Early this year, we had a bright idea. The Fairgrounds decided to pilot keeping its solid waste out of the landfill.
That hot idea became a reality in April, when the Dutchess County Fairgrounds created something unique to Dutchess County: a Zero Landfill Event. During the entirety of the Hudson Valley 40th Anniversary Earth Day Celebration. That's right. Courtesy of our Earth Day Celebration sponsors, Covanta Hudson Valley Renewable Energy and Royal Carting Service Company, and with the help of the Dutchess County Resource Recovery Agency, the Earth Day Celebration was a Zero Landfill Event.
A SUCCESSFUL Zero Landfill event. The first of its kind here in Dutchess.
And We're Doing It Again. But this time, Bigger, and Better.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen. We're taking the 165th Annual Dutchess County Fair, August 24-29, 2010 Zero Landfill. That is, the solid waste produced by the upwards of 400,000 (anticipated) visitors to the Fair, and by the animals, vendors, activities, etc. for those SIX (count 'em, 6!) days, will not be landfilled.
Yessir. No solid waste generated during the 2010 Dutchess County Fair will be put into a landfill. Period. Zilch. Zero. Nada.
You can learn about what that really means by visiting us in the Green Tent (#42 on your Fairgrounds map) in the infield and seeing the display about Zero Landfill and Waste-to-Energy events.
The way our Zero Landfill Events work is that the Fairgrounds recycles whatever it can, and the items that cannot be recycled or composted are taken to the Poughkeepsie waste-to-energy plant by Royal Carting Service Company (the Fairgrounds' recycling and waste removal provider) and turned into electricity that is fed back into the grid.
Now, as I said on the Hudson Valley Earth Day blog back in March, this is not some smoke-belching, old-school incinerator. The waste-to-energy plant is a clean burning facility, whose air emission tests meet or exceed the strictest federal standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (Absolutely true. See the information for yourself in the Green Tent.)
What is waste-to-energy exactly? It's a process that takes solid WASTE -- generated by towns just like yours and mine, your own household trash, or solid waste from venues like the Dutchess County Fairgrounds -- and instead of putting it into the landfill, transfers it to combustion chambers where it is burned and reduced to 10% of its original volume. The heat created by burning the solid waste heats up water in steel tubes that form the walls of the combustion chambers. The water turns into steam, which in turn is put through a turbine that continuously generates ENERGY in the form of electricity. The electricity goes back into the power grid to light and heat homes and businesses. There you are: WASTE-TO-ENERGY.
And that's what happened to ALL the solid waste you and I and the activities you participated in at the Celebration generated that was left over after we were done recycling all the bottles and cans, cardboard, metal, oil and food scraps. It was turned into power.
Imagine that times 200, and you'll get the scope of what making the Dutchess County Fair a Zero Waste Event will be. After you (and about 100,000 other people) spend the day at the Fair, you can all go home and when you (and they) turn on the lights, a teensy, weensy bit of the electricity powering your (and their) lamps just might be coming from something you threw away at the Fair!
And, when the Fair is over and our (waste) numbers (that is, in tons) are totted up, we'll be able to report back to you on how much solid waste we kept out of the landfill and how much energy it created to feed back into the grid.
We'll all LOVE those Zero Landfill 00000's!
