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15 minutes ago, michael880 said:

Let me put it this way. Landfillguy. If yer employees came down from the garbage and said that it was splitting apart and unsafe and wasn't going back up there because they where afraid what would you do?. Then I ask anyone working at advanced what they think would have happened if they did that.

First, my job is to notice it before my employees do. Second, if my lead operator said he was afraid to be on the hill, I would damn sure be concerned that something was wrong. If you want to play the scenario out, I would move the entire tipping operation to a safe area of the landfill, then I would call my GM, area Ops Manager, and area Environmental Engineer to come and evaluate why the hill was moving. That's called "differential settlement", and is a sure sign that one area is settling much faster than the rest of the landfill.

I'm not going to comment what the other guys should have done, hindsight and all, but you asked me what I would do, not the company I work for. That's how those questions should be asked on the other side as well...

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On 9/13/2017 at 8:36 AM, landfillguy said:

A fixed sludge cap is what I hoped to see come out of this, but I'm afraid this is going to fade away. My last hope is something more serious coming out of the DEP investigation, but I'm not holding my breath

Sludge, flyash and lime?

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1 hour ago, fedup said:

Sludge, flyash and lime?

Actually, from an operations standpoint I love those two. The issues there are ecological, but if they are contained properly they are very easy to work, and stable. It's like grading sand; wet it, pack it, and cover it as quickly as possible so that you aren't making dust and rain doesn't erode dirt down to the ash

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26 minutes ago, landfillguy said:

Actually, from an operations standpoint I love those two. The issues there are ecological, but if they are contained properly they are very easy to work, and stable. It's like grading sand; wet it, pack it, and cover it as quickly as possible so that you aren't making dust and rain doesn't erode dirt down to the ash

I have some history with the use of flyash sludge and lime. If mixed correctly it will form a impermeable cap. In fact the Pa Dep actually used this mix  to get rid of harbor sludge from NY and NJ. They placed it in a coal strip job where I used to live.

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1 hour ago, fedup said:

I have some history with the use of flyash sludge and lime. If mixed correctly it will form a impermeable cap. In fact the Pa Dep actually used this mix  to get rid of harbor sludge from NY and NJ. They placed it in a coal strip job where I used to live.

We have also learned that it is impermeable if mixed deeper in the landfill, and that creates problems. Ash works best as a monofill, or as a cap like you said. It basically turns to concrete

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23 minutes ago, landfillguy said:

We have also learned that it is impermeable if mixed deeper in the landfill, and that creates problems. Ash works best as a monofill, or as a cap like you said. It basically turns to concrete

 It would cost to much to solidify all the sludge with flyash. But capping a cell with it would be worth the cost in the long run.

 The big problem---- flyash used to be a waste product.  Now it has become a useful product.

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14 hours ago, fedup said:

 It would cost to much to solidify all the sludge with flyash. But capping a cell with it would be worth the cost in the long run.

 The big problem---- flyash used to be a waste product.  Now it has become a useful product.

Has it only become useful because the producers of fly ash now don't have to worry about what to do with it?

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15 hours ago, fedup said:

 It would cost to much to solidify all the sludge with flyash. But capping a cell with it would be worth the cost in the long run.

 The big problem---- flyash used to be a waste product.  Now it has become a useful product.

If I had the ash it would be easy to mix, but like you said there are other uses for it. The power plants are still disposing of millions of tons of it, but they have learned they can build their own landfills on site cheaper than we can handle it. Our airspace costs us X amount of dollars per cubic yard, so we have a minimum we have to charge. They can build and staff their own landfills for less than that, so a lot of plants are choosing to go that route. I would love to have all of the ash the Clean Air Act is making those plants dispose of, but it's not economically feasible for us to take it, or for them to ship it to us

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2 hours ago, landfillguy said:

If I had the ash it would be easy to mix, but like you said there are other uses for it. The power plants are still disposing of millions of tons of it, but they have learned they can build their own landfills on site cheaper than we can handle it. Our airspace costs us X amount of dollars per cubic yard, so we have a minimum we have to charge. They can build and staff their own landfills for less than that, so a lot of plants are choosing to go that route. I would love to have all of the ash the Clean Air Act is making those plants dispose of, but it's not economically feasible for us to take it, or for them to ship it to us

 Shipping costs are the big problem.

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3 minutes ago, fedup said:

I think they are finding use for it. It's not so much of a waste product anymore.

It seems many things that are expensive to dispose of as waste suddenly find new homes. But how much testing is done before hand to determine the long term implications? I challenge that the new homes usually comes from well funded lobbying.

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2 minutes ago, soccermom said:

It seems many things that are expensive to dispose of as waste suddenly find new homes. But how much testing is done before hand to determine the long term implications? I challenge that the new homes usually comes from well funded lobbying.

Maybe they shouldn't have been labelled waste to start with. 

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6 minutes ago, fedup said:

 Shipping costs are the big problem.

Yep, those power plants are spread out, and so are landfills that are large enough to handle that volume. I'd love to have it, but I've been in several certification classes with guys from the power plants, so it looks like they are building their own landfills 

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4 minutes ago, fedup said:

Maybe they shouldn't have been labelled waste to start with. 

For ash, absolutely. That was a knee-jerk reaction to something that really wasn't a problem. It will cost the power plants billions of dollars to relocate that ash, and that cost will be passed right along to the consumer

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16 minutes ago, landfillguy said:

Yep, those power plants are spread out, and so are landfills that are large enough to handle that volume. I'd love to have it, but I've been in several certification classes with guys from the power plants, so it looks like they are building their own landfills 

Are they building landfills like yours and Greentree, or ones to handle just the fly ash?

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1 minute ago, landfillguy said:

I won't argue that there are contaminants, but I would argue that the new way of disposing of it is no more effective than what was done before. There are way more radioactive contaminants in your cell phone

I wasn't speaking of putting fly ash in a landfill. I was speaking of using it in construction products. 

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Just now, soccermom said:

I wasn't speaking of putting fly ash in a landfill. I was speaking of using it in construction products.

Ok, I misunderstood. We have Geiger counters on our scales. Fly ash won't set them off, but one diaper from a chemo patient in a 20 ton load of trash will

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