Voting for the Old Dominion Chapter’s 2020-2021 Board of Directors ended December 13, 2019. After tallying the votes, the following professionals were elected as new Directors, including:
Congratulations!
Ryan Duckett is a Project Professional working out of SCS’s Midlothian, Virginia office. He is responsible for Sustainable Materials Management, or SMM, solid waste facilities and municipal planning solutions. Ryan also supports environmental engineering projects related to permitting, compliance, regulatory reporting, landfill gas modeling, construction quality assurance (CQA), and pollutant emission inventories at solid waste management facilities. Ryan is an active member of the SCS Engineers Young Professional Program that connects our young professionals with others providing community support, altruistic efforts, mentoring, networking, and social activities.
Virginia’s Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) organization works to advance environmentally and economically sound municipal solid waste management in Virginia. The “Old Dominion” Chapter as it is known consists of over 300 professionals actively working in the solid waste field throughout the Commonwealth. The membership represents the largest cross-section of solid waste managers, operators, and consultants in Virginia.
The Chapter seeks to foster networking and cooperation among solid waste professionals, including regulators and provides educational opportunities to enhance members’ expertise in the solid waste management field. Members carry out a variety of activities and programs to establish innovative research programs in the publics’ interest, scholarships and technical assistance. Learn more about membership on their website – http://www.swanava.org/.
ISWA, a worldwide organization, promotes and develops professional waste management to protect human health and the environment as well as to ensure sustainable resource management.
The International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) General Secretariat announced the reelection of James Law for a second term as a board member representing the Organization Members of ISWA. His second term begins on October 6, at the ISWA General Assembly held during the 2019 World Congress in Bilbao, Spain. He is currently the Chair of the ISWA Working Group on Landfill and the Task Force on Closing Dumpsites Initiative as well.
Mr. Law has been a member of ISWA for 11 years. He became active after attending a World Congress conference in Singapore as a presenter and a trainer at the Landfill training workshop on how to use HELP modeling. “I love to attend and network at the annual World Congress, it is such a rewarding and educational experience with the world top experts in waste management and sustainability,” said Law.
James Law, PE, BCEE, LEED AP BD+C, SC, IWM, and SCS Engineers’ National Expert for Geotechnical and Landfill Engineering, has over three decades of engineering and management experience in geotechnical engineering and subsurface soil investigation – exploration programs (including landfill slope stability, embankment and MSE Wall evaluations), solid waste management, landfill engineering, and closure design. Mr. Law’s solid waste management experience also includes landfill gas collection and utilization as alternate energy expertise.
He has a commendable public-service record and contributes widely and regularly to industry associations and non-profits holding the International Status certification as an International Waste Manager by ISWA. James Law is recognized globally for his work toward the remediation and closure of open dumps; imperative to mitigate the impact on the environment and adverse effects on public health.
Law co-authored an ISWA publication on “The Roadmap for Closing Open Dumpsites,” released at the 2016 World Congress in Novi Sad, Serbia and has been involved in ISWA’s ongoing campaign to close the world’s 50 largest dumpsites ever since. ISWA and its national member, the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) work together along with other global organizations such as Climate Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) on this globally significant movement.
Law regularly speaks and publishes papers at national and international conferences, as well as serving on the Editorial Board for the ISWA WM&R publication as a reviewer and author. His recent editorial article on “ISWA’s Closing Dumpsites Initiative: Status of Progress” co-authored with Dave Ross was published in the 2019 WM&R publication, Volume 37 (6).
Girish Kumar, Illinois Land of Lincoln Chapter, attending the University of Illinois at Chicago is the 2019 Robert P. Stearns – SCS Engineers Scholarship recipient. The SWANA scholarship is for students entering or already enrolled in a graduate program and pursuing a degree in environmental science, engineering, or other major related to solid waste management.
Kumar’s research offers an alternative to the conventional landfills in the form of bioreactor landfills, where the collected chemical liquid derived from waste degradation and other permitted liquids recirculate into the landfills. The recirculation systems enrich the moisture conditions and accelerate waste degradation, which is beneficial to enhancing biogas production and early waste stabilization.
Kumar works at the Sustainable Engineering Research Laboratory and the Geotechnical & Geoenvironmental Engineering Laboratory, on a project to develop a practical and reliable coupled thermo-hydro-bio-mechanical model. The model can enable safe design and the operation of stable, effective and sustainable-engineered landfills.
Congratulations, Girish!
Learn about this SWANA Scholarship and more.
SCS Engineers’ Associate Professional, Lindsey Carlson recently coordinated a cleanup on the Beaver Dam River in Wisconsin. The cleanup is a part of the mission of Living Lands and Waters to clean the nation’s major rivers and watersheds. The Adopt A River Mile program enables people to support the mission in their own communities. SCS Engineers joined other members of the SWANA Badger Chapter, the Associated Recyclers of Wisconsin, and five members of the Beaver Dam community. SCS’s Adam Gorski and Phil Gearing are shown removing a tractor tire and other debris here.
Phil called the experience “a great time and very fulfilling.”
