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Arrow Ecology, a firm established on the success of a six-year-old municipal solid waste disposal plant in Israel, declares in its literature that it can dispose of trash without polluting the environment or using landfills.

Some Frederick County residents who believe in the pitch have urged county officials to look into it before the committing to an incinerator that is projected to cost more than a half-billion dollars.

Elected officials listened.

Frederick County Commissioners Jan H. Gardner (D) and Charles A. Jenkins (R) are this week preparing to relay what they learned about Arrow Ecology at the 24th International Conference on Solid Waste Technology and Management in Philadelphia this week.

On Tuesday, Gardner said she and Jenkins will schedule a presentation for a public meeting before the end of April.

Arrow Ecology CEO Yair Zadik was scheduled to speak to the conference on Monday, under the program, "Innovative Technologies 1."

Gardner and Jenkins met privately with Zadik, Gardner said. The meeting dovetailed with a conference call they had with Arrow Ecology earlier this month.

Gardner said she saw the bipartisan trip to Philadelphia — accomplished in one day — as the beginning of the county's investigation into the ArrowBio technology, not the end.

"Obviously, we weren't able to ask them every question we might have," Gardner said. "It's a very interesting technology."

Gardner said she has concerns about how the Maryland Department of the Environment would view an ArrowBio's byproducts.

She added that company representatives told her they were heading to Los Angeles this week to talk to officials there about building waste disposal plants.

Attempts to reach officials from Arrow Ecology were unsuccessful.

Frederick County needs a new waste disposal option soon because its landfill is full, and shipping waste to Virginia is temporary.

"We are relying on the permission of other jurisdictions — that we have no control over — to take our waste," Michael G. Marschner, director of the county's division of Utilities and Solid Waste Management, told The Gazette in January. "We rely on other people for disposal service, when we generated the trash here. My department would never recommend that we continue to rely on other jurisdictions to dispose of our waste. We need to find a more economical solution to the trash that we make."

Frederick County Commissioner Kai J. Hagen (D) did not to go to Philadelphia, but said he is already sold on Arrow Ecology's promise for a cleaner, cheaper way to dispose of trash.

"Is it a better solution? There's no doubt about it," Hagen said last week in a telephone interview. "Will we be able to get a permit for it in this country in a reasonable period of time? I don't know. But even if it took a few years to get something like this permitted in the U.S., the very fact that this is an example of the sort of technology that is emerging is by itself an utterly compelling argument against building a hugely expensive, grossly oversized regional mass-burn incinerator and committing to it for 30 years."

Mike Evans, director of public works for Carroll County, was also slated to attend the conference to learn about Arrow Ecology. Carroll County said it would partner with Frederick County in searching for a solution to municipal solid waste disposal.

A message left Tuesday evening for Vivian Laxton, the spokeswoman for Carroll County, was not returned by The Gazette's press time.

E-mail Connor Adams Sheets at csheets@gazette.net or Jeremy Hauck at jhauck@gazette.net.

ArrowBio is a trash treatment process created by an Israeli company, Arrow Ecology, which has a long history in project management of environmental problems, according to its Web site.

The company started in 1975 under the name Hydro Power Ltd., and created ArrowBio as a comprehensive approach to dealing with trash.

The ArrowBio process begins with separating trash using liquid, shredding, gravity, screening and other methods.

Recyclables such as glass, plastics and metals, are removed.

Organic matter is made into slurry before entering reactors where microorganisms transform it into methane gas, which is used generate electricity.

What's left is compost, according to the Web site, and excess water is either removed or sent back to the separation stage.

Arrow Ecology's Web site states that it has been testing the ArrowBio process for five years in Hadera, Israel. The facility has been receiving real, unsorted municipal solid waste from the town and "processed smoothly."

Arrow Ecology has partnered with companies to open a facility in Australia [near Sydney, opened in 2008] and in Scotland [scheduled to open in Falkirk this year].

-Current option: Trucking trash to landfills in Virginia. Cost subject to fluctuation ($60 per ton in January), viability entirely dependent on outside entities

-Build a new landfill: Cost unknown (would include buying new land)

-Build an incinerator: Cost estimated at $527 million (60 percent paid by Frederick County, 40 percent by Carroll County); 1,500 tons daily capacity

-Construct an ArrowBio plant: Commissioners will disclose a cost estimate before the end of April, capacity depends on number of modules built