FROM: Ostroff Associates

DATE: January 5, 2021

RE: Climate Action Council Waste Advisory Panel Meeting

Chair - Martin Brand, Deputy Commissioner, New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation

Members

• George Bevington, Senior Project Manager, Barton & Loguidice

• Michael Cahill, Partner, Germano & Cahill, P.C.
• John W. Casella, Chairman, CEO, and Secretary, Casella Waste Systems
• Steve Changaris, Vice President, Northeast Region, National Waste and Recycling
Association
• Resa Dimino, Senior Consultant, Resource Recycling Systems
• Dan Egan, Executive Director, Feeding New York State
• Jane Atkinson Gajwani, Director, Energy and Resource Recovery Programs, NYC Department
of Environmental Protection
• Paul Gilman, Senior Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer, Covanta
• Dereth Glance, Executive Director, Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency
• Eric Goldstein, Sr. Attorney and New York City Environment Director, Natural Resources
Defense Council
• Allen Hershkowitz, Founding Director and Chairman of the Board, Sport & Sustainability
International
• Bernadette Kelly, International Representative & Recording Secretary Teamsters Local 210
• Tok Michelle Oyewole, PhD., Policy and Comms Organizer, NYC Environmental Justice
Alliance
• Lauren Toretta, President, CH4 Biogas
• Brigitte Vicenty, Founder, Inner City Green Team

Martin Brand: There will be a presentation by George Bevington on anaerobic digestion. Next, we
will hear from the subpanel working groups on water research recovery facilities, landfills and
organics diversion, materials management, and the local scale diversion climate justice group,
followed by a general discussion and questions.
Sally Roland: George Bevington, the Senior Project Manager at Wastewater Project Management,
will lead a presentation on anaerobic digestion. George has decades of experience in waste water
treatment.

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@24: Sludge, liquid, food waste, are all great AD feedstock… better than going to landfill

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John Casella: Any sense of the feed stocks and differences between what’s feeding the 6,000
digestors in Germany and quality of that feed stock? Where is that feed stock coming from and has
any analytical work been done on the relevance of how that compares to the United States?
Bevington: Generally, technological innovation for anaerobic digestion begins in Europe, because
the land is more concentrated and they try to squeeze energy out of anything they can. Some
digestors are very small and serve a handful of houses. The culture there supports the view that all
organics go somewhere. So far there has not been a comprehensive analysis on how their situation
compares to here.

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Bernard: What are the obstacles to incorporating feedstocks to existing anaerobic digestors?
Bevington: Mostly a matter of plumbing and infrastructure, but engineering also needs to be done.
Most digestors in New York State are underloaded. Newer technology, such as better mixing, can
feed digesters more than initially thought when first built in the 1970s and 80s. They can handle
more than the industry initially thought and the waste being sent to those digestors is largely
soluble, so they can produce energy more quickly as a result. This prevents the need to build new
bigger tanks with the existing infrastructure.
Steve Changaris: Referring to Germany, is that smaller-scale local approach the way to go, or should
we go more regional?
Bevington: A waste water plant that treats multiple communities is usually a better choice. Regional
digesters are better in terms of economy of scale and existing infrastructure. Local communities
usually can’t support the necessary maintenance and regulation requirements of larger, more
effective digesters.
Mike Cahill: If we are trying to mix food waste as part of feed stock, do you recommend a
combination of sewage sludge and additional food waste, or is that more appropriate for a regional
food waste facility to handle? If that’s the case, how do you handle non-organic mixings, like plastic
bags collected off the streets?
Bevington: Waste water plants handle the waste left over from after the solid waste workers do
their part. Solid waste workers process that waste through equipment to remove plastics to create
the “goo” that waste water plants can then process. Co-digestion of the waste from municipal sewer
systems have balanced nutrients with everything needed for microorganisms to flourish. The only
concern is with one-dimensional feedstock that might need to have certain nutrients added. Co-
digestion and food waste get the “balanced diet” they need to flourish.
Casella: Existing anaerobic digestors are also not able to handle organics. They need high-quality
and high-quantity materials. Packaging will succeed because there is the flurry of separated metals,
plastics, and other materials from that stream going to a digestor. The likelihood of changing
culturally from where we are now to having a stream going directly to anaerobic digestion would
be difficult, because they can only handle that high-quality material. Organics coming off the waste
stream is difficult because of the likelihood of contamination when commercial facilities don’t step
in to manage that.
Bevington: I think that compares to how we can look at our recycling bins and know there is always
a degree of mistakes in terms of organizing newspapers from glass and so on. That degree of non-
organics going into anaerobic digestors won’t work, because it has to be clean and has to be
processed. Whatever process happens with the processing mills even then goes to a waste water
plant for secondary screening to make sure they can go through the digestor. Digestors and closed
tanks are difficult to clean, so the more food and less debris put through them leads most to success.
Casella: That has been our experience as well. From a recycling standpoint we are not advocating
for reducing contamination because of the China exit to the fiber markets and how that has changed
the dynamics of recycling so substantially. We’re now reeducating people to drive down the total
contamination we process. Calls for tremendous cultural change to be successful.

