Solid Waste Solutions in Rural Alaska::
Using Best Management Practices for Burning and success stories from Kiana and the City of Sand Point:
Using Best Management Practices for Burning:
Human and environmental health concerns are greatly reduced by using best management practices for burning. For a complete document, please see Burning Garbage and Land Disposal in Rural Alaska, a Publication for Small
Alaskan Communities Considering Incineration and Energy Recovery, which provides detailed descriptions of how waste is burned, burning methods and components, regulations - guidelines to success, other resources, and
case studies in Alaska. This publication was prepared and produced by the Alaska Energy Authority and the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation and can be accessed on-line at the following addresses: Alaska
Energy Authority www.aidea.org/aea.htm and Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation www.state.ak.us/dec/eh/sw/index.htm.
WHY?
The low temperature burning of household waste, that is a result of burn barrels and burn boxes, emits dangerous toxins that are inhaled by residents. Immediate effects may include burning eyes, headaches, nausea, fatigue,
dizziness and allergic hypersensitivity. Exposure to smoke from burn barrels and burn boxes may also cause damage to your lungs, nervous system, kidneys, and liver.
A detailed emissions characterization study by USEPA was undertaken to examine, characterize, and quantify emissions from the simulated burning of household waste materials in barrels: Evaluation of Emissions from the Open
Burning of Household Waste in Barrels at www.ccthita-swan.org/pdf/burn1.pdf
WHAT?
 Location, burning methods, duration of burn, and segregation can decrease your community's risk to inhaling toxins:
Location: Ceasing in-town barrel burning and keeping away from the dump site during burn hours can reduce residents exposure to toxins.
Burning Methods: Methods for increasing temperature (such as reducing moisture content) and decreasing the duration of the burn will reduce the toxic emissions.
Duration of Burn: A fast burn will decrease exposure. Less waste and more frequent burns will make a shorter fire and can be more effective with clean, dry materials such as wood and paper. Frequent burning will also help prevent additional moisture from collecting in the waste.
Segregation: Separate all hazardous wastes such as batteries, household chemicals, and oil. You can also lower the toxins by taking out the plastics.
The following information is from Health Effects of Burning Trash, which provides more detailed recommendations for reducing chemical exposure from open burning. The full 4-page document, available at
www.zender-engr.net/docs/health_effects_burning_trash.pdf also provides a 1-page overview of health effects and a 2-page table
describing chemicals from solid waste burning and associated health effects. Resources like these are useful for developing education and outreach materials for your school and community and providing directly to students
so that they can create their own posters and flyers.
What to do about dioxin and other chemicals released during burning:
Dioxin is one of the most hazardous chemical compounds to breathe and it causes cancer. It is almost always formed when burning garbage. The only requirements for it to form are: Heat over 400°, Chlorine, and Organic
material. Temperatures of 600° to 1200° will form the most dioxin, and at over 1800° very little is formed.
- Increase the source-people distance: Toxicological studies on dioxin showed the potential for health risks within 26 feet of the source of open burning from just 15 minutes of burning. As the burning continues, the impact area widens. If people in your community insist on home burning, move the barrels (or pass an ordinance) so that they are 50 ft (or more) from houses. Locate burnboxes far away, and keep people from the dump during a burn.
- Make it short: A hotter fire will burn quicker, reducing the ultimate size of the smoke impact zone. See www.ccthita-swan.org/pdf/burnbarrelsDEC.pdf and www.ccthita-swan.org/Tutorials/burnbox.cfm for hotter fire designs and tips. Less waste and more frequent burns make a shorter fire, and thus a smaller zone as well. Cooling ash more quickly also reduces dioxins - because ash will be in the range of optimal dioxin-formation temperatures for a shorter time.
- Take out the plastic: You can lower the amount of dioxin formed and its toxicity by taking out sources of chlorine. One of the highest sources of chlorine is PVC. It is 56% chlorine. Some studies show that the amount of PVC in waste is the most important predictor of dioxin emissions (although others state that reducing PVC is futile as there will always be enough chlorine in other wastes to form dioxin). PVC is in plastic containers that are labeled #3, in PVC pipes, many children's toys, vinyl flooring and siding, and vinyl furniture covering. PVC also forms hydrochloric acid - which besides damaging the burnbox, is a major irritant to eyes and lungs, and potentially lethal. These types of wastes are easy enough to take out before burning.
- Make it brown: Another source of chlorine is white paper products, including plates, napkins, cardboard, and office paper. These products are almost always bleached with chlorine. These products are more difficult to separate before burning, unless the households separate them beforehand. Promote non-chlorine bleached products in your stores and schools and offices. White paper without chlorine is available.
