Covanta’s Indianapolis facility processes 2,175 tons of municipal solid waste per day, producing steam to power the downtown heating loop that services nearly all downtown businesses, Indiana University, Purdue University’s Indianapolis campus, and Eli Lilly, the area’s largest pharmaceutical manufacturer, the report says.
Over the past five years, Covanta Indianapolis has implemented several water savings projects to reduce both the amount of potable water consumed, and wastewater generated, by its operating processes. For example, a reverse osmosis process is saving about 44 million gallons of potable water per year. A supplemental concentrate reverse osmosis recovery system reduces the amount of wastewater generated by 60 percent, or 12 million gallons per year, the report says.
The company also recovers metals from the municipal solid waste it processes. Covanta increased the total tons of metals recycled from 390,000 tons in 2010 to 430,000 tons recycled in 2011, according to the report. About 4 percent of this amount comprised high-value nonferrous metals such as aluminum, brass, and copper.
Covanta says that the increase in recovery was due to an increase in the number and quality of systems separating metals at the company’s plants. Covanta plans to improve existing systems and to install additional new metal projects in 2013 and 2014.
In November, news surfaced of Covanta and Schnitzer Steel teaming up to recycle steel from fishing nets and other unusable heavy equipment.
In October 2011, the company’s UK arm dropped plans to build a waste-to-energy facility in Wales. Covanta blamed the move on local authorities’ “fragmented approach” to dealing with waste.
