The York County Solid Waste and Refuse Authority has awarded two grants to support innovative technology and market development of non-traditional uses for municipal solid waste incinerator ash from the York County Resource Recovery Center.

The grants were awarded to Pittsburgh Mineral & Environmental Technology, Inc. and eco/Technologies, LLC.

The purpose of the grants is to support and stimulate technological or market innovation that results in the development of non-traditional viable commercial uses for the municipal waste combustion ash from the York County Resource Recovery Center. The Authority’s combined funding support to these two entities amounts to $243,542.

PMET's research will focus on the use of RRC ash in their "Brixx" process to manufacture bricks for building applications. Research work will include collecting ash samples, characterizing RRC ash with respect to parameters critical to the “Brixx” process, optimizing the ash mix for production, defining product standards, testing the product for functional and environmental performance, pilot production of approximately 3,200 bricks for testing and marketing and developing a scale-up plan for commercial Brixx production using RRC ash.

eco/Tech will undertake two research projects. One will explore the use of RRC ash in technical ceramics and the other will explore the use of RRC ash in compression-formed masonry products. Research work will include defining product standards, identifying manufacturers potentially interested in incorporating recycled ash into their production processes, characterizing RRC municipal waste combustion ash with respect to parameters relevant to technical ceramics and compression-formed masonry products, and optimizing the ash mix for TC and CFM production based on multiple rounds of production and performance testing.

The work also includes quarterly reports and a final report describing the research program and presenting all testing data. eco/Tech will team with Columbia University and Sustainable Dynamics, LLC to complete this research.

Work is expected to be completed within 12 months.

Since 1998, the Authority has had an agreement with American Ash Recycling Corporation to recycle 100 percent of the municipal waste combustion ash from the Resource Recovery Center . The ash is currently recycled into an aggregate material marketed commercially as “AggRite”. AggRite is permitted by the state for use in a variety of construction applications.

For more information visit the Ash Research Grant webpage or contact Ellen O’Connor at 717-845-1066.

8/26/2005