Oranjestad, Aruba — The ribbons have been cut, the machinery has been started, and Aruba is about to end its first month as an environmental leader by using WastAway® technology to recycle about half of the island’s municipal waste. Barely a month since its opening, the plant is already processing about half of the island’s waste, and has attracted the attention of many officials in other Caribbean islands and around the world.
The tiny Caribbean island had no viable options for dumping the tons of waste generated by the 105,000 residents and thousands of tourists who visit each year. The island’s landfill, visible to tourists as they arrive and depart from the major airport on the island, was overflowing. The solution was to develop a WastAway facility at the edge of the landfill. The Aruban project, which included design, manufacture, construction, and start-up, took two years to complete. An additional benefit of the WastAway technology is that residents of Aruba do not have to sort their garbage, since the WastAway process eliminates the need for costly and time-consuming garbage segregation.
WastAway developed its patented and innovative process for converting municipal solid waste into an environmentally-safe product called Fluff®. This process has been successfully tested by the US military and has been commercially proven in WastAway’s hometown of McMinnville, Tennessee, where the process has been used for over five years to recycle more than 90% of Warren County’s municipal solid waste. In only about 20 minutes, what once was dirty smelly trash becomes a clean pathogen and odor-free commodity that can be utilized in a variety of ways.
“This patented process works for just about every municipality,” said Mark Brown, CEO of Bouldin & Lawson, WastAway’s parent company. “It’s especially effective for islands, because they have limited land to devote to landfills for waste. This is an eco-friendly way to take care of a human problem, and with the addition of an energy-producing component, WastAway technology can also be used to convert municipal waste into electricity. It’s recycling at its best.”
Bouldin Corporation, the parent company for Wastaway, is a privately-held parent corporation with separate subsidiaries including Bouldin and Lawson and WastAway Services, LLC, a waste recycling equipment company. Bouldin Corporation’s mission is to improve our planet through innovative technologies, equipment and products.