Digging into Spokane’s waste

There’s a lot more to garbage than meets the eye – or the nose.

Spokane’s Waste-to-Energy Plant on the West Plains churns away day and night making energy from 800 tons of trash every day. The whole waste-to-energy process and the plant itself, from its conception to its construction to its daily operations, has been much examined.

“Still, for the 17 years we’ve been here and for all the visits we have from the public and all the information we put out, there’s a lot that people still don’t know about us,” said Damon Taam, system contract manager for the Spokane Regional Solid Waste System.

Here’s a sampling:

Free stuff

Driving into the plant – or to the two transfer stations, one in north Spokane and one in Spokane Valley – the first thing you encounter is the recycling area, and at the back of that is a table with a big sign that says: “Free, anything on this table.”

When people offload their recyclable household hazardous waste onto carts, that material is examined by staff at the plant. Items deemed appropriate are put on the “free” table – hair dye, deck stain, weed killer, lamp oil, wood stain, pesticides, new cans of oil, soap scum remover, paint and more.

A lot of people who recycle at the plant also “shop” there. Della Gaylord, a heavy equipment operator at the facility, said that when people have small home projects, they often pick up what they need there in the form of a quart of paint or a half can of concrete adhesive – but only from items placed on the “free” table.

One of those people is Stephanie Ennis, director of student activities at Eastern Washington University, who takes recyclables to the plant several times a year.

“I like to take it to the next level of value in terms of impact,” she said. “I like to see what I can use from the free table so it doesn’t go to waste.”

Recently she had two small wooden tables she wanted to convert into night stands, but they needed painting. “There’s a lot of leftover designer paint at the plant, and I found a nice chocolate brown, plus a small can of gold metallic paint for the handles,” Ennis said. “It was perfect, but then, I’m probably craftier and pack rattier than most, so I can find a lot of useful items for future projects when I look.”

Gaylord said she’s even seen someone take a partially used tube of toothpaste from the table. “That didn’t bother me as much as the fact that they also took a toothbrush,” she added.

Weird stuff

Some things just can’t be put in the trash curbside, so they are brought to the plant. Probably the oddest thing Taam has seen been brought in for burning was a family’s decrepit camper. While the plant can’t take items that have licenses, if the license has been properly dealt with, it can come to the plant – and at a fee of $98 a ton, that’s sometimes a good solution for getting rid of something big and bulky, Taam said.

Other weird stuff is not so benign. Once a 30-inch live mortar shell arrived with the waste. A radioactive lampshade set off sensors. And a legal shipment of hemp seed containers that did not have proper documentation also came for disposal.

Faraway stuff

The plant has contracts to take in oil filters from Prudhoe Bay, hard drives from Trident nuclear submarines, waste pharmaceuticals from across the state and feminine waste products from scientists working at McMurdo Sound.

Happy stuff

Some things that are accidentally thrown out have been found amidst the tons and tons of garbage (they burn 800 tons a day). Taam recalls once when a woman called right after her trash was picked up and she realized her diamond ring was missing, they were able to identify the refuse truck that had come to her house and had its contents dumped out on the tipping floor in an isolated area.

The woman and her family suited up in appropriate gear and goggles and went through the truckload of trash – and found the ring.

Food stuff

Waste food that originates in a foreign country or is expired or not properly fumigated is disposed of at the Waste to Energy Plant. For example, unused food from an overseas airline (if the food came in to the state from overseas) or food seized or surrendered at the U.S. border all comes to the plant for disposal.

Dead stuff

While most people probably wouldn’t dispose of a family pet in the trash, they actually can – up to a certain pound limit. Both Waste Management in Spokane Valley and the city of Spokane will do curbside collection of dead animals up to 15 pounds provided they are individually double-bagged and put in the trash. The same is true for marmots, birds, raccoons and other small animals – up to 15 pounds – even skunks.

The only proviso is that commercial exterminators or trappers cannot use the system in that manner, Taam said.

Larger animals should go to rendering plants or they can be brought to the North Side Landfill at 5502 W. Nine Mile Road. And yes, a dead horse can be taken to the landfill, according to Taam.

Other recycling stuff

While there are limits to what can be recycled curbside (aluminum cans, glass bottles and jars, bundled or bagged magazines and newspapers, some plastic bottles are all allowable), there’s a lot more that can be recycled at the plant and transfer stations. Among those items are colored plastic bottles, the screens from screen doors, old plumbing parts, aluminum tubing from lawn chairs, some car parts (like car batteries).

New news in recycling – labels no longer have to be removed from tin cans that are recycled.

The recycling hotline – 625-6800 – is a good place to go for recycling information. The brown-edged pages at the front of the Dex phone book’s community section also contain a detailed recycling and garbage guide.

Web site controvery

The official Web site for the Spokane Regional Solid Waste System is www.solidwaste.org. Taam said the Internet contains other Web sites that give information about the Waste to Energy Plant, “but they are bootleg sites, and we have lawsuits against them. They are filled with inaccuracies and mistruths.”

Not everyone likes what they do – burning garbage at 2,500 degrees, creating a plume of smoke and creating a byproduct containing heavy metals, even though energy is produced for sale as a result – said Taam, who has been with the solid waste system since 1979 and previously ran the old landfills before the plant came online.

Statistical stuff

For those who like to know the numbers, Taam said the Waste to Energy Plant disposes of 354,704 tons of solid waste a year, with the garbage reduced by 90 percent in volume and 70 percent of weight.

“We bring in $12.5 million in revenue by the sale of the power we generate, which provides electricity for 20,000 homes,” he said.

Residents of Spokane County are very savvy about recycling, too, Taam added, with a 43 percent rate of items recycled that can be recycled and with the level of garbage collected approximately the same as it was seven years ago while the population of the county has been growing at 2 to 4 percent.

On the horizon

At present, the byproduct of the combustion is 300 tons of ash daily, which is taken to the Roosevelt Regional Landfill near Goldendale, Wash. Taam said they are in the early stages of examining possible uses for the ash instead. He noted that in Japan, such products are used in the creation of roads, but because of the heavy metal content in the ash, that issue needs to be addressed before it can even be considered here.

In addition, starting next year, a site yet to be determined will be established where computers, computer monitors and television sets will be able to be recycled at no cost to the customer.

“And if anyone has questions about what we do, they are welcome to call us,” Taam said.