>By the way, back when I had a morning radio show I suggested someone
>make a "home smelter" so we could mold our excess plastic sort of like
>those toys where you squirt goo into a mold and bake a toy creature.
>
>David Brauer
>King Field - Ward 10
Actually, David, I think these plastic bags are made of the kind of plastic
that won't melt and reform like that. That's part of the reason there
isn't much demand for recycled ones. (Those molds were great! Many years
later, I still remember the one at Itasca State Park where you could mold
your choice of local wildlife figures, and it came out still hot.)
But I do like the idea of a "home smelter", or at least a "home garbage
burner".
I remember years ago that my aunt had a long, narrow iron stove in
her kitchen, and all the packaging that things came in went into that
burner. And it provided the majority of the heat for her kitchen. When
they ran out of garbage to burn in it, they had pails of corncobs left over
after their cows got the corn shelled from them. They seldom ever had to
use the furnace to heat that room.
So whenever I throw stuff into my wastebasket (mostly paper &
cardboard and other readily burnable materials) I think about her kitchen
and how such trash provided needed heat, and wonder why my kitchen can't
reuse trash like that.
Does anyone know what it would take to actually have a "home
garbage burner" in your house? I presume there might be insurance issues,
given a possible higher chance of fire. And such a burner would have to be
designed properly, to avoid creating air pollution. (That's why the old
outdoor burning barrels that used to sit in most backyards were outlawed, I
believe.) Are appropriately designed burners available on the market? I
presume if they are installed indoors, and properly vented, they would not
be in violation of the law.
But maybe I'm worrying too much about this. Presumably my garbage ends up
in the downtown Mpls garbage burner, and generates heat there, and probably
that facility operates more efficiently than any small scale garbage burner
I could install in my kitchen.
Tim Bonham, Ward 12 (Standish-Erickson)
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