Waste Management - GI Industries - Keeping Our Communities Clean

Clean diesel technology will eliminate air pollution from 90 percent - or about 13 million – of today's trucks and buses.

The Simi Landfill & Recycling Center powers 2,500 homes each day with two landfill gas-to-energy generators using methane gas.

Clean diesel engines and fuels will prevent nearly 8,300 premature deaths, along with tens of thousands of cases of bronchitis, asthma and other respiratory ailments.

Throughout the U.S., particulate matter will be reduced by 250,000 tons, and NOx by 4 million tons every year.

In California alone, particulate matter will be reduced by 110,000 tons, and NOx by 2.6 million tons every year.

WM Rallies Support for Greenhouse-Gas Reduction

WM is a strong advocate for greenhouse gas reduction. Last month, Kent Stoddard, our VP for Public Affairs, had a chance to give voice to our position and rally support for AB32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act, in an Op-Ed piece for the San Francisco Chronicle.

AB32 would require all California industries to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 25 percent by year 2020. In his article, Kent says that the proposed legislation is the most important environmental bill of the decade that will put “California in the forefront of a critical environmental challenge while providing a model for every state in the nation.” Kent goes on to say that “AB32 will spur new investments in improved technologies that will increase recycling, generate more renewable energy and expand the production of clean fuels from organic wastes.” Kent urges our lawmakers to reach a final compromise that mandates “best management practices” to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, along with strict measures to prevent regulatory “backsliding” from the state’s standards.

WM is already well on our way to meeting and exceeding the emissions-reduction goal set out by the proposed bill. WM currently has the largest fleet of natural-gas garbage trucks in the nation.

Through a recent innovative emissions trading project with PG&E, we replaced 120 diesel garbage trucks with new natural-gas vehicles. This move eliminated 2.7 tons per year of particulate emissions, and more than 1,200 tons of greenhouse gases. Here in Simi Valley, as you know, we beat the California Air Resources Board deadline for truck retrofits by more than a year and a half, and we are doing the same with clean air deadlines released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this past June. We are also proud that WM is a major recycler in California, and we are one of North America’s largest producers of energy generated from waste. You can visit our website www.KeepingVenturaCountyClean.com for more information about our environmental projects.

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