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  • 2 weeks later...
32 minutes ago, TucsonSunset said:

The anniversary is next week (Feb 8).  How many people will remember this event vs groundhog day?  For those involved in the disaster, its a groundhog day from hell, over and over.

Issues that I believe led to that disaster are a hot topic in the industry right now, and I specifically mention that example, along with others, multiple times per week.  It's a hard issue to get around because so much money is involved, but that's another reason I wished this story had gotten national attention. The onus shouldn't lie completely with the landfills, the generators should bear the responsibility as well. Certain generators do, are very conscientious of what materials are used to solidify their liquids and the sustainability of those materials in a landfill. A certain national convenience store chain, for example, won't do business with generators that solidify with the polymers I hate. They will spend the extra money to go to a generator that uses materials that behave more like cement. If all generators felt that way, or were regulated to work that way, then landfills would be safer. No doubt that mistakes are made on both sides, but as long as a blind eye is turned, nothing will change, and it will just be a matter of time until the next one

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3 minutes ago, Petee said:

Keep on keeping on!  You are the "people" we are all depending on to clean up that industry.  It's not about money, it's about working out an economical, safe and profitable process.  Every employee should come first before a dollar of business is done.

It has to catch the attention of someone outside of the landfills. These giant national waste companies are built around the trucks, the landfills are the destination no one thinks about. Its all waste, it all makes money. We get paid to pick it up and dump it. Unless you are in the landfill, you don't see what we are actually dumping, and landfill employees are less than 10% of the company's employees. The bonus structure is flawed, because it rewards 90% of the employees for punishing 10%. It's not even that they are doing it on purpose, most of them don't even know.

I will say that my company is pushing hard towards much more strict limits on what we can take, but not without pushback. It's also a voluntary move, so if we don't take it, that means it has to go somewhere. Someone will take that revenue, and the current laws regarding solidification aren't sustainable. I'm a conservative, I don't like a lot of regulation, but it's time for something to be done. This waste has to be disposed of. Class 3 landfills are the best place to dispose of it. Instead of relying solely on engineers and "wet waste studies", start getting the opinions of the blue collar guys that have actually been touching this stuff in the field for 20-30 years. Find out what makes good sludge good, what makes bad sludge bad. Standardize a method of solidification that makes this material safe in a landfill. Set limits on how much a landfill can take, and spread it out among all landfills. 

Heres another thing that hurts certain landfills, and I bet it applies to your area. Say you're a huge company that owns numerous landfills. You have two large landfills within 90 miles of each other, but one is in a town with a population of 1 million people and is right in the middle of town, surrounded by subdivisions, schools, churches, etc... It's the flagship of your company. Your other landfill is the same size, but it's at the end of a lonely road in the middle of nowhere, in a town with a population of 10,000. Which landfill are you going to send all the nasty, sticky, smelly sludge to? Little hint: one landfill is getting 5% sludge, the other is getting 30%.

There needs to be some regulation

 

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Be still, my fingers, be still.

LFG, knows what your not supposed to know.

 Nobody wants to know what happens to the things they no longer need in their lives.

 Hand it off to someone else and forget about it.

LIFE IS GOOD.

OOPS I forgot to make my fingers be still.

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  • 2 weeks later...

50% reduction in intake of a certain waste stream.

$150-200K/ month reduction in revenue

That material still has to go somewhere, and whoever will take it will be able to charge more per ton because disposal sites are becoming limited. I'm referencing one facility, and this reduction is taking place in... let's just say more than 2...

There's a lot of money there for the taking. Someone will take it. It's time for someone to look at the generators, look at how this stuff is solidified, and make the generators dry it out. Class 3 landfills are the best place we have to dispose of this stuff, but they don't have the equipment or the material to change the composition of it. Landfills are the destination, they accept and contain the waste. There has to be some kind of consistent regulation to require the generators to make this material safe for a landfill. They aren't purposely creating a material that is this hazardous, it just meets the current criteria, passes the current tests required to enter a landfill. The problem is there is more of it than ever before, and as more and more municipalities push recycling, there is less MSW to mix with it. The percentage of wet waste to MSW continues to climb, and that is what makes a landfill dangerous. If it were solidified a different way, with a more porous material that made it drier and facilitated drainage, then I wouldn't have a problem with it.

When landfills slide, or you have a catastrophic event like Greentree, everyone looks at the landfill. Mistakes were made, no doubt, but if that material was dry in the first place maybe that wouldn't have happened.

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  • 1 month later...

 I don't guess there has been any news about this since the one year anniversary, but I wanted to fill you guys in on what is happening around the industry. Big changes nationwide this year, and the focus is beginning to shift from the landfills to the producers.  I have been on many conference calls, been in many meetings, talked to many drivers, and the most often repeated phrase is "that landfill up in Pennsylvania  "

 It may not be making much news up there, but it sent ripples across the entire country 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/5/2018 at 8:39 AM, mr.d said:

Have not seen anything on this for sometime. Have been checking.

I've been checking too. They just want it to go away and become a distant memory, meanwhile their business goes on until the next time...

