Philadelphia
Feedstock System Assessment

Philadelphia disposes roughly 1.5 million tons of residential and commercial material a year — close to a ton for every resident. Much of that is privately contracted commercial material the City does not direct.

The Sanitation Division of the Streets Department collects about 600,000 tons of waste and 85,000 tons of recyclables annually. That is the municipally controlled stream and the basis this assessment uses.

Collection and disposal are contracted to private operators. Under new awards the City expects to pay approximately $72 a ton for trash and $86 a ton for recycling, running from January 2027 for four years with a three-year renewal option, subject to Council approval. A portion of the residual is combusted at a facility in Chester, Delaware County.

Two figures this assessment will not pick among. Published sources give the City’s current per-ton rate as both $65 and approximately $81. And the tonnage sent to waste-to-energy appears variously as approximately 400,000 tons a year, approximately 30% of municipal waste, and 180,000 tons a year. These are material differences from credible sources and we have not chosen a winner. Nothing in this package depends on resolving either — the 600,000 tpy city-collected figure is not in dispute and is sufficient to size a deployment.

Philadelphia’s stated long-term goal is to end the use of landfills and conventional incinerators by 2035, diverting 90% of residential and commercial waste from a 2015 baseline.

Two details matter and are usually left out. First, the City’s own plan contemplates the remaining 10% being used as waste-to-energy — so the goal as written is not a commitment to end combustion entirely. Second, the goal’s current standing is contested: a former city recycling coordinator stated in 2025 that it “has been abandoned by the current administration,” and we located no official response. We present it as the City’s stated goal and take no view on whether it is being actively pursued.

Against either reading, the arithmetic is the same. Diversion at 40% leaves roughly 60% of the stream needing a destination, and the two destinations the goal names are the two the goal is trying to leave.

A portion of Philadelphia’s residual is combusted at a facility in Chester, Delaware County — a city that bears the air-quality burden of material generated elsewhere. It is the subject of sustained community opposition and of an active public debate in which the City, City Council, Chester residents and the facility operator all have positions.

Carbotura does not have a position in that debate and will not take one. It is not our argument to make, and a company proposing an alternative has an obvious interest that would make any contribution from us suspect. We are not campaigning against a facility, an operator, or a contract.

What we will state is what our own process does and does not do. Advanced Circular Manufacturing involves no combustion at any stage. There is no oxygen in the process, no stack, no air pollution control train, and no ash. Carbotura does not sell power, electricity or hydrogen, and is not a waste-to-energy operator. Waste-to-energy ash is, however, a material class we accept as feedstock.

Whether that difference matters, and to whom, is for Philadelphia and for Chester to weigh.

Carbotura executed its first commercial Circular Supply Agreement with York County, Pennsylvania in January 2025: a signed 30-year agreement for a 400 TPD Standard Deployment, which went through that county’s own counsel and procurement review.

That plant is under construction now, with commercial operation targeted for late 2027 to early 2028. It is roughly two hours from Philadelphia, under the same state regulator, and the regulatory groundwork for Pennsylvania is already under way rather than starting from zero for a second community in the state.

The practical consequence for Philadelphia is timing: that plant will be operating well before any decision here is required, so this proposal can eventually be evaluated against a running plant rather than against a document.

Philadelphia presents a city-collected stream of about 600,000 tons a year, a diversion rate flat at 40% against a 90% target, and a stated goal to stop using the two destinations that currently take the residual.

A Phase Initial deployment of 1,000 TPD takes 61% of that stream. Phase Medium at 2,000 TPD and Phase Expanded at 4,000 TPD go past what the City collects, into the roughly 1.5 million tons disposed citywide; they are reached by other municipalities and commercial haulers joining the City’s CSA as additional Feedstock Providers, on the City’s consent and behind the City’s own priority on availability and capacity — through the City’s agreement, not around it. Phase Initial is sized conservatively against an undisputed volume, and no part of it depends on the figures this assessment declined to resolve.

VERIFIED: total disposed tonnage; city-collected waste and recyclables; the ~40% diversion plateau; the 90%-by-2035 target and 2015 baseline; the stated goal to end landfilling and conventional incineration; the 10% waste-to-energy allowance within that plan; proposed per-ton rates and the new award term; facility location and operator.

CONFLICTING AND DELIBERATELY UNRESOLVED: the City’s current per-ton rate ($65 vs ~$81); tonnage sent to waste-to-energy (~400,000 tpy vs ~30% vs 180,000 tpy). CONTESTED: the current standing of the 2035 goal. ESTIMATED: population, composition split, employment, site requirements. NOT IDENTIFIED: any candidate site.

• City of Philadelphia — Zero Waste and Litter Action Plan; Office of Sustainability publications
• City of Philadelphia — Streets Department, Sanitation Division
• Published reporting on the City’s disposal contract awards, proposed rates and award term
• Published reporting on diversion performance and on the Chester facility