Materials Management
Supporting the Circular Economy
Circular Economy
Greenpac Mill can produce 540,000 tons of lightweight 100% recycled linerboard annually. Some of the linerboard is used by Jamestown Container to make corrugated boxes for market.
NEW PRODUCTS
Diamond Packaging uses corrugated boxes from Jamestown Container. Diamond Packaging, the only American-owned folding carton manufacturer to achieve zero manufacturing waste-to-landfill status, corrugated waste from Diamond Packaging winds up back at Greenpac Mill as a raw material.
WASTE MATERIAL
Greenpac Mill’s and Diamond Packaging’s unrecyclable wastes are sent to Covanta Niagara for energy recovery.
WASTE MATERIAL TRANSPORT
Other wastes arrive in sealed rail cars through our new intermodal facility.
WASTE MATERIAL TRANSPORT
Covanta Niagara generates enough electricity to run the facility and supply over 15,000 homes every year.
ENERGY
Ferrous & non-ferrous metals recovered from the ash are sent to recyclers for processing. That’s enough ferrous metal to build two Peace Bridges between Buffalo and Canada.
METALS RECOVERY
Steam from the energy recovery process, is delivered through overhead pipes to the Greenpac Mill and other local industrial customers including Goodyear, Praxair, and Cascades Containerboard Packaging – Niagara Falls. Generating the 3 billion lbs. of steam delivered from waste saves the equivalent of 3,600 tractor trailers of fuel oil.
ENERGY
Waste paper, collected from homes and businesses, supplies all of the fiber required by Greenpac Mill.
WASTE MATERIAL
Greenpac Mill uses waste-to-energy steam produced by Covanta Niagara in its process, including for drying the 100% recycled paper.
ENERGY
One of the highest ideals of sustainable waste management is that products, components and materials are always kept at their highest utility and continually circulate in a restorative system. Thus, there is very little “waste” since materials are always used as inputs for another process. While many focus on materials as the core of the circular economy, there is a critical need for the energy to help power the reintroduction of end-of-life materials into new products as well as the safe and effective management of residuals that may not be suitable for circularity.
“Our employees believe in our partnership with Covanta. They enjoy coming to work and, most of all, they speak confidently about the company when they are outside of our buildings, which drives positivity in the community. We set out from day one to have a green presence and we continue to look for ways to improve and be more creative.”
Murray Hewitt, Greenpac General Manager
One of the ways Covanta leverages its EfW offerings to support circularity is through co-location agreements. Covanta takes in the nonrecyclable waste from a neighboring industry partner and, in return, supplies the energy recovered from the company’s waste to power its own business once again. To maximize engineering and cost efficiencies, the most successful partnerships are with companies that are within approximately two miles of an EfW facility.
A prime example of this circular model is the collaboration between Covanta’s EfW facility in Niagara Falls, New York and Greenpac Mill, a local paper manufacturer. Steam generated by Covanta during the combustion of Greenpac’s nonrecyclable waste is returned and used to dry the paper Greenpac produces. Roughly 200 miles to the east, an EfW facility owned by the Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency (OCRRA) and operated by Covanta has a similar symbiotic relationship with a local 100% recycled paper mill, converting the mill’s recycling byproducts into electricity and capturing thousands of tons of metal for recycling. In turn, the mill provides a local outlet for recycled paper collected by OCRRA.