While getting wet and muddy, the team picked up trash and debris that filled one 5’x8’ utility trailer plus two pickup truck beds – that’s about 8 cubic yards for those not in the waste management industry 😉
The trash included a tractor tire; about seven car tires; an aluminum truck topper; an office chair; two bicycles (one still ridable); a motorcycle helmet; at least 15 feet of culvert piping; about 10 trash bags full of plastic bottles and other lightweight garbage; and quite a few other miscellaneous items.
Lindsey served as a volunteer on Living Lands and Waters’ barges during a week-long cleanup in Memphis in 2017, and “that’s how I came to know and become passionate about their cause,” she says.
Contact Living Lands and Waters to clean up your mile of river. Every mile makes a difference to help watershed conservation efforts in your community. Imagine the impact thousands of volunteers of all ages, willing to roll up their sleeves and get dirty are making. Thank you!
See you in Nashville! SCS Engineers
SWANA’s new online testing platform gives members and industry professionals easy access to SWANA’s leading certification courses and exams.
The online testing platform has many benefits:
“The SWANA platform provides students the opportunity to read through the content and take their time preparing for exams; a valuable part of the learning process,” said Tracie Bills, SWANA/CRRA Zero Waste Course Instructor and Northern California Director at SCS Engineers.
On December 15, 2017, David Biderman, Executive Director and CEO of The Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) released comments in response to the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) of the People’s Republic of China’s November 15, 2017, Notifications to the World Trade Organization (WTO) concerning restrictions on the import of solid waste.
We thank SWANA and Mr. Biderman for authorizing SCS Engineers to publish the comments for the benefit of all industry stakeholders and encourage you to share the letter.
Share this post using the icons at left, or download the SWANA letter using the button just under the letter window. SCS Engineers does not collect or share your contact information.
SCS Engineers will continue to publish articles, white papers, and blogs pertaining to this and other relevant issues on our website. You are welcome to contact us if you are looking for specific information on technical and business issues that concern you.
SCS Engineers is a proud supporter of the SWANA Evergreen Chapter. the Chapter offers an annual scholarship to qualified undergraduate and graduate students in honor of Deborah Lambert. Ms Lambert was the SWANA Evergreen Chapter President 2002-2005, and we honor her for the many years she dedicated to the solid waste management field.
Please join us for our Winterfest Annual Holiday Party, which will be held today from 4:30 to 8:30 PM at the Bellevue Club, 11200 SE 6th Street, Bellevue, WA 98004. Enjoy fabulous food with friends and colleagues at the beautiful and festive Bellevue Club, the perfect way to start the holiday season! In addition to being a fun holiday event, Winterfest is our primary fundraising opportunity for our Educational Scholarship Fund.
Bellevue Club
11200 SE 6th Street
Olympic Suite A
Bellevue, WA 98004
These guys don’t want to miss Resource Management and Waste Diversion: Evaluating the Impact on Waste Management caused by the Changing Waste Stream Composition at WasteCon/ISWA 2017.
Solid waste management, and in particular sanitary landfilling, is being impacted by the waste composition evolution. One notable change is an overall decrease in tonnage. Reasons for the reduced quantity may be attributed to factors such as increased diversion of recyclables, increased diversion of vegetative organics, evolving diversion of food waste, changes to packaging, expansion of fresh organic foods lifestyle, expansion of fitness lifestyles, as well as other generational life choices.
Learn more about this topic and many others at the ISWA/WasteCon conference in Baltimore, MD.
Reprinted from SWANA Alert:
On Tuesday, August 1, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will be holding a public hearing in Washington, DC on the proposed rule, ‘‘Renewable Fuel Standard Program: Standards for 2018 and Biomass-Based Diesel Volume for 2019.’’ In keeping with SWANA’s previous advocacy efforts in regards to the renewable fuel standard (RFS) program, we intend to submit a short written statement to be introduced into the hearing record.
The RFS program is a national policy that requires a certain volume of renewable fuel to replace or reduce the quantity of petroleum-based transportation fuel, heating oil or jet fuel. These amounts are set by EPA each year and the proposed rule will set those levels for 2018. One of the four fuel category amounts that will be set by the RFS is cellulosic biofuels, which includes compressed and liquefied renewable natural gas (RNG) produced from landfill biogas.
As a member of the SWANA Core Advocacy Group, we are notifying you that SWANA intends to submit comments to EPA on the RFS program as part of the August 1st hearing, and in post-hearing comments that EPA will be accepting through August 31st as necessary. These comments will support the testimony of other solid waste industry leaders and ask the EPA set the 2018 RVO standard for cellulosic biofuel at a level that takes into account increased generation of fuel from both existing registered projects and from new projects that will begin generating fuel in 2018. By setting the levels based upon actual current and future capacity instead of on historical data and trends, EPA will ensure that the levels set actually spur demand consistent with increased production. A failure to set the levels high enough would result in a lack of appropriate demand for these fuels, which would undercut the purpose of the RFS program
By setting the levels based upon actual current and future capacity instead of on historical data and trends, EPA will ensure that the levels set actually spur demand consistent with increased production. A failure to set the levels high enough would result in a lack of appropriate demand for these fuels, which would undercut the purpose of the RFS program.
If you or the Chapter or Technical Division members have any questions or concerns about these comments, or if you would like to discuss them further, please contact David Biderman at SWANA.
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