American City & County, June 1993 v108 n7 p38(6) Waste not, want not. (solid waste disposal) (includes related article on recycled asphalt pavement) (Sevier County, Tennessee) Larry Waters. Brief Summary: The 23% growth in Sevier County, TN, from 1980 to 1990 created a 100% increase in the amount of solid waste the county disposed of during the same period. The larger cities of the county developed a compost solid waste program together that has reduced the need for landfill dumping greatly. Full Text: COPYRIGHT Communication Channels Inc. 1993 As landfills reach full capacity, municipalities are challenged to find alternate means of waste disposal. One Tennessee community rose to the challenge by instituting a co-composting facility -- and reduced its waste streams by 75 percent. Municipalities looking for proof of the effectiveness and viability of co-composting as a contemporary waste management solution will find compelling evidence in Sevier County, Tenn., which, after instituting a co-composting facility less than a year ago, has reduced its municipal waste stream by 75 percent--far in excess of the 25 percent waste diversion mandate set by the state of Tennessee. Further, Sevier County's approach to managing its waste disposal problems is a case study of the benefits municipalities can achieve through co-operation, creativity and a willingness to change. Located in eastern Tennessee, adjacent to the Great Smokies National Park, Sevier County is comprised of the three cities of Sevierville, Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. The county's population, which now stands at around 51,000 -- well above the state average, grew dramatically during the 1980s, experiencing a 23 percent increase from 1980 to 1990. Along with this population boom also came a staggering increase in the county's per capita waste: 100 percent during the same time period. While this increase in per capita waste was by itself enough to challenge Sevier County's waste disposal resources, the problem was further compounded by the area's brisk tourism trade. In excess of eight million visitors descend on Great Smoky Mountain National Park each year, funneling millions of dollars into the area's economy, as well as voluminous amounts of food and paper waste for disposal into the county's 10-acre landfill. Obviously, this placed an added burden on the county's waste disposal facilities, which needed to be taken in to account. Cooperation Yields Solutions By the late 1980s, it became apparent to officials of the city of Gatlinburg, which operated the landfill, that the facility was reaching full capacity. Gatlinburg officials sounded the alarm about the site's depleting volume and, along with their counterparts in Sevierville and Pigeon Forge, began the process of planning for the county's waste management needs beyond 1990, the year the landfill's capacity was expected to be exhausted. Early in the planning process a minor obstacle arose: officials of Gatlinburg, near the landfill, indicated that the city no longer wished to bear full responsibility for managing another landfill. Further complicating matters was the fact that neither Pigeon Forge nor Sevierville had any previous regulatory experience in the landfill management arena. Despite what could have been a potential scenario for conflict, Sevier County officials determined that the most equitable and efficient solution of planning for the county's waste management future was to approach the problem as a group, rather than as individual entities. It was this thinking that led to the formation of Sevier Solid Waste Inc., a nonprofit corporation whose board of directors consisted of the Sevier County Executive along with the city managers of Sevierville, Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. The corporation was charged with finding solutions to and actually implementing waste disposal in Sevier County. As Russell Treadway, Sevierville's city manager, recalls, the formation of Sevier Solid Waste was a creative first step in solving the county's waste management problem. "We're not aware of any other municipality in Tennessee that went the extra step of forming a nonprofit corporation to actually facilitate the waste management service that needed to be provided," says Treadway. "This strategy brought cohesion to the entire process. We would all be in it together; no one entity, or one government, would be in control of or have responsibility for the waste disposal process." Working in conjunction with the state's local planning office, an entity which provides technical assistance to local governments, Sevier Solid Waste began the task of evaluating both the volume and characteristics of Sevier County's waste stream in an attempt to identify the most effective method of diverting waste from the area's landfill. A primary concern was that the plan include a solution for disposing of the large amounts of grease generated by the area's many restaurants, which at the time, was collected by a private carting service. Sevier Solid Waste opted to finance construction of the facility through a $9 million public bond issue. This bond issue covered not only the cost of building the composting facility, but also expenses related to the acquisition of a new landfill site, the construction of a new recycling building adjacent to the plant and the purchase of additional waste disposal machinery. The composting company, Bedminster Bioconversion Corp., Cherry Hill, N.J., did, however, provide turnkey construction services. At the heart of the New Jersey company's technology is the Eweson digester, an enclosed rotary vessel measuring 12.5 feet across by 180 feet long in the Tennessee facility, in which combinations of solid waste with sewage sludge and septage are introduced under perfect environmental conditions that support rapid microbial activity. The result is humus, the organic component of soil. Temperatures in the Eweson digester reach as high as 160 degrees F, thereby dramatically accelerating the decomposition process. After three days, nearly 70 percent of the municipal solid waste and 100 percent of the sludge emerges as compost. The balance, now inert and sanitized by the process, is comprised of nonbiodegradable material that can be screened off and either further processed for recyclable materials or safely landfilled. "No matter what process you choose, and no matter how well you do -- be it composting or recycling or incineration -- there remains a certain amount of material that cannot be discarded anywhere else but in the ground," Treadway remarks. Sevier County's 90,000-square-foot composting plant is situated on 2.5 acres and uses three digesters, each with three compartments. Each day, the three digesters can process more than 150 tons of solid waste and at least 75 tons of sludge. Unsorted waste arrives at the plant in packing trucks and is off-loaded onto the tipping floor. There, oversized objects such as tires and rolls of carpet are removed from the mix before it is loaded into the digester. "One of the major considerations of Sevier County's solid waste management plan is its recycling component," explains Treadway. "And the attractive thing about how this composting process aids in recycling is the fact that it is not dependent on public participation as are so many recycling programs which take place at curbside. "Here, everyone can dispose of the garbage the way they always have and the composting facility manages the separation process. So, it's a much more cost-effective way of achieving recycling, and it doesn't require a change in waste disposal habits on the part of homeowners." Sevier County businesses, however, are now required to separate cardboard items from waste material, following Sevier Solid Waste's recent initiation of a special collection program for this item from the commercial sector. In addition, Sevier Solid Waste is currently in negotiation with the composting company to enhance the current solid waste management plan with a system that allows for the removal of aluminum items from the waste stream. "Our goal is to generate enough of that material and then resell it," says Treadway. Landfill Consumption Decreases Currently, Sevier Solid Waste and the company share revenues from the sale of compost, all of which has been sold to two local soil wholesalers by contract. Since its new co-composting facility has been in place, Sevier County has been successful in decreasing landfill consumption from four-and-a-half to one-half acre a year. Treadway points to two principal reasons for the successful resolution of the county's waste management problem: the fact that the board of Sevier's Solid Waste was comprised of public administrators; and the county's coordinated approach to rectifying the problem. "The solid waste management plan that was adopted by Sevier Solid Waste was approved by each of the county's governing bodies. The confidence that those boards had in the city managers had everything to do with the plan being implemented. And because those elected board members were very supportive of what we were doing, they then carried the ball into the public arena and informed the residents of the specifics of the plan." Furthermore, the Sevierville city manager advises his counterparts elsewhere, who themselves may be exploring ways to achieve landfill diversion, that it's important to take a holistic approach to the problem. "Look at the whole solid waste process -- from A to Z," says Treadway. "When we compared the cost of composting to landfill avoidance costs, the numbers favored composting because of the savings inherent in the process. Environmentally, it is a very attractive process. We are not taking up as much land burying garbage, but are actually producing a usable, worth-while, environmentally-conscious product in the compost itself. It really is the ultimate in recycling." Article A13922290