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Casella Waste Systems: Moving Towards Zero Waste

By constantly developing innovative recycling, waste-to-energy and alternative fuel programs, Casella Waste systems has Created a Company Culture of environmental leaders.

Casella Waste Systems opened three compressed natural gas fueling stations in 2011 in Burlington, VT, Fort Edward, NY and Geneva, NY. These stations will allow the company to operate up to 30 trucks run on domestically-produced fuel that is more than 50 percent cleaner than diesel-fueled collection vehicles. Photos courtesy of Casella Waste Systems.

Started in 1975 aS a Single truck operation in Rutland, VT, Casella Waste Systems now stands as one of the leading waste and recycling companies in the U.S., employing more than 1,700 people. The company owns and/or operates 31 solid waste collection operations, 29 transfer stations, 17 recycling facilities, nine Subtitle D landfills, three landfill gas-to-energy facilities, one landfill permitted to accept construction and demolition materials, and one waste-to-energy facility. Every landfill they operate is equipped with a gas collection system, and five direct their landfill gas to power plants to be converted into electricity. In addition, Casella Waste Systems provides collection, recycling, disposal, energy and organics solutions throughout Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts and New York.

Todays Casella Waste Systems

According to Chairman and CEO, John Casella, customers are increasingly demanding both economic and environmental value from their waste solution providers. Thankfully, many of the newer resource solutions we are beginning to offer our customers afford them new and innovative ways to be more sustainable, but also tie the economic model with the sustainability model in a manner that allows them to do the right thing, Casella says. Whether we are introducing new recycling waste streams to our customers, such as used vegetable oil (UVO), or ways to handle their organics waste right onsite, we are also often saving them money in the process. When the global economic collapse of 2008 occurred, Casella Waste Systems was faced with

John Casella, Chairman and CEO of Casella Resource Solutions, Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin, Joanna Underwood, President of Energy Vision, and Don Gilbert, President and CEO of Vermont Gas Systems.
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WasteAdvantage Magazine January 2012

Casellas newest Zero-Sort Recycling facility located in Rutland, VT. This 55,000 square foot facility opened November 2011 and can process 60,000 tons per year of recyclables.

great challenges, particularly with the drop-off in recycled commodity prices. As a result, during this period, the company refocused on improving its core business, optimizing its routes and innovating in the transportation of waste and material.

While overcoming major challenges, Casella also stresses that the company is proud of its people. We have made very large investments to build our people. Over the past few years, we had some very complex problems to solve and our people creatively and aggressively built a pathway towards offering unparalleled sustainable solutions for our customers. Casella Waste Systems believes that in order to be successful, employees must be actively engaged in the companys ongoing sustainability efforts. As a result, they have implemented a monthly internal sustainability newsletter, an idea submission button on the companys intranet for employees to communicate their sustainability ideas and added sustainability content within their Learning PathsTM training library. Casella Waste Systems has also integrated sustainability content into their core training curriculum for managers and sales representatives.

Emphasis on Safety
Casella Waste Systems is also dedicated to maintaining a culture of workplace safety. Their goal is to consistently achieve best-in-class safety performance and strive for an ongoing target of zero worker injuries. Through the dedicated efforts of their safety team and entire workforce, Casella Waste Systems continues to move toward this goal by investing in people, equipment and facilities. The company delivers training in classrooms, on the job, online and through daily toolbox learning opportunities. Employees receive hundreds of hours of training each year, including 150 hours for maintenance mechanics, 200 hours for drivers and 50 hours for MRF sorters. Our current focus is on improving and fine-tuning our safety training programs, says Micheal Hughes, Safety Director. Over the past several years, Casella Waste Systems rate of employee injuries has declined from 321 in 2005 to 223 in 2009. Continuously improving the accident and injury rates is the primary focus of their safety program. We also emphasize reducing the severity of injuries that do occur. At our recycling facilities, we track Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred due to injury or illness (DART). Since 2005, we are pleased to have substantially reduced our DART rate to under 1.0, says Hughes.

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Casella Waste Systems is WasteAdvantagecurrently moving towards single-stream recycling facilities. Their five Zero-Sort
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Recycling

(the companys trademarked name for single-stream recycling) recycling facilities allow customers to save time, effort and ultimately money by making it easier for them at the customer level to do the right thing and recycle more by directing all of their recyclable materials to a single bin. Then, the materials are sorted in stateof-the-art processing facilities. Everywhere that we have implemented Zero-Sort recycling programs, such as Holden, MA, we have seen a corresponding and significant increase in recycling rates, says Bob Cappadona, Vice President of Recycling

