Covanta Energy Congratulates Lee County, Florida for Winning Recognition as WTERT's 2010 'Sustainable Community in the U.S.'

FORT MYERS, Fla., Oct. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Covanta Energy, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Covanta Holding Corporation (NYSE: CVA) and a world leader in the development and operation of large scale Energy-from-Waste and other renewable energy projects, today congratulated client Lee County, Florida, for being presented with the "2010 Sustainable Waste Management in the U.S." award by the Advisory Board of the Waste-to-Energy Research and Technology Council (WTERT) at Columbia University in New York City.

This prestigious award recognizes Lee County's accomplishments in developing and executing one of the country's most highly advanced integrated waste management systems. Lee County generates about 1.21 million tons of solid waste per year and has practically eliminated landfilling, according to WTERT. Lee County also manages solid waste disposal for neighboring Hendry County.

The centerpiece of Lee County's sustainable solid-waste management system is the 1,836 ton-per-day Lee County Resource Recovery Facility. The Energy-from-Waste facility is county-owned and is operated by Covanta Energy under a long-term contract. It generates up to 57 megawatts of clean, renewable energy, enough to power about 35,000 homes and businesses.

Lee County's Energy-from-Waste facility is an integral part of the integrated resource recovery system and works hand-in-hand with other components such as curbside recycling collection, commercial recycling and composting. The sustainable, state-of-the-art system has led to the County achieving the highest recycling rate in the state. Furthermore, the system offsets significant greenhouse gases and contributes to its regional economy by:

• Annually recovering more than 15,000 tons of ferrous (iron-based) metals and more than 260 tons of non-ferrous metals.
• Annually avoiding the use of about 132,500 tons of coal for the production of electricity, roughly the equivalent of that borne by 12 100-car coal trains.
• Significantly extending the life of the Hendry County landfill now used for the disposal of inert ash and eliminating methane, a potent greenhouse gas produced from the decomposition of household trash.  

The Lee County facility uses secondary sewage treatment effluent from a county-owned treatment plant for its process water. Electricity generated by the facility also powers Lee County's single-stream Materials Recycling Facility, which helps Lee County achieve the highest recycling rate in the state of Florida. In late 2009, Lee County launched a composting facility where yard waste is ground up and mixed with biosolids from the county's wastewater treatment plants. The compost is being produced as a soil amendment for the agricultural industry.

About Covanta

Covanta Energy is an internationally recognized owner and operator of large-scale Energy-from-Waste and renewable energy projects and a recipient of the Energy Innovator Award from the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.  Covanta's 45 Energy-from-Waste facilities provide communities with an environmentally sound solution to their solid waste disposal needs by using that municipal solid waste to generate clean, renewable energy. Annually, Covanta's modern Energy-from-Waste facilities safely and securely convert more than 20 million tons of waste into more than 9 million megawatt hours of clean renewable electricity and create over 10 billion pounds of steam that are sold to a variety of industries. For more information, visit www.covantaenergy.com.

SOURCE Covanta Energy