Tipping fee

By substantially reducing the volume of landfill space needed for MSW disposal, WTE can extend the life of a landfill. In fact, most of the revenues that go to WTE plant operators come from the payments for waste disposal services called tipping fees, and not from electric sales. 

Railroad Transport Renewed interest is developing in the use of railroads for hauling sohd wastes, especially in heavily populated areas where landfill space is scarce and tipping fees are high. Containerized waste on piggyback rail cars are used. Fiill-size bulk material cars are also used for shipping solid wastes. 

TABLE 25-69 Solid Waste Price Index, WTE Incinerator Intake TPD-Tip Fee, September 1994... 

Region Number of facilities Intake, TPD % of daily intake Tip fee, /ton... 

Disposing of waste tires is becoming more expensive. Over the past 20 years the average tipping fees for disposing of tires have continually increased. This trend is likely to continue as landfill space becomes more scarce. 

Tires take up landfill space. Whole tires are banned from many landfills or charged a higher tipping fee than other waste even if they are carefully buried to prevent rising they are very bulky. Shredded tires take up less space, but it is space that could be saved if the tires were utilized as raw material for products or as fuel. 

Several states have considered or are considering legislation that would ban all whole tires from landfills. Minnesota has already banned all tires from landfills. In some other states, landfills have such high tipping fees that whole tires are... 

Supply of tires to fuel the plant and provide sufficiently high tipping fees. 

Oxford Energy was able to provide all these features in siting their plant at Modesto. They located the plant at the Filbin tire pile, which is estimated to have over 35 million tires. In addition, they were able to integrate the plant into their overall tire collection and processing business and earn revenue from a continuing stream of tipping fees and collection fees to dispose of tires from tire dealers, recappers, and other sources in the area. 

This payback period is fairly attractive for a commercial facility, since it is less than three years. However, it is dependent on a relatively high tipping fee and a continuing demand for tdf at 20 per ton. If either of these decreased significantly, the venture would not be financially feasible. 

Calaveras, which bums approximately 60 tons per day, purchases 2-inch wire-in TDF for approximately 30 per ton. On a dollar per Btu basis, this is approximately one-half the cost of coal. Calaveras will be installing a whole tire feed system, which will cost about 400,000. (In this system, whole tires will be fed by a conveyor into the exhaust of the kiln.) A tipping fee of between 0.50 and 1.00 per tire for whole tires will be charged by Calaveras. Once the whole tire system is in place, Calaveras estimates that the tire fuel will cost one-tenth or less the cost of coal on a Btu basis.21... 

The only raw material required for most tire pyrolysis processes is scrap tires. Some processors purchase and use whole tires, while others chip whole tires into two inch pieces, or purchase the tires already chipped. Conrad uses a local tire chipper to shred whole tires to a 2-inch size, wire-in, for their use. The tire chipper, who works on Conrad property, receives a tipping fee for collecting the tires, and provides the TDF to Conrad free of charge. 

---