Attendees at November event will hear from the city, facility operators and technology providers in special panel discussion.
The city of San Jose California’s Green Vision is becoming reality with the help of the city’s integrated waste division and its partners in waste collection, processing and energy recovery, which include Republic Services and Zero Waste Energy Development Co. (ZWEDC).
The city’s Green Vision was developed to “transform San Jose into the world center of clean technology innovation, promote cutting-edge sustainable practices and demonstrate that the goals of economic growth, environmental stewardship and fiscal responsibility are inextricably linked,” according to the city’s website, www.sanjose.gov.
Stephanie Molloy, the supervising environmental services specialist in integrated waste management for the city of San Jose’s Environmental Services Department, says waste collection and processing fits into four of these goals: create 25,000 clean tech jobs (Goal 1); receive100 percent of the city’s electrical power from clean renewable sources (Goal 3); divert 100 percent waste from landfill and convert waste into energy (Goal 5); and ensure that 100 percent of public fleet vehicles run on alternative fuels (Goal 8).
“The city is proud of these partnerships that we have that allow us to work toward achieving our Green Vision goals,” says Molloy. “Our mission and goals are very similar. Using the waste as much as possible as a resource, diverting as much as possible from the landfills and creating those jobs within the city of San Jose.
“One of our goals in the environmental arena is to lead by example and to pursue innovative technologies and strategies, and the city of San Jose Integrated Waste Management Division we feel has taken an innovative approach to developing public-private partnerships that help provide these world-class services and help us meet our city’s goals, and these are beneficial to all of our stakeholders,” Molloy says.
Attendees of the 2014 Renewable Energy from Waste Conference, Nov. 17-20 in San Jose, California, can learn more about the city’s Green Vision goals with a session and panel discussion on Nov. 18 titled “A City with a Vision: How San Jose made Waste to Energy a Reality” as well as a firsthand look at these operations Nov. 20. Molloy will be joined on the panel with Emily Hanson, director of business development and communications, GreenWaste Recovery & Zero Waste Energy Development Co. (ZWEDC); Carl Mennie, division manager - recycling and composting, Republic Services Newby Island Resource Recovery Park (NIRRP); and Eric Herbert, Zero Waste Energy.
For an additional fee, conference attendees can tour NIRRP and ZWDEC’s dry fermentation anaerobic digestion facility. Organics processed at the NIRRP are used at ZWDEC, which is one of the first large-scale systems of its kind to be implemented in the United States.
To learn more, visit www.REWConference.com.