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Eric Goldstein: Is there any data on the reduction of methane emissions from anaerobic digestion
compared to composting? In terms of strictly methane reduction, I assume the preference is
compost food waste first, then anaerobic digestion, then landfills at the lower end of the scale.
Sally Rowland: In general, it would depend on how much is leaking from the landfill compared to
what is captured in a digestor. Digestors that leak a lot may not gain anything over a landfill, but a
well-run digestor will create more energy production. A question of managing potential leaks.
Anaerobic digestors that are not linking give the same bang-for-buck as composting because it
diverts the same amount of material from landfills and results in the same emissions reduction.
SUBGROUP DISCUSSIONS
Molly Trembley: We broke down into five interest categories with four groups able to meet at least a
few times over the past few weeks. The groups are: water resource recovery facilities, landfills and
organic diversion, materials management, and local-scale diversion and climate justice. We also
have a group interested in discussion metrics and calculations.
Jane Gajwani: The group on water resource recovery facilities has a main goal of supporting the
transformation of waste water treatment into waste water resource recovery. The group
acknowledges the potential in waste water to rethink how we go about treating water and
harnessing resources to create a circular economy. We aim to extract available resources from
waste water and find alternatives to fossil fuels while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This
includes leveraging existing infrastructure, recovering biosolids for beneficial use, and distributing
bioenergy to benefit the community and reduce emissions in New York State. Minimizing fugitive
emissions is important and we are looking at setting emissions goals of what may be attainable by
2030. Some thoughts include comprehensive monitoring policies, training of DEC inspectors for
emissions and leakage, preventing nitrous oxide emissions, and converting septic systems to sewer
systems in public workplaces. Facilitating anaerobic digestors is a goal that calls for investing in
studies to determine if energy recovery makes sense and expanding the scope of facilities to a
regional hub-and-spoke system with funding to support those plants. Facilitating 100% beneficial
use of that recovered energy is a big financial hurdle for facilities. Our plan is to introduce the drive
for further biodegradables and the range of feed stocks available for recycling, and identifying new
waste water resources to benefit communities. Otherwise, we want to recognize resource value and
market demands by creating products that are actually useful. Equity discussions have been
focused on becoming more of a local community asset for resources and jobs.
Lauren Toretta: The landfills and organic diversion subgroup is looking at updating technologies
and bringing best-in-class technologies to New York State while focusing on the incentives that can
support improvement of the existing infrastructure. Our workplan talks about aligning economic
incentives to update infrastructure. Bio-gas is currently not included in CLCPA definition of
renewable resources, so including that in the definition would help coordinate these efforts from a
policy standpoint. Financial incentives needed to support organics and for different technologies.
We also talked about increasing regulatory and local support for energy recovery with a pathway
for facility upgrades and engaging local community to compile organics with the right technologies.
This requires additional investments, which underscores the need for having the right incentives to
put the capital in place and achieve State emissions reductions standards. Next steps are looking at
different technologies and flushing out incentives, elevating bio-gas to a renewable energy source,
and establishing subgroup overlaps of interests and ideas.

