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Minergy Corporation has developed the world’s first facility to recycle sludge into glass aggregate. The Fox Valley Glass Aggregate Plant has been operating commercially since May 1998, receiving up to 1,300 tons of paper mill sludge per day. Minergy’s innovative technology recovers the mineral content of sludge and transforms it into a useful glass aggregate product. The sludge’s organic component, which is considered a renewable biomass fuel, provides a significant portion of the energy required for the process. The mineral content of the sludge can be beneficially used as sandblasting grit, abrasives, roofing shingles, asphalt, and construction fill. The plant fires dry sludge in two furnaces that facilitate molten slag formation and tapping. The lower furnace of the steam generator is specially designed to maintain high temperatures to allow the molten glass to run down the walls and discharge through the lower furnace floor. The steam generator is a field-erected, top-supported, two-drum boiler of single-pass design. The boiler generates superheated steam that is exported to a neighboring paper mill, where it is used to drive a backpressure steam turbine generator producing about 4 MW of power. Minergy also uses steam, beyond the demand of the paper mill, in a full-condensing steam turbine generator. With its aggregate technologies, Minergy helps paper mills to meet their long-term sludge disposal and environmental goals. The Fox Valley Glass Aggregate Plant has the capacity to process all the paper mill sludge in Winnebago County, which accounts for two-thirds of the entire waste stream in the County and represents more recycled material than handled by combined municipal recycling programs in the entire State of Wisconsin. The plant’s production has allowed the adjacent mill to reduce operation of older, less efficient boilers that have higher emission levels.