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Waste & Recycling December 11, 2017 08:30:34 AM

Industry Group Touts Benefits of Coal Ash Recycling

Waste Advantage
ScrapMonster Author
An industry group is promoting recycling as part of the solution to dealing with coal ash, the noncombustible by-products left over from burning coal for electricity, although environmental groups are urging caution.

Industry Group Touts Benefits of Coal Ash Recycling

SEATTLE (Waste Advantage): Coal ash has caused some major environmental disasters in the United States, including a 2008 spill of more than 1 billion gallons of coal ash water into Tennessee’s Emory River and a 2014 spill into the Dan River, which flows through North Carolina and Virginia.

An industry group is promoting recycling as part of the solution to dealing with coal ash, the noncombustible by-products left over from burning coal for electricity, although environmental groups are urging caution.

“When you think of the total [amount of] coal ash produced every year, it’s the second-largest waste stream in the country. Municipal solid waste—household trash—is the largest,” said Thomas Adams, executive director of the American Coal Ash Association (ACAA), at a 21 November news briefing by the group in Washington, D. C.

Recycling of coal ash increased in percentage in the United States to 56% in 2016, up from 52% the previous year, ACAA announced at the event. “From an environmental standpoint, there’s a benefit of not sending material to disposal,” Adams said.

ACAA, which has tracked coal ash recycling since 1968, defines a use of coal ash as beneficial when it is environmentally responsible and sustainable, technically sound, and commercially competitive, noted Adams.  “We’re really bringing a product to the market that is in demand and performs while we are helping the environment,” he told Eos. He said that recycling avoids some greenhouse gas emissions. Using fly ash in concrete reduces the amount of manufactured cement that is needed, thus cutting more than 11 million tons of greenhouse gases each year, according to ACAA.

Another benefit, said Adams, is reducing “situations where there is ash that is located in a place where there could be some danger of some kind of contamination,” such as near a river.

He said it could be possible to reclaim at least some ash currently in landfills and holding ponds. “We think there’s somewhere north of 2.5 billion tons in disposal” in the United States, he said. “If we could capture even 10%, it would be significant for not only beneficial use but certainly for the environment.”

Courtesy: https://wasteadvantagemag.com

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