St. Louis to Build New Waste-to-Energy Plant, Will Divert 2,250 Tons of Trash Per Day from Landfills

St. Louis will soon be home to a new waste-to-energy plant that will divert approximately 2,250 tons of trash per day from local landfills.

According to St. Louis Public Radio, STL Land Development, a subsidiary of Los Angeles-based New Planet Energy, will build the plant on a 20-acre site in the North Riverfront area. The expected completion year is 2020 and the plant will recover 80% of the plastic, cardboard and other materials it receives. It will create fuel by “extracting the extracting cardboard, plastic bags, metal cans and other materials from the garbage it receives. Those items will be turned into pellets that cement kilns and paper mills can burn as fuel instead of fossil fuels,” the news site reports.

In similar news, Brightmark, a waste and energy development company, recently announced it is searching for sites throughout the US at which to build its advanced recycling facilities. According to the company, these sites will convert hundreds of thousands of tons of post-consumer plastics into new products and fuel. Brightmark expects to invest $500 million to $1 billion at each site location.