Browning-Ferris Industries (BFI) formerly managed a solid waste landfilling operation in Eden Prairie. While the landfill has been closed for almost a decade, BFI must still operate the site to maintain environmental control over the former landfill. BFI also operates a transfer station at the site. The transfer station has a permit to operate issued by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). BFI recently petitioned the MPCA to allow them to expand the intensity of their transfer station operations here in Eden Prairie. The proposal would expand the number of trucks going in and out of the site; the amount of waste being transferred at the site; but would not expand the current foot print of the current transfer station at the site.
A transfer station is a simple concept. A packer truck is the waste hauling truck that operates door to door in your neighborhood. That truck serves that purpose well. But as population has expanded, landfills have been pushed further and further away from our cities. Packer trucks are not efficient vehicles to travel long distances. So, at a transfer station, a packer truck backs into a building and dumps its load on to the “tipping floor”. A loader then moves the waste around and prepares it to be transferred into an over-the-road truck for hauling to a landfill.
This the shoot that the over-the-road (OTR) truck backs down to have the garbage loaded into the top of his container:
You can fit the contents of three packer trucks hauling municipal solid waste into an OTR truck. If we are talking about construction and demolition (C&D) waste, the ratio can sometimes reach 8 to 1. An OTR truck is a much more efficient and safe way to haul waste of any kind over a long distance.
Another interesting activity going on at the former BFI landfill in Eden Prairie is the recovery of methane gas from the landfill. The methane is created by the decomposition of the buried waste in the landfill. There is a series of underground collection pipes throughout the landfill. You can see examples of the above-ground piping in the background of this photo:
Just a few years ago, BFI captured and burned the methane. Now, BFI captures the methane and turns it into electrical power at a small on-site generation plant. They produce enough electrical power there to run their entire on-site operations. They sell the excess electricity to Xcel Energy through the grid. This is a photo of the generation plant:
Handling and disposing of solid waste is part of modern life. Somebody must do it. I wish it could be out of sight and out of mind, but it cannot. I think that BFI, in general, is doing a pretty good job at minimizing the impacts of their operations on their neighbors in Eden Prairie. The City will work with them to see that that continues to happen in the future as well.
