One man’s trash, another’s energy

After you throw something in the trash, what happens to it? Where does it go? If you live on Long Island, there’s a good chance it ends up at one of four plants operated by the Covanta Energy Corporation, in Babylon, Huntington, Islip and the largest facility, in Westbury.

Last week, Herald editors and reporters toured the Westbury plant, where they learned where Long Island’s waste goes and how much energy Covanta produces from it. The tour was led by Ed Sandkuhl, chief engineering officer.

Only a small number of Long Island municipalities take their refuse to facilities other than Covanta, Sandkuhl said, estimating that nearly 1 million tons of garbage is shipped off Long Island annually, to other facilities or landfills.

The most widely used method of garbage disposal nationwide is dumping it into landfills, Sandkuhl said, adding that some 3,500 acres of U.S. land — the equivalent of four Central Parks — is turned into landfill each year. There are no landfills on Long Island, where space is limited and the surrounding water makes the possibility of landfill leaks too risky. Covanta, which has more than 40 facilities in the U.S. and others in Europe and China, turns municipal solid waste into electrical power through a controlled burning process. As it is burned, garbage creates steam, which turns a 72-megawatt turbine generator.

The Westbury plant’s bunker has a capacity of about 21,000 tons of waste, but it usually holds about 15,000 tons at a time. The volume of waste typically increases in the spring and decreases in the winter, Sandkuhl said.

The Westbury facility processes just under 1 million tons of solid waste per year, mainly from the Town of Hempstead, but also from the Town of Brookhaven in Suffolk County. It includes some special waste — shredded governmental documents, crime scene material and confiscated narcotics — but the plant does not handle radioactive or medical waste. It uses a sensitive screening process to test garbage trucks for radioactivity.