Generally speaking, everyone talks about
“Sustainability” as being a desired goal.
“Sustainability is easy to talk about, but often it is hard to achieve,
and it is no different in the solid waste industry,” said Pat Mascaro,
President of local waste service company J. P. Mascaro & Sons.
“I
can say with certainty that J. P. Mascaro & Sons is completely committed to
‘Sustainability’ in the waste service system it provides for its many regional
municipal, commercial and industrial customers,” said Mascaro, “and our company
has invested over $100 million directly related to sustainability in the region
to implement and achieve an Integrated Waste Service System that is truly
‘Sustainable,’” added Mascaro.
In
the context of the solid waste industry, a “Sustainable Waste Service System”
is one that maintains and sustains itself over time by taking into account and
balancing the three important components of economic growth, social progress
and environmental protection, without doing damage to the environment.
“At
J. P. Mascaro & Sons, the fundamental core components that govern our
company’s successful Sustainable Waste Service System are waste reduction,
waste recycling, waste reuse and end disposal of mostly non-recyclable waste
that meets the highest environmental standards and produces green alternative
energy,” said Mascaro.
“In
the management of our Sustainable Waste Service System, we first encourage
basic waste reduction at the customer level; second, we prioritize waste
recycling and reuse through our collection services and at our modern single
stream recycling facility and our one-of-a-kind beneficial use composting
facility; and, third, we landfill the remaining materials at our company-owned
facility that has in place comprehensive environmental protection and control
systems and produces Green Energy,” said Mascaro.
The
three key environmental facilities in Mascaro’s Sustainable Waste Service
System are TotalRecycle, a modern high-volume single stream recycling facility,
A&M Composting, the largest indoor composting facility in Pennsylvania, and
the Pioneer Crossing Landfill, a modern regional end use disposal facility.
“TotalRecycle,
in Exeter Township, Berks County, is Mascaro’s new modern 85,000 sq. ft. single
stream automated recycling facility, with the most advanced sorting equipment
available and with daily recycling capacity of 700 tons,” said Mascaro. A&M Composting, in Lancaster County, is
Mascaro’s 445,500 sq. ft. DEP-permitted beneficial use compost facility, where
municipal sludge and food waste are processed into Class A exceptional quality
compost for general use by landscapers, nurseries, topsoil blenders and
others,” Mascaro added. “And, the
Pioneer Crossing Landfill, also in Exeter Township, is Mascaro’s modern
DEP-permitted landfill that provides needed long-term end use disposal capacity
for regional municipalities, businesses and industries,” said Mascaro.
Combined,
TotalRecycle, A&M Composting, and the Pioneer Crossing Landfill, in which
Mascaro has invested more than $100 million, enable Mascaro’s Integrated Waste
Service System to meet the three-prong test of “Sustainability” – economic
growth, social progress and environmental protection. Commenting on this, Mascaro said, “As to
economic growth, all of the facilities provide necessary and affordable waste
services and are economically and operationally viable, with none of them
requiring economic subsidization for survival that is common with incineration
technologies. Also, they are all socially
progressive, with TotalRecycle and A&M Composting recycling and reusing
waste materials that would otherwise be disposed of, and with Pioneer Crossing,
an end use disposal facility, generating green electrical energy. Lastly, all of these Mascaro facilities
operate under strict governmental and regulatory standards, and the two
DEP-permitted facilities (i.e., A&M Composting and Pioneer Crossing) have
advanced environmental protection and control systems in place. All of this serves to protect the
environment.”
A
truly Sustainable Waste Service System should include waste reduction,
recycling and reuse components, as well as an end use disposal component. After portions of the waste stream are
recycled and reused, which everyone supports, there still remains material
which must be disposed of at an end use facility.
“There
are two principal options for end use disposal – landfilling and incineration,”
said Mascaro. “Our company has access to
both end use disposal options, but we rely primarily on landfilling as part of
our Sustainable Waste Service System because we believe it to be more
economically and environmentally sustainable,” Mascaro added.
Landfilling
is the engineered land-based disposal of waste at a strictly regulated facility,
with advanced environmental protection and control systems that have been
developed over the last 60 years, while incineration, a more recent technology,
is the mass burning of the combustible portion of the waste stream.
Mascaro
noted that, “While not being overly critical of incineration, which does have a
place in the solid waste management equation, there are some genuine concerns
relating to incineration, including that incineration is not 100% sustainable
on its own; it is landfill-dependent for the disposal of the noncombustible portion
of the waste stream and the concentrated incinerator ash resulting from the
incineration process itself; it results in the emission of pollutants into the
atmosphere, which is of environmental concern; and, most significantly, it is
not economically self-sustaining, with almost all incinerator projects having
to be subsidized by taxpayer or governmental dollars to be developmentally
and/or operationally viable.”
“I
believe that the Integrated Waste Service System that J. P. Mascaro & Sons
has developed, invested in and implemented for the benefit of our customers,
best serves those customers, and is a system that currently is, and will
continue to be for future generations, economically, socially and
environmentally sustainable,” said Mascaro.
For
more information about J. P. Mascaro & Sons and its facilities and
services, please visit our comany website at www.jpmascaro.com.