Waste Management Lands Contract with AEP

Waste Management Inc. (WM), Houston, has announced its Energy Services Division has been awarded a contract to provide coal combustion product marketing and onsite landfill management services to American Electric Power (AEP) at its power plants in Mt. Pleasant and Vernon, Texas.; and Oologah, Okla. The three power plants produce around 700,000 tons of coal combustion products per year. It is the first time that WM has landed a contract to handle fly ash from AEP.

Under the contract, Waste Management’s FlyAshDirect division will market the utility firm’s fly ash, a substance generated during the combustion of coal, for reuse. The contract will begin in 2014. A spokeswoman for WM was not sure how long the contract will run.

“We are pleased to provide this service to AEP,” says Harry Lamberton, vice president of WM’s Energy Services division. “With 150 million tons of fly ash produced a year by the electric utility industry, we are gratified to play a part in its reuse.”

The fly ash will be marketed to the construction industry, where it will be used primarily to make concrete. The fly ash not reused will be landfilled. Waste Management will conduct processing of the fly ash on site.

Lamberton adds that its FlyAshDirect group, which is a part of WM’s Energy Services division, also will provide landfill management work for the power plants.

WM’s FlyAshDirect group has a patented system known as CarbonBlocker, which treats fly ash to prepare it for marketing.