Taking on the PFAS problem

One issue that’s always top of mind for Lincoln Young, president of Rockwood Sustainable Solutions, who is featured on the cover of this issue, is the regulation of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Federal regulations surrounding PFAS management will affect every recycler and every landfill in the country in a major way, he insists.

Decarbonization remains another pressing concern, and Young says he sees carbon sequestration via biochar as a way construction and demolition (C&D) recyclers can help provide a potential solution to both the carbon and the PFAS problems.

To that end, Rockwood has been partnering with the University of Tennessee to provide biochar for studies on native warm-season grasses.

Biochar is biomass that has been heated with limited oxygen through a process called pyrolysis, and the charcoal-like product has been used for years as a soil conditioner and amendment, according to the university.

Researchers are planting grasses in biochar and then studying how deep the roots grow so it’s possible to measure carbon sequestration.

“I love the idea of sequestering carbon because we can make biochar out of wood,” Young says. “It is a major opportunity for C&D recyclers across the country to create this material with their bulk wood. … It’s a very practical use of organic materials. How biochar works is [by] pulling PFAS out of water, bringing nutrients to the root of the soil—you know, sequestering carbon.”

Rockwood produces biochar through a gasification partnership with the city of Lebanon, Tennessee, where the company is based.

As part of the study, an interdisciplinary team led by University of Tennessee researchers in partnership with Mississippi State University, Tennessee State University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory are researching ways biochar can help decarbonize the aviation sector while promoting a circular economy.

The end goal is to assess the economic viability and sustainability of amending crop systems with biochar in sustainable aviation fuel production across the Southeast.

Young says he’d like to see standards developed around biochar production.

“What I don’t want to have happen is the Wild West to occur where if it’s burnt wood, it’s biochar,” he says. “There needs to be a standard of … what is the carbon rate that you must have in order to be called biochar? Let’s put a spec around it. Let’s put a certification around it.”

Could the C&D recycling industry one day see the establishment of a biochar institute, perhaps?