Palm Beach County burns 3,000 tons of trash a day to generate electricity: How it works

Every day, garbage from homes and businesses has to go somewhere. In Palm Beach County, Florida, some of it takes an unusual route: instead of going straight to a landfill, it is burned at a facility that uses the heat to generate electricity.

The county’s Renewable Energy Facility 2 opened in 2015 and can handle up to 3,000 tons of municipal waste a day. The plant offers a way to deal with large amounts of garbage while producing electricity from material that would otherwise need to be disposed of.

How the Plant Turns Garbage Into Electricity

Garbage trucks bring waste to the facility, where large cranes move it into one of three boilers. So each of the facility’s three boilers can process up to 1,000 tons of waste per day, according to the Solid Waste Authority of Palm Beach County.


When the garbage burns it produces heat that turns water into steam. That steam drives a turbine connected to an electricity generator.

According to plant builder Babcock & Wilcox, the facility can generate up to 95 megawatts of gross electricity. It also has equipment to control emissions and recover metals from the leftover material.

Construction started in 2012 and the plant began commercial operations in July 2015.

Why the Facility Was Significant

When the plant opened, it marked a rare addition to the US waste-to-energy sector. The US Energy Information Administration reported in 2016 that it was the first new waste-to-energy facility to begin operating in the country since 1995.

Palm Beach County Solid Waste Authority said that the technology can reduce the volume of waste that needs to go to a landfill by up to 90%. That does not mean 90% of the waste disappears completely. So the figure refers to the reduction in volume after processing.

Where Does Waste Go After Burning

Not everything that enters the plant turns into energy as burning garbage leaves ash and other residue, which still need to be managed.

At the Palm Beach facility, the remaining material is taken to an ash management building. Workers recover ferrous and non ferrous metals. And then the rest of the ash is sent to landfill.

The plant also treats exhaust gases using pollution control equipment which is designed to reduce harmful emissions, including particulate matter and acid gases.

Burning Garbage Comes With Limits

While turning waste into electricity can reduce the amount of garbage sent to landfills but it does not eliminate the need for disposal sites, the process still produces emissions and leaves behind ash that must be handled.

Palm Beach County’s facility brings waste disposal and electricity generation together in one operation. It can process up to 3,000 tons of trash a day, though that is its designed capacity, not a guarantee of how much it burns daily.