- Junk the mail: Go door-to-door if you have to and offer to remove people from junk mail lists. Ask them for the catalogs they don't use, find the phone number to remove their names, and ask them to call (or ask them if you can call). Junk mail contains chlorine bleached paper and lots of heavy-metal based ink, and no one needs it. Send a postcard with your full name and address to the Mail Preference Service, Direct Marketing Association, P.O. Box 9008, Farmingdale, NY 11735-9008. Call Equifax 1 (800) 873 7655 or Opt Out 1 (888) 567 8688 to remove name from mailing lists. Go to www.stopjunk.com , www.the-dma.org/cgi/offmailinglistdave , www.afandpa.org
- Write manufacturers of commonly bought products in your Village and tell them to switch to non-chlorine bleached, soy-based ink, and #1 and # 2 plastics. Write your lawmakers too. Address letters from the Tribe and City - it will pull more weight.
Additional information to assist villages in selecting a burnbox can be found in:
What Type of Burnbox Does Our Village Need? at www.zender-engr.net/docs/Burnbox.pdf
Additional information on best management practices can be found in:
Solid Waste Procedures Manual for Municipal Class III Solid Waste Landfills at www.dec.state.ak.us/eh/sw/Factsheets/Class3Manual.pdf
WHO'S DOING IT?
Kiana Environmental Department
 Upon learning that barrel burning in town was dangerous to residents' health, the Kiana Environmental Department convinced all of the residents to stop burning in town and to use barrels that were relocated to the dump.
Beginning in 2004, Kiana environmental staff started educating the community through newsletters. In May of 2005, they visited homes, stores, and offices to explain why "OPEN BURNING MUST STOP!" and gave them handouts on
health hazards of open burning, which was also included in the community newsletters. By June of 2005, Kiana stopped the open burning in their community and relocated the burn barrels to the gravel pit area away from the village.
"The main store had four burn barrels which were being used on a regular basis to burn card board, plastic and Styrofoam. We had to convince the store owner to get rid of their barrels in which the environmental program
started making cardboard logs out of their boxes which are available for residents to help heat their homes during the long winter months. We also provided trash hauling service for the offices and clinic. The clinic now
hauls their own trash to the burn barrels and burns their own garbage, where before the clinic had three burn barrels outside the clinic facility to burn their burnable trash."
Kiana is a leader in waste reduction technologies, as they also heat their Environmental building with cardboard logs. The environmental program has collected waste oil since 2004 and recently purchased a waste oil to
energy converter (WOTEC) to reduce/eliminate used oil disposal. "Thanks to EPA IGAP funds we will be able to make our waste oil usable and save money to heat our local fire hall where the WOTEC system will be installed."
They received a Denali Commission grant for a Summit burnbox, which is being installed. The idea of moving waste burning from town to the dump is an important health risk reduction behavior, as in-town barrel burning
appears to be much worse for residents' health than keeping the smoke source further away. Kiana's case, their dump is located a reasonable distance from town and in a usually favorable wind direction.
Kiana has also implemented an extensive recycling program to keep hazardous materials from being burned. The Kiana Environmental Program requested a building from the City of Kiana to be used as a temporary recycling
center in which residents drop off appliances of all kinds and lead acid batteries. They also had the school drop off old computers, keyboards, and other equipment that would have otherwise gone to the dump. Although,
there is not room inside the building, appliances are also stored here and used for parts and eventual backhaul. By having the temporary recycling center people do not have to go and dig around the open dump anymore
for needed parts.
Kiana also has a battery recycling program in which they collect batteries of all kinds. Containers for household disposable batteries were made to hand out to every household and boxes were built for backhauling the lead
acid batteries. In the past, batteries were brought to the dumpsite. Kiana also keeps ink cartridges out of their dump and sends to companies that pay for them. The incoming funds from the cartridges go towards their
recycling rewards program.
Kiana environmental program was also successful in recruiting Kemberly Henry for one year of service through Rural Alaska Community Action Program's (RurAL CAP's) Rural Village Environmental Network (RAVEN) program.
Kemberly's actions to obtain green cleaning product kits (among many other valuable resources), additional funding for an environmental awareness picnic, and more recycling containers has reduced the amount of household
hazardous materials from being purchased and keeps more household hazardous materials and containers from being burned.
Contact: Gloria Shellabarger, 907-475-2252, gshellabarger@zender-engr.net
City of Sand Point
 Sand Point is located on Popof Island, 570 air miles southwest of Anchorage. It is the largest fishing port on the Aleutian chain. The community's unique location allows it to serve as a service and repair center for marine
vessels that are headed south to Seattle or north to the Bering Sea. Sand Point is a first class city and is a member of the Aleutians East Borough. Services provided in the community include health, police, fire, water/sewer,
recreation, docks, harbor and boat haul out and storage. Sand Point has a population of approximately 952 during the winter months and about 1,200 during the peak summer fishing season. It was founded over 100 years ago as
a cod station and has served as a service center for various fisheries since that time.
Solid Waste History
For many years, the community hauled trash to an unpermitted dump located on the main thoroughfare between the airport and city center. In 1999, the City began construction of a new landfill. The project was completed and
permitted by the ADEC in June 2000. The landfill has since been re-certified through 2010. The new landfill is a Class III landfill per ADEC standards.
Treatment of Solid Waste
The City of Sand Point collects all trash from dumpsters located throughout the community. Depending on the area served, we will empty these dumpsters 1-3 times per week.
