John Pohlman, Superintendent
110 Center Avenue
Ames, IA 50010
Phone: 515-239-5137
Toll Free: 1-877-639-5661
Fax: 515-239-5490
E-mail: rrp@city.ames.ia.us
Hours: Monday-Friday, 7 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Saturday, 8 a.m. - noon
The Arnold O. Chantland Resource Recovery Plant (RRP) was the first municipally operated waste-to-energy facility in the nation and was built in 1975. The plant receives garbage from Ames and the surrounding communities in Story County. Private contractors are available to haul garbage, but citizens can do it themselves.
We are a plant that recovers reusable metals and garbage. We recycle everything we can. The metal is extracted by giant magnets and sold to a scrap dealer for recycling. The rest of the garbage is shredded by machines and falls into two categories:
The burnable portion of the garbage becomes Refuse Derived Fuel, or RDF, which is piped to the City's power plant. It is used as a renewable, supplemental fuel in the coal boilers to generate electricity. This way we not only help to conserve precious fossil fuels, but sulfur dioxide emissions also decrease when coal is burned with RDF.
The non-burnable material is sent to a landfill. Since it is shredded, it takes up much less volume in the landfill than it would if it were buried whole.
Through this process more than 80 acres of Iowa farmland have been saved from becoming a landfill!
In addition, more than 4,600 homes are provided electricity each year.
If you have further questions about waste
disposal, please call the Resource Recovery Plant
at 515-239-5137.