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Well unfortunatly this company has built up a pretty good monopoly in our region from buying out other companies and getting local governments to require residents to use their services. I often wonder how it comes about that places which once allowed people to pick their own trash company came to decide that Advanced should be the required company.  Now they are raising rates for many 20% or more.  This company's customer service is the pits having spent several hours a week or so ago trying to reach them by phone at several different numbers. Their practice of picking up trash at night  while I can see some advantages to it it also involves risks to the workers who, when I have seen them do not have reflective vests on, which places them in danger from traffic, (also required by OSHA). This could be just employees not wearing what they should but if the employer was serious about safety they would be wearing it. Some years ago I worked for a company that was providing services to government agencies and saw them providing many gifts to local officals that encouraged them to give the company business. So I am bit leery of deals like advanced is getting but a company with a poor safety record places not only their workers but also others at risk 

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28 minutes ago, DRNeil said:

Well unfortunatly this company has built up a pretty good monopoly in our region from buying out other companies and getting local governments to require residents to use their services. I often wonder how it comes about that places which once allowed people to pick their own trash company came to decide that Advanced should be the required company.  Now they are raising rates for many 20% or more.  This company's customer service is the pits having spent several hours a week or so ago trying to reach them by phone at several different numbers. Their practice of picking up trash at night  while I can see some advantages to it it also involves risks to the workers who, when I have seen them do not have reflective vests on, which places them in danger from traffic, (also required by OSHA). This could be just employees not wearing what they should but if the employer was serious about safety they would be wearing it. Some years ago I worked for a company that was providing services to government agencies and saw them providing many gifts to local officals that encouraged them to give the company business. So I am bit leery of deals like advanced is getting but a company with a poor safety record places not only their workers but also others at risk 

Many municipalities are having one company perform trash services because of mandated laws that became too expensive for the local government to provide.

 

There were also many other job related deaths in Pennsylvania in 2017.

https://www.osha.gov/dep/fatcat/dep_fatcat.html

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  • 3 months later...

 The other landfill thread made me think about this one. There have been drastic, sweeping changes across the country in hundreds of landfills that I know of this year.  Millions of dollars in business has been turned away for the sake of safety.  Everyone in the industry knows what happened up there, and knows why it happened.  If any of Billy's friends or family are still reading this thread, just know that my job is now safer after the tragedy up there. This isn't how any of us wanted it to happen, but good has come of it, and will benefit thousands of people for years to come 

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1 hour ago, LFG said:

 The other landfill thread made me think about this one. There have been drastic, sweeping changes across the country in hundreds of landfills that I know of this year.  Millions of dollars in business has been turned away for the sake of safety.  Everyone in the industry knows what happened up there, and knows why it happened.  If any of Billy's friends or family are still reading this thread, just know that my job is now safer after the tragedy up there. This isn't how any of us wanted it to happen, but good has come of it, and will benefit thousands of people for years to come 

I'm so glad that safety has improved for you and others in the industry. And thank you for all of your insight into this tragedy from the very beginning.

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16 hours ago, steelnut said:

I'm so glad that safety has improved for you and others in the industry. And thank you for all of your insight into this tragedy from the very beginning.

Field hands have been screaming for years. As these landfills get older, taller, and heavier, we are beginning to pay for the sins of the past. Current regulations were passed in 89, which in the life of a landfill was not that long ago, but waste streams have changed drastically in that time. If you are in the field you can see what is happening, but it doesn't show up on a spreadsheet or earnings report. It's a shame that this had to happen to get upper levels to notice, but at least they have noticed, and in our case are making changes.

I'm taking half of a certain waste stream compared to last year. It's a budget killer to lose that revenue, and will cost me personally several thousand dollars this year, but next year I will move forward with a safer, more sustainable landfill. It was worth it

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  • 1 month later...
On 7/26/2018 at 11:54 AM, LFG said:

Field hands have been screaming for years. As these landfills get older, taller, and heavier, we are beginning to pay for the sins of the past. Current regulations were passed in 89, which in the life of a landfill was not that long ago, but waste streams have changed drastically in that time. If you are in the field you can see what is happening, but it doesn't show up on a spreadsheet or earnings report. It's a shame that this had to happen to get upper levels to notice, but at least they have noticed, and in our case are making changes.

I'm taking half of a certain waste stream compared to last year. It's a budget killer to lose that revenue, and will cost me personally several thousand dollars this year, but next year I will move forward with a safer, more sustainable landfill. It was worth it

Every safety rule/law has come as a result of blood, broken bones, and deaths of workers.

God forbid companies and businesses are proactive instead of reactive when it comes to employee safety, health, and life.

Deals like this proves that profit is above the well being of the employees....

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  • 2 weeks later...
10 hours ago, Dobby said:

I may be way behind on this topic, but where exactly is this located? Thx for the education.

 This is how I found this website. I heard about it the day it happened, and the only thing that came up on my Google search was a thread by mr.d.  The original thread got lost when the site changed the format 

 I came here with the best of intentions, I can only blame myself for everything that followed...

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