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Resa Dimino: The Resource Developments Group is working on policy options with larger
objectives. Big picture thoughts include resiliency of the supply chain in terms of markets and
resilience, using life cycle assessments in decision making related to greenhouse gases, and honing
down the best modes of waste transportation. Also looking at internalizing the costs of end-of life-
management in recognition that municipal governments often don’t have the necessary resources
to handle those processes. Lastly, we’re looking at supporting municipal solid waste systems in
place with impending helpful new policies that don’t undermine local goals. Don’t want to just shift
costs through this policy, but also promote change with the incentives that we apply. Also thinking
about possible targets on greenhouse gas impacts, such as on paper, carpets, batteries, and other
products with high-emissions related to their production. EPR is a good approach for these and
other appliances with refrigerants that impact climate gases. Other policies we’re suggesting are
universal recycling services like those in place in Vermont and Delaware, putting responsibilities on
builders for construction and demolition debris similar to the California requirement for recovery
plans, and expanding the bottle bill to include wine and liquor. We are suggesting expanding
domestic markets involved in plastics and textiles with large methane footprints.
Alan Herschkowitz: Disclaimer that we’re less focused on cost issues because it is a function of
political judgment. Don’t want anticipation of economic barriers to limit our analytic approach to
greenhouse gases reductions.
Brand: Many cross-cutting issues like transportation and local land use. Key is the focus on methane
emissions reductions. Hard part is quantifying these factors and the reductions they will produce.
We will look more into this.
Tok Michelle Oyewole: The Local Scale Diversion and Climate Justice group is working on ensuring
sustainable programs and creating local jobs to benefit marginalized communities. Emphasis on
building up disregarded programs like Inner City Green Teams that do tremendous local work. The
group is focused on the CLCPAs overall goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adverse
impacts of air pollution through reinvestment in disadvantaged communities. Goal of maximizing
local-scale processing of recyclable materials, expanding local collection, promoting green jobs,
diverting waste from landfills, promoting just energy regeneration strategies, and waste reduction
in general. Broadly, our goals include diverting retail waste, incorporating the use of redemption
centers, and increasing composting.
Brand: Key points are discussing the cross-cutting issues. Overlap between panels is good because
we are thinking alike. Reinvestments in disadvantaged communities of 40% outlined by the CLCPA
set forth are sector-wide. Have to focus on areas with most emissions possible and shouldn’t rely on
others to take up what we can’t quite propose. Trying to hit emissions reductions set in statute as
we go forward.
Dimino: Is there a focus in the landfills group on food recovery and composting? Sounds like the
discussion is largely related to methane recovery.
Toretta: Yes, that is important. New York State has done a lot in focusing on organic waste
diversion.
Dimino: Policy recommendations are important. The State has done well setting policy, but Vermont
has an aggressive approach fostering compost that is comparatively more effective, so there is more
we can do.

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Toretta: Right, waste has to go to the right technology and this requires local support. Certain types
of wastes are suited for different processes as explained in the anaerobic digestion presentation.
Changaris: There is the issue of timing and recording plans to the Climate Action Council, so when
do we expect work of subcommittees to be ready for presentation to the full group?
Brand: Next reporting point is January 19 to the CAC. Will call for broad overview of planning and
recommendations. No hard stop beyond recommendations in February and March, but they can be
forthcoming. We will continue to refine over the next 10 weeks to package our work to the CAC.
After the progress report, we will hone in on more specific recommendations. Also need to hold at
least one public meeting in the next month.
Changaris: Need to hold a discussion with Transportation Panel. Trucking for example has impacts
on communities and material transport is strongly linked to waste issues.
Brigitte Vicenty: The bottle bill was created over 10 years ago. How can we rase that issue and get
manufacturers to pay for any vending or way they can be responsible for getting bottles redeemed?
Dimino: Can modernize the deposit program and EPR. Options include possibly modernizing the
redemption system, going from five cents to ten cents for recycling, the inclusion of all glass, and
other changes that influence the answer to Brigette’s question. Impacts of different proposals need
to be more fleshed-out or else estimates will not be precise and will therefore not be helpful.
Brand: Transformative recommendations might want to be more generalized. Particular items
toward that larger goal can dive further into the details. Simple regulations, for example, can
incorporate more granular details. If calculations are important to the answers that we provide
than a more detailed explanation is warranted. Bottle bill expansion may be more of a local
economy issue than greenhouse gas issues, but there are also ancillary benefits worth
consideration.

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