Waste Management

Georgia Power has a longtime commitment to recycling and waste management. In 2009, we recycled 630,000 pounds of paper and cardboard, 3.7 million pounds of wood, 31 million pounds of scrap metal and 96,000 pounds of plastic.

Reusing Ash and Other Coal Byproducts

The vital use of coal as a fuel to generate power results in large quantities of ash and other coal combustion byproducts (CCB); however, Georgia Power promotes reuse of significant amounts of these materials.

For instance, coal ash is used in many beneficial ways such as making concrete and in highway construction. In fact, in 2008 Georgia Power officially embarked on a joint effort with the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Georgia Department of Transportation to evaluate the use of approximately 31,000 tons of coal ash as fill for a road construction project in Rome, Georgia. In a typical year, the company recycles and reuses more than 30 percent of the ash.

Some forms of CCB, like gypsum, result as the byproduct of pollution control equipment used at certain plants. It is similar to naturally mined gypsum and often used in wallboard and commercial cement. It has also been shown to promote the safe growth of many plants, including turf grass.

In addition, Georgia Power constantly looks for new opportunities to increase uses of these byproducts. Through its parent company, Southern Company, it is involved in several major initiatives to develop new and improved uses of CCB. Safe and beneficial reuse of CCB reduces the amount that must be stored at power plants or in landfills. An extensive system is in place to meet or exceed all regulations governing CCB management and ensure safe operation.

Labor Saver Makes Bill Printing Greener
Georgia Power prints all of the bills and stockholder communications for Southern Company, producing a whopping 200,000-plus bills per day. The company employs an innovative vacuum system that sucks up and shreds excess paper left over once the bills are folded and trimmed. Eventually, the paper ends up in a compactor, where it is pressed into 900-pound bales. The system recycles an average of 8,000 pounds of paper a month.

Paperless Billing
Georgia Power helps customers avoid paper altogether through paperless billing. And to make this program more attractive to its customers, Georgia Power last year added new features like e-mail reminders where customers can select to receive an alert when their bill is due. More than 300,000 customers have opted to use the greener, online approach as the company promotes paperless billing as another way customers can be eco-friendly.

Waste Efficiency and Management
Solid waste takes up enormous amounts of landfill space and is costly. Through a partnership with Oakleaf Inc., the company has created a statewide waste efficiency program at various facilities. The Oakleaf partnership helps Georgia Power better understand how much waste the company generates and recycles. In addition, it provides the company with more recycling opportunities and significant cost savings.

Plant McDonough Construction Goes Aggressively Green
The construction of the new natural gas-fired units at Plant McDonough may be the greenest building project the company has ever undertaken.

The company crushed and reused 19,000 tons of concrete slabs and rocks that had to be dug up, sent 195 tons of metal and steel out for recycling and recycled 23,000 pounds of tires found buried on an adjacent commercial site acquired for new construction.

Cost avoidance to date for the project is near $700,000. In addition, there's been an environmental benefit, as recycling has kept tons of material out of landfills. Recycling is also helping to keep the project on time and within budget.

Plant McDonough has the fourth-largest generating production capacity in Georgia, and is the second-largest capacity owned by Georgia Power, exceeded only by Plant Bowen. In addition, Plant McDonough will have reduced its nitrous oxide emissions by 85 percent, sulfur dioxide emissions by 99 percent, mercury emissions by 100 percent and the carbon dioxide emission rate by 50 percent.

As the combined-cycle units come on-line, the two remaining coal-fired generating units at Plant McDonough, which currently contribute about 540 megawatts to the system, will be retired.

The combined-cycle units, numbered 4, 5 and 6, are expected to be on-line in 2012 and 2013.