Landfill Gas to Energy Systems

Energy production is another important component of Casella Waste Systems mission to give new life to the resources that they manage for customers. They currently produce electricity through the capture and combustion of methane gas produced in their landfills. In 2010, the company produced enough electricity for more

than 33,000 homes. Their landfill gas-to-energy power plants produced 98,651 megawatt hours. This includes electricity generated at their power plants at the Pine Tree Landfill in Maine, Clinton County Landfill outside of Plattsburgh, NY and Hyland Landfill in western New York State. It also includes two months of electricity generated at Steuben County Landfills new power plant that Casella Waste Systems operates. The companys waste-to-energy facility in Maine produced 149,262 megawatt hours. Over the coming years, Casella Waste Systems will work to diversify their portfolio of energy recovery projects, broadening their range of expertise and capturing a greater percentage of the energy value embodied in the materials that they handle. We are continuing to develop energy generation projects throughout our operations, says Casella. We are working to install solar panels on the roofs of our recycling plants, and exploring several innovative heat recovery opportunities at our landfills. And, by 2015, Casella Waste Systems aims to develop and implement a landfill gas direct-use project and an engine heat recovery project.

Performance/Safety BonuS Program

Exemplary safety performance is rewarded through the Performance/ Safety Bonus Program. Under the program, employees are evaluated quarterly based on safety performance and conduct. Individuals and teams that meet certain criteriasuch as having no preventable accidents or injuries, always wearing proper personal protective equipment, and attending all scheduled safety meetingsare rewarded with quarterly and annual bonuses.

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casella Waste Systems: Moving towards Zero Waste

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Alternative Fuels
Bob Cappadona (far right), Vice President of Casella Recycling, explains the Zero-Sort process at the November 18, 2011 grand opening of Casellas 5th Zero-Sort Recycling Facility in Rutland, VT to Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin (second from right) as CEO and Chairman of Casella Waste Systems, John Casella (third from right) listens in.

Casella Waste Systems AGreen Facility located in Rutland, MA takes 10,000 tons of source separated organics along with manure from 300 cows and produces enough electricity to power 300 homes for a year. The byproduct from this process goes back onto the corn fields to grow feed, ensuring that nothing is wasted in the process.

Casella Waste Systems operates a fleet of 1,861 vehicles, including collection trucks, long-haul tractor-trailers and automobiles. in As of 2011, Casella The Advantage the Waste Industry began converting their collection fleet to run on compressed natural gas (CNG), which burns cleaner and quieter, and reduces exposure to fluctuating diesel prices. Today, the company has CNG fueling infrastructures at three locations (Burlington, VT, Fort Edward, NY, and Geneva, NY), with space to accommodate 29 vehicles. Five CNG vehicles are now in full operation, and they have more trucks on the way. Our overall goal is to no longer buy diesel fueled collection vehicles and replace our aging diesel vehicles with new CNG trucks at these facilities and move our younger diesel trucks around our footprint as needed until we eventually are able to convert the whole fleet over, stresses Gary Simmons, Vice President of Fleet and Purchasing. In addition, Casella Waste Systems has implemented an anti-idling policy, which exceeds the requirements of most States that they operate in. We regularly communicate the policy through training programs, signage and the company intranet. Where possible, we have programmed our engines electronic control modules to shut down the engine after three minutes of idling, says Simmons. Casella Waste Systems compliance standards are very important to them and the company intends to meet and exceed all applicable environmental regulations and permit conditions. A team of environmental compliance personnel supports facility managers and develops and administers the companys comprehensive environmental training program, conducts regular internal site inspections, tracks permit conditions and monitors regulatory developments to ensure ongoing compliance. In the event that a compliance concern is identified, this group oversees corrective action to ensure a rapid and complete response to the problem, says Karen Flanders, the companys Director of Sustainability and Regulatory Affairs.

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Heading to Organics
Casella points out that organics is one of the hottest topics for the waste and recycling industries. A customer can only get so far with traditional recycling. If they are to eventually get to zero waste, organic recycling solutions will help pave the way. In 2009, Casella Waste Systems directed more than 269,000 tons of organic material back to the land to re-enter natural nutrient cycles. They processed and sold approximately 50,000 tons under their earthlife brand, which is a complete line of bulk composts, mulches and custom soil amendments designed for landscapers, garden centers, golf courses, nurseries, sports fields and contractors. We continue to explore opportunities to beneficially use the residuals we manage, says Casella. Over the coming years, an important strategic focus for the companys organics team will be to grow sales of earthlife brand products and divert more organic material to beneficial land application uses.

Goals and Future Plans

Casella Waste Systems sees itself driving the evolution of the industry away from consumption solutions to sustainability solutions. A very important goal for us is to recycle or renew at least 50 percent of the waste we handle by 2014, says Casella. We currently recycle nearly 35 percent of what we handle which right now puts us in the upper echelon of our industry. But, we still have a lot more work to do. | WA For more information about Casella Waste Systems, contact Stephen McDonnell, Director of Marketing and Sales, at (800) CASELLA.

2012 Waste Advantage Magazine, All Rights Reserved. Reprinted from Waste Advantage Magazine. Contents cannot be reprinted without permission from the publisher.