Marion looks to become a zero-landfill community

MARION - With just a few strategic changes, Marion plans on becoming the first “zero-landfill” community in the Midwest.

“There are lots of cornfields in Iowa where we could build lots of landfills, but we need to think beyond that,” Public Services Director Ryan Miller said.

Miller has been researching how to divert virtually all waste generated within the city limits from landfills and put it to use instead in waste-to-energy facilities such as the proposed plasma-arc gasification plant that the city supports.

The plant would need a waste stream of 90 tons a day. Marion residents throw out 25 tons of trash a day, and commercial and industrial facilities generate another 80 tons, Miller said.

And while Marion cannot legally tell businesses where to dump their trash, it can pass an amendment to the solid waste ordinance requiring that all waste created in the city be diverted from landfills.

“We're doing great right now with our collections,” Miller said, but a few strategic changes can increase efficiency and divert more waste from landfills in the short haul. Leaf collection and larger curbside recycle bins could accomplish that, he said. Enforcing recycling in apartments and condominiums also would help.

In the longer term, the City Council would need to act. Some members spoke favorably this week about making Marion a zero-landfill community.

“This will be one of the things that puts us above (other communities) in quality of life standards,” Lou Stark said. “It feels to me like it's putting us ahead of the curve.”

However, Steve Sprague called the proposal “obscene.”

“I'm amazed at the audacity of this proposal given the economic times,” he said. “We're doing all the work for a private entity and doing their market feasibility for them,” he said of Plasma Power LLC, the Florida company that has been chosen to move ahead with the plant.

Miller said many communities in California have zero-landfill initiatives, with the goal of achieving solid waste diversion in 10 to 20 years.

“Marion could do it in four or five years,” he said. “We could get to the point where nothing is landfilled, and build a model for others to follow.”

While other communities in the United States have flirted with plasma-arc gasification, none has committed to the technology, mainly because of the startup costs.

A spokesman for the Cedar Rapids/Linn County Solid Waste Agency said Marion's plan matches his agency's goal of reducing landfilled waste. However, Communications Director Joe Horaney said he didn't know what effect it would have on agency revenue.

“We would take an overall look at the bottom line there, how big a chunk that would be at the end of the day,” he said.

Losing 25 tons of residential mixed solid waste and 80 tons of commercial waste each day would cost the agency about $935,000 in tipping fees each year, Horaney said, of a total of $7.7 million.

By Cathleen Beke, Correspondent