Garbage plans may be trashed

The Layton garbage incinerator's poor environmental performance is causing the Salt Lake Organizing Committee to reconsider plans to burn its garbage there.

It's a dramatic step for a group that set a goal of becoming the first Olympics to landfill none of its garbage.

Incineration could occur at Utah's lone garbage-burning facility in Layton, and the process would ensure that no garbage from a SLOC-supported locale reaches a landfill.

But organizers are concerned about the incinerator's poor environmental performance, including frequent emissions violations.

"We haven't made a decision to use the incinerator," SLOC director of environmental programs Diane Conrad said. "With their compliance history and their stack emissions we have to look at where the best environmental benefit is."

And given the incinerator's history, Conrad said the best environmental benefit might be found in landfilling, which would force SLOC to abandon its "zero landfill" promise.

"To me, I don't really care if we have to landfill," said Laynee Jones, SLOC manager of waste, recycling, cleaning and snow removal. "It would be a really small amount."

Most of the trash, Jones said, would be recycled or turned to compost, leaving little for a landfill.

But despite the potential change of heart, a SLOC contractor and Wasatch Energy — the special service district that operates the incinerator — are working out a deal that would allow the burning of Olympic trash.

Wasatch Energy this week authorized its new director, Nathan Rich, to hammer out a contract with John Madole of Green Valley Recycle and Compost, which has been hired by SLOC to dispose of Olympic waste.

The contract would allow Green Valley to create a materials recovery facility near Wasatch Energy's burn plant where trash would be sorted for recycling, composting and incineration.

"What we can't recycle or compost will be burned," Madole explained, noting the zero landfill goal.

During the Atlanta Games in 1996, Madole said, the sorting and composting facility became a tourist attraction as media and visitors clamored to see Olympic trash be changed to compost. For 2002, SLOC even plans to have Webcams that will provide a live feed of the composting operation on its Web site, Conrad said.