As Miami-Dade leaders seek a new trash incinerator site, the County Commissioner whose district housed the old one wants flexibility in how the coming one\u2019s ash is managed or reused.<\/p>\n
A resolution<\/a> by Commissioner Juan Carlos \u201cJ.C.\u201d Bermudez would ask the state Legislature and Department of Environmental Protection (DEP<\/a>) to make it easier to recycle ash produced by waste-to-energy facilities, like the one in Miami-Dade that burned down<\/a> in 2023.<\/p>\n The measure, scheduled for a full and final vote at the Commission\u2019s Nov. 18 meeting, calls for state lawmakers to revise Florida Statutes<\/a> to \u201cfacilitate safe reuse of incinerator ash.\u201d It also requests DEP guidance on such uses, which could include blending the ash with cement and asphalt.<\/p>\n Bermudez \u2014 the immediate past Mayor of Doral, where the old incinerator once stood \u2014 told Florida Politics that under the current arrangement, the ash the facility produced has just piled up in a landfill to create \u201ca fake mountain\u201d in the city.<\/p>\n He sees it as both an eyesore and a wasted opportunity.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat if we could use that, sell it and make a little money back, which would help us with the finances of building a new facility, which would be rather costly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cOther countries are doing it. So are other states, to a certain extent.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s research to support Bermudez\u2019s proposal.<\/p>\n A University of Florida<\/a> study<\/a>, published in 2018, found that properly processed ash from waste-to-energy facilities could be blended into hot-mix asphalt pavement and some concrete mixes at modest replacement levels while still meeting minimum specifications.<\/p>\n However, researchers found that performance typically didn\u2019t match virgin-only mixes, and the team recommended larger-scale field trials in Florida and routine pre-treatment and processing to control variability and durability issues.<\/p>\n Another peer-reviewed study<\/a> published in 2021 found, among other things, that after beneficiation \u2014 removing aluminum and zinc residues to below specific levels to avoid expansion issues \u2014 the ash performed well in concrete.<\/p>\n There are several potential benefits to using solid waste incinerator ash in construction materials. It would reduce the volume of current landfills, and its inclusion in cement mixes could cut carbon emissions<\/a> that would otherwise result from processing virgin cement aggregate.<\/p>\n Some research<\/a> has even shown that modest ash replacement levels can maintain or even improve concrete durability.<\/p>\n There are some challenges, however. The ash\u2019s composition can vary widely<\/a> depending on the material burned and incineration technology used, which could make the development of a uniform process difficult. It can also contain heavy metals, chlorides, sulfates and unburnt organics, which can leach or cause durability issues<\/a> in the blended material.<\/p>\n Making the ash suitable for construction use often requires costly pre-treatment and careful control of replacement levels, since higher substitution can weaken concrete or asphalt performance. And the long-term consistency<\/a> of that material remains uncertain, which may be why strict regulatory standards \u2014 like those in Florida \u2014 limit large-scale adoption until more data is available.<\/p>\n In several European countries \u2014 including Belgium, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands \u2014 bottom ash from waste incinerators is actively used in road base and fill applications. Stateside, the Federal Highway Administration<\/a> has noted that \u201cneither federal nor most state regulations categorically restrict\u201d solid waste ash use in roadway materials as long as the ash is tested and shown to be nonhazardous. But the presence of trace metals like lead and cadmium in the ash in some ash, along with dioxins and furans, \u201chas led to many regulatory agencies to take a cautious approach in approving\u201d its use as a substitute aggregate material.<\/p>\n Bermudez\u2019s proposal may remind some of the so-called \u201cradioactive roads\u201d legislation<\/a> Gov. Ron DeSantis signed in June 2023 to study using the byproduct of phosphate mining in road materials. Florida produces about 30 million tons yearly of the byproduct, phosphogypsum, which has been approved for road use under President Donald Trump. Environmental groups in Florida have since<\/a> sued<\/a> to stop paving projects that include the material.<\/p>\n Bermudez said his proposal, while substantively similar to the 2023 state measure, should be far less controversial.<\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t anywhere near what the phosphate would be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Miami-Dade leaders seek a new trash incinerator site, the County Commissioner whose district housed the old one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28928,28929,28930,28,30,29,28931,28932,28933,1064,373,24954,28934,28935,28936,28937,28938,28939,2512,28940,28941,11209,28942],"class_list":["post-43998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-asphalt","tag-concrete","tag-federal-highway-administration","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-j-c-bermudez","tag-juan-carlos-j-c-bermudez","tag-juan-carlos-bermudez","tag-miami-dade","tag-miami-dade-county","tag-miami-dade-county-commission","tag-municipal-solid-waste","tag-municipal-solid-waste-ash","tag-solid-waste","tag-solid-waste-ash","tag-trash-incinerator","tag-trash-incinerator-ash","tag-university-of-florida","tag-waste-incinerator","tag-waste-incinerator-ash","tag-waste-to-energy","tag-waste-to-energy-ash"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}