The Board of County Commissioners in Miami-Dade County, Florida, on Tuesday directed the county mayor's office to consider proposals for a new incinerator site from two rival consortia that include Reworld and FCC Environmental Services. The mayor would then make a recommendation to the board on her preferred proposal, which the board plans to consider at its regular December meeting, the Miami Herald reported.
The decision is a step forward for the county's waste disposal plans. In July, the board urged the mayor to come up with a new recommendation for an incinerator site, repeating a similar back-and-forth between the two entities last year.
Since the county's longtime refuse-derived fuel plant in Doral burned down in February 2023, its trash has been shipped to landfills elsewhere in the state at increased cost. The Doral facility handled nearly half the county's waste when it was still operating, or about 1 million tons of waste annually. That capacity has been replaced largely through expanded landfilling contracts with WM and Waste Connections.
County commissioners have spent multiple years debating whether and where to build a new incinerator. County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava has at times recommended building an incinerator in Doral or at a decommissioned airport near Miramar, only to back down in each case after opposition from local politicians.
The county board decided in July that they would not consider either of those sites, even as they reaffirmed their commitment to build an incinerator. They also discussed a market research report prepared by AtkinsRéalis, which solicited waste disposal proposals from the private sector.
The consultant determined that a new waste-to-energy facility would add about 1.3 million tons per year of capacity with an operating cost of $45 to $75 per ton. That was compared to optimization of landfills already owned by the county, which could add 570,000 tons per year of annual capacity. Landfill optimization operating costs would be about $78.50 per ton, according to the report.
But the cost to construct a new waste-to-energy facility will be steep. The report found capital costs would be anywhere from $1.5 billion to $1.9 billion, compared to $70.4 million to $131.9 million for landfill optimization.
The county received six proposals on waste-to-energy facilities, though it's only moving forward with the two proposals that include partners with U.S. operations.
FCC partnered with MasTec and Babcock & Wilcox on its proposal. The consortium proposed an "EcoPark" that would include an incinerator, bulk and C&D waste recycling, composting and MRF recycling. The waste-to-energy component would have a capacity of 1 million tons per year and would cost $1.5 billion to $1.9 billion. The other components would further add to the project’s overall cost.
Reworld partnered with utility Florida Power & Light and Kanadevia Inova on its proposal. It would include a significant anaerobic digestion component with composting, as well as 1.3 million tons per year of incinerator capacity. The consortium did not provide its own capital cost estimate, saying it would be "within industry standards and align with projections previously provided by the county’s experts."
The FCC consortium expects permitting to take one to three years and design-build services to take three to five years. It projects the completed facility would have an operational life of 25 to 30 years. The Reworld consortium projects it could take up to 10 years to develop a facility. It did not provide an estimate of operational life. Optimizing the county’s North Dade Landfill would add eight to 36 years of useful life, and doing the same for the South Dade Landfill would add eight to 10 years of useful life, according to the report.
Reworld previously operated the Doral facility as Covanta and continues to operate incinerators in Lake, Lee, Hillsborough and Pasco counties. It also operates two incinerators in Palm Beach County, which is in the process of commissioning a new incinerator to replace its 1980s-era, refuse-derived fuel plant.
FCC recently won a contract to take over operations of an incinerator previously run by Reworld in Pinellas County. That transition is scheduled to occur Nov. 1. FCC, part of a Spain-based company, has been expanding its presence in the North American incinerator sector, acquiring a Broward County incinerator from Win Waste Innovations in July.
