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STATEMENT OF DANIEL PINDZOLA 
Mr. PinpzoLta. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the sub- 
committee, my name is Daniel Pindzola. I am a chemical engineer. 
I have been with the Franklin Institute for 13 years where my 
work has been in the area of waste utilization and disposal; this 
covers sewage sludge, dredging spoils, and industrial wastes. 
The initial project that I was involved in involved ocean dumping 
of sludge. Since then I have been involved in a process which gets 
rid of sewage sludge once and for all. 
With me today is Dr. Hardy Bowen, who is a principal scientist 
at the Franklin Institute. He is a chemical engineer and marine bi- 
ologist as well. He has participated with me in the development of 
this Ecorock sludge disposal process. 
Fortunately, I am not here today to discuss the process and con- 
sequences of ocean disposal of sludge. I am here to talk about a 
method which gets rid of it completely in a beneficial manner by 
forming a useful product, namely rock, (which I have a jar of here 
for your viewing) at a very low cost. The capital costs for the proc- 
ess are low and the operating costs are low, lower than ocean 
dumping, I might add. 
The process is simple. It utilizes well-proven equipment and steps 
which have been well and carefully developed. 
The heart of the process is a small rotary cement kiln which I 
think you would recognize as being a fairly commonplace piece of 
equipment. 
The development was initiated and heavily funded by the U.S. 
Government, namely the EPA. It was with considerable foresight 
that individuals there 12 years ago, one in particular, Mr. Louis 
Lefke, who is still with EPA, saw that from whatever processes 
that evolved in the disposal of wastes, there would always be some 
residuals left to be thrown away or which could not be used. This 
program was picked up by the Federal Highway Administration, 
since the end product of this process being a rock was of some in- 
terest to them. They funded demonstration studies of the rock in 
highways. It tested out highly successful. 
The city of Philadelphia 6 years ago cofunded with EPA the 
design, construction, and operation of a large-scale plant. This 
plant cost $3 million, which by today’s standards is quite modest. 
However, it’s large enough to handle the sludge waste for a city 
the size of 200,000 persons. 
The basis of the process is quite simple. Sludge is mixed with two 
to four parts of shredded municipal solid waste. This does not have 
to be raw garbage. It can be incinerator residue, which is what we 
are using in Philadelphia. By blending the material in this fashion 
the sludge easily dries and then burns out in a rotary kiln. 
The ash from the kiln is fused in a small furnace; 90 percent of 
che enerey for the process comes from the burning of the waste 
itself. 
I will skip details of the process and concentrate on the end prod- 
uct usage. 
It is truly a useful saleable product. There have been so many 
resource recovery processes which I have reviewed in the last 10 
years which turn out an end product which is unmarketable be- 
