Trash burns, turns into $120,000 in annual savings

A plan was developed to generate a major portion of the energy required for heating and air conditioning by burning factory trash instead of using natural gas and electricity. Trash from the Rockwell Int'l. plant, including broken wood pallets, cardboard packing materials and office waste paper, amounted to 1,000 tons per year. Previously, a contractor was being paid to come to the plant several times a week, pick up the trash and haul it to a landfill. To supplement the 1,000 tons of usable waste generated by the plant annually, the additional 500 tons of similar trash needed to operate the system are received from other industries in the vicinity. Besides accepting waste from other plants, the Marysville facility stockpiles and uses refuse corn stalks harvested from 50 acres of Rockwell-owned land adjacent to the plant. The incinerator featuring a pyrolytic heat recovery system is presented and its operation is illustrated.