Open burning is allowed in Class III landfills under certain conditions established by ADEC. The old, unpermitted dump had a small burn area that usually smoldered for long periods of time emitting both smoke and odor. At
the new landfill, we wanted to continue to burn as much of our waste stream as possible but try and reduce or eliminate the negative effects associated with the old dump.
Our first attempt was to purchase and erect an open Burn Box manufactured by Summit Engineering. While still in use today, this box has both positive and negative elements associated with it use. The pros included ease of
operation and cost. We simply drove our refuse collection truck into the box, dumped the contents, drove out and started a fire. The negative effects of the box were, depending on the weather (wind and rain is a constant
in the Aleutian Islands) and the contents of the refuse being burned, it would take most of the day to burn and smoke from the smoldering pile was troublesome. Being more than 4 miles from the nearest resident did mitigate
the smoke/odor problem to some degree. The Summit Burn Box also warped from the extreme heat and is becoming less and less usable as time goes on.
In 2005, the City decided to try something more 'state-of-the-art' for incineration and investigated several types of incinerators that infused air into the fire to help mitigate the smoke, odor and smoldering that we were facing.
After much deliberation, and with the help from a $75,000 grant from the Denali Commission, we purchased a Burn Box manufactured by Crochet Industries out of Baton Rouge LA. The Crochet unit was erected in 2005 and is in operation today.
Specifics Concerning the Crochet Burn Box
As with any unit, the Crochet Burn Box has both advantages and disadvantages to its operation.
Advantages:
- The unit is self-contained and no power supply is need to the site
- The unit was designed with an air blowing system which infuses air directly into the base of the fire which keeps smoldering to a minimum and a complete burn can be done regardless of weather.
- The unit has replaceable parts that can (and must) be repaired or replaced periodically.
- Waste is loaded into the unit via a hopper. Ash is deposited into the landfill. The ash takes 80 to 85 percent less space that direct burying of refuse.
Disadvantages:
- The unit is much more costly to operate than the Summit model. The City has hired a second Solid Waste operator to work at the landfill. This position cleans the box from the previous day's fire and prepares it for the next cycle. He is also the operator in charge of the actual burn process and keeping the landfill orderly. The other operator collects and hauls refuse to the landfill on a daily basis.
- The unit requires more capital investment up-front (nearly $200,000 to manufacture, ship and erect) as well as additional monthly costs for fuel and maintenance.
Other Issues:
- All refuse collected must be segregated and appliances, waste metal, batteries, tires and other 'non-desirable materials are removed prior to burning. However, most household waste that is thrown into the dumpsters is burned.
- The foundation of the Sand Point unit could have been better planned. The unit was built on a gravel pad and during the winter months and given the heat generated near the unit, the area around the Burn Box becomes a muddy bog at times. A cement pad and working area would have been more preferable - but also much more expensive.
- The municipal waste generated by city residents will not always provide enough suitable material to produce enough heat to burn thoroughly. Sand Point is fortunate to have plenty of wood pallets from the cannery to use as a base fire before adding municipal waste. This could be an issue with other small communities that has no such 'resource'
- If / when a part needs to be repaired, Sand Point will try to repair it locally. If something needs to be replaced, they will contact Crochet for cost/availability/freight/etc. of the needed part. This unit was a proto-type and not something that is massed produced, therefore, parts are limited at this time.
Cost
As mention above, the initial investment for the Crochet unit was approximately $200,000, which included the unit with a hopper and shipping to Sand Point from Louisiana. Partial funding
came from a Denali Commission Solid Waste Grant.
The City also purchased a small skid-steer loader at a cost of approximately $50,000 to be used to load the unit/hopper and unload the ash after each daily burn. Cleaning the unit by hand/shovel
wheelbarrow is possible but would be much more time consuming and potentially dangerous.
The unit on diesel generated power to operate the hopper as well as drive the blower fans. The generator uses approximately 75 gallons of diesel every week.
Community Contact
You can contact City Administrator Paul Day in Sand Point about the specifics of this unit by calling (907) 274-7561 or emailing Paul at daypar72@gci.net. More information on Crochet Burners
can be found at www.ccthita-swan.org/Tutorials/burnbox.cfm.
ADDITIONAL BURNING CASE STUDIES IN ALASKA
Burning Garbage and Land Disposal in Rural Alaska, a Publication for Small Alaskan Communities Considering Incineration and Energy Recovery provides a summary for the following case studies: burn box in Manley Hot Springs, thermal oxidation
unit in Egegik, and thermal oxidation unit in Skagway. These summaries include community contacts, pictures, manufacturers, system descriptions and operation, cost, maintenance, issues and problems, cost of operation, and other models. It
also includes a database of incinerator vendors available for small-scale waste treatment. As stated above, this publication was prepared and produced by the Alaska Energy Authority and the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation can
be accessed on-line at the following addresses: Alaska Energy Authority www.aidea.org/aea.htm and Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation www.state.ak.us/dec/eh/sw/index.htm.
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