The first step is to get your purple “pay as you throw” trash bag out to the curb. Make sure it’s out there by 7 a.m., folks – that’s the deadline!
Next, the garbage truck swings by and a Bestway laborer, like Nik LeGrow, hops off to scoop up your bags and chuck ’em in the truck. In a typical day, LeGrow picks up anywhere from five to 10 tons of garbage – all by himself!
Concord’s trash – and the trash of two dozen surrounding towns – gets dropped off at the Wheelabrator facility in Penacook. Workers use this giant claw machine to drop tons of garbage into the incinerator – but it doesn’t just go up in smoke!
The garbage in the incinerator fuels a waste-to-energy process that creates some of the electricity used by Concord residents. Basically, the incinerator heats up water, which turns to superheated steam that goes through a turbine and creates energy. There may be a smokestack out there, but nothing comes out of it except pure steam.
The final product, after all the burning and churning, is a bit of ash – simply whatever would not combust in the incinerator. The ash is trucked up to Franklin and buried in a landfill. That’s a far cry from the days of just burying all of our garbage!
