On January 7, Covanta announced it has started construction of its first Total Ash Processing System (TAPS) in Fairless Hill, Bucks County adjacent to Covanta's existing metals processing facility.

The ash plant is designed to process over 400,000 tons of ash from multiple Covanta Energy-from-Waste facilities, recovering previously untapped value from these waste streams.

TAPS is a unique technology that separates the combined ash from EfW facilities into its component parts. This enables increased recovery of small metal fractions and the recovery of aggregate for reuse as construction material, reducing the volume of ash requiring landfill disposal by as much as 65 percent.

"We have long viewed ash reuse as a major opportunity to enhance our EfW plant operations while simultaneously opening new markets," said Covanta's President and Chief Executive Officer, Stephen J. Jones. "TAPS has tremendous potential to increase the sustainability and economics of our facilities, while generating an attractive return on capital invested in the system. I am excited about this first project and look forward to its success, which we see paving the way for additional TAPS facilities to complement our EfW portfolio."

In Pennsylvania, Covanta operates energy-from-waste facilities in Dauphin, Delaware, Lancaster, Montgomery and York counties and ECOvanta, an electronics waste recycling operation in Philadelphia.

[Posted: Jan. 8, 2019]

1/14/2019