability and the challenges of establishing organics recycling programs. After pointing out that organics are far and away the biggest component of MSW, he said successful composting programs will handle not only traditional organics (paper, cardboard) but also nontraditional organics, like yard waste and food waste (food waste being the largest portion of MSW entering landfills).

Lesko said composting is a compelling green initiative because it fits “the three ‘R’s.” It REDUCES the amount of waste going to landfills, REUSES organic waste as compost and RECYCLES waste into new products.

Speaking more broadly, he advised waste companies to adhere to “the three ‘C’s” for getting credit:

• CLARITY in advertising green efforts.

• CREDIBILITY when making claims of green initiatives.

• CONSISTENCY in building a story with facts and stimulating repetitions to make them memorable.

The final speaker, Ernest Kaufman of Greenfirst, Canton, Ga., detailed the ongoing development of the Turkey Run Landfill, which will be the closest landfill to downtown Atlanta. It’s the first landfill project to be permitted in Georgia in almost 10 years. Understandably, the project features several innovative green aspects, including substantial mitigation of the Blue Creek Basin, which involves restoring and relocating large sections of a stream that runs through the site and supplies a nearby town with water. Additionally, half-mile green buffer zones and an on-site industrial park will ensure that no residential development occurs adjacent to the landfill.

The completed facility will accept 3,000 tons per day and total permitted volume is 31,189,847 cubic yards. Notably, the site will accept no out-of-state waste (a first in Georgia), nor will it accept sewage sludge.

“Green development of landfills is NOT a ‘dead cost,’” concluded Kaufman.

In today’s troubled economy, companies are holding onto equipment longer and delaying the purchase of new devices. However, keeping equipment too long is an almost surefire to spend too much money, Dave Dawson, CEO of Houston-based AssetNation, told attendees of a WasteExpo conference session on Monday.

Dawson’s remarks came during the “Leveraging End-of-Life Assets to Improve Cash Flow in a Struggling Economy” session. His company has sold more than $1 billion in assets on behalf of Fortune 1000 companies.

Noting the intention of some waste haulers to drive their trucks “until the wheels fall off,” Dawson said such an ownership strategy can be financially harmful as maintenance costs soar and the re-sale value of the equipment plummets.

“There is really a better way to manage the end-of-life asset,” Dawson said. “At some point, it costs more to maintain than the monthly cost of new equipment.”

Larger fleets often go about answering the question “When is it time to trade out my equipment?” in a “very programmatic way,” Dawson added.

These larger companies keep an eagle eye on life cycle costs - carefully keeping track of acquisition costs, maintenance expenses, the costs of idle equipment, risk-management expenses and disposal/exit costs - to best calculate the right time to get rid of a piece of equipment.

For an asset management program that seeks to get rid of equipment at the right time to be successful, the following dynamics need to be in place, according to Dawson:

* The program must be a strategic priority.

* The program must have an executive sponsor.

* It needs to be rolled out uniformly across a company.

* It requires ongoing management and reinforcement.

* The program must have the ability to measure progress toward financial goals.

* And, it requires frequent communication across multiple levels of a company.

However, even if you do drive your truck “until the wheels fall off,” you will still likely find a buyer of some sort, Dawson added.

The Waste Age team is on the ground in Las Vegas, seeing all there is to see at Waste Expo 2009. As attendees file in from all corners of the country (and beyond), the show is already running apace. Though the show floor does not open until tomorrow, today was filled with a slate of informative sessions that seemed to generate a lot of excitement.

Everyone’s getting ready for the welcome reception at the Paris Las Vegas this evening. We’ll be updating the blog as often as we can. Tell us what you’d like to see and we’ll do our best to bring it to you!

Yesterday, I stumbled across this shocking and disheartening collection of photos that show the very real consequences of pollution and irresponsible waste handling. They’re hard to shake. It would be easy to seek comfort by assuming that scenes like this are not possible in this country, and for the most part, that’s true. But that strikes me as a cop out.

The fact is, much of the material depicted in these faraway lands originated in or passed through the United States. And it is U.S.-based companies that deliver and heavily market these products (and product containers) overseas without providing any method for reclamation or helping to provide for proper disposal. There’s no escaping our complicity in what is an environmental and human tragedy.

If you can’t make it to Las Vegas next week for Waste Expo 2009, no worries. The Heap has you covered. Follow our blog for the most up-to-date news and observations from the show floor. The editors of Waste Age will be posting live from the show, and we would love to hear from you. What aspects of Waste Expo are you most interested in?

Attention waste and recycling firms! We are now officially accepting applications for the 16th annual Waste Age 100, our ranking of the top 100 refuse firms in the private sector. Inclusion in this listing is FREE and is a great way to get your company noticed. You can find last year’s rankings here.

To submit your info, please fill out our online form. The final ranking will be published in the August issue of Waste Age.

A great article in today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette uses a charity e-waste collection event as a jumping off point to examine the fiction of “free” electronics recycling. The article asserts that if electronics are being collected for free (and especially if the company collecting the electronics asserts that it is making enough to give some of the proceeds to charity), that material is likely being shipped to third-world countries.

“People have to understand that if they want their electronics disposed in the right way, they have to pay for it,” said [Alan Boring, owner and operator of A. Greenspan Computer Recycling Inc.], 60, who started his recycling business in 2003.

The right way of doing business, he said, must include a certain fee that is assessed to the consumer. That fee is essential because the collector has to pay a smelter in the United States, Canada, Japan or some countries in Europe to properly shred the electronics.

It’s worth noting (as the article does) that this activity, while unethical, is not technically illegal. It’s also notable that the United States is the only industrialized nation that has yet to sign the Basel treaty, under which developed countries agree to monitor and end the shipment and reckless disposal of hazardous materials contained in electronics.

If your firm collects e-waste, do you know where that material ultimately winds up? Are you sure?

Given the now mythic “Miracle on the Hudson,” the Jan. 15 event in which an Airbus 320 USAirways aircraft was successfully landed on New York’s Hudson River after a dual bird strike caused catastrophic engine failure, you’d think New York officials would be especially attuned to the problems caused by attracting large numbers of birds to airports. Nevertheless, the Associated Press reports that the city is mulling construction of a large transfer station 700 yards from the end of a runway at LaGuardia International Airport.

City sanitation managers and the Federal Aviation Administration say that the transfer facility would not pose a risk because all waste handled on the site will be in containers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, pilots, bird experts and members of Congress remain skeptical.

“Stand in any street and watch the garbage truck go by. Guess who is flying above them? They leak liquid, they have trash hanging off the sides — anybody knows that,” Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., says in the AP report. “The whole thing is mystifying. Of all the places to put it, why direct deadline center at the end of a runway?”

For father and son garbage collectors Gary and Chris Checkan, the day began like any other. Their truck full, the pair stopped for lunch in Rochester, Pa. before heading to the landfill to unload. That was when they spotted 22-year-old Dale Robertson, suspected in the robbery of the nearby Huntington Bank, running by in a mask and hood. Chris jumped out of the truck and chased down Robertson, tackling him from behind. Gary, afraid the suspect had a gun (he didn’t), rushed in to help subdue him.

Robertson also is thought to have perpetrated another bank robbery and six Subway shop holdups. The Checkans, who work for Valley Waste of Zelienople, Pa., are being hailed as heroes.

Bet the next day’s route seemed awfully dull.

Source: KDKA, Pittsburgh