Dive Brief:
- The city of Anchorage, Alaska, has released multiple requests for proposals to design and build a mass burn combustion facility. The facility is expected to cost $700 million and process about 300,000 tons per year of waste, according to city officials.
- The plan has already earned strong support from local lawmakers, who want to extend the life of the city-operated Anchorage Regional Landfill. The region is also hoping the facility will add capacity for special waste that’s currently shipped to other states for disposal.
- Mark Spafford, Anchorage’s deputy municipal manager, said the project has received renewed support as the region faces an energy supply crunch. “We’re looking at any and all sources of variable renewable energy sources,” he said.
Dive Insight:
Development of new waste-to-energy facilities in the United States has been limited in recent years due to pushback from communities that fear an added pollution burden on neighboring communities. Even so, places that struggle to identify alternative disposal capacity sometimes turn to building modern incineration facilities in states like Florida.
Spafford said the Anchorage project has so far received little pushback from the community, though it was stuck in the idea phase for several years. In 2019, Anchorage commissioned a report studying how an incineration facility could extend the life of the city’s landfill. While Anchorage’s landfill still had more than 40 years of life estimated at the time, Alaska’s difficult geography made the prospect of building another such facility unlikely, and officials said any alternative disposal destinations would be too costly.
The idea fell by the wayside in subsequent years as the pandemic shifted focus to essential services and Anchorage residents elected a new mayor. In 2021, Spafford left his role as the city’s solid waste services general manager, but returned in his new position following the election of Mayor Suzanne LaFrance in 2024. In the intervening period, Anchorage saw natural gas prices rise considerably…