Dive Brief:

• Charleston County, South Carolina is weighing using new technology to transform waste into pellets that would be burned at a power plant.

• Some members of the County Council are leery of using technology that isn't in use elsewhere and wonder if the methods will actually work since they have yet to be tested.

• Repower South has proposed building a plant on county-owned land to process the county's waste and then convert it into pellets. It would separate the recyclables and then convert the remaining materials into pellets, effectively diverting around 70% of waste with the remainder to be discarded at landfills.

Dive Insight:

Although the pellets have received approval from the EPA, the technology hasn't been tested on a large scale. But it has been touted as an environmentally-conscious solution that reduces emissions at coal plants. The mayor of North Charleston has expressed an interest in the technology.