[Biofuel] Trash talk: the green versus the ugly - Ottawa Citizen - 2006.10.06
While Toronto irritates Canada-U.S. relations by shipping garbage south, Edmonton makes waste a successful 'green' business, writes Don Martin. Byline: Don Martin Starve a throwaway society of landfill space and the desperation to dump triggers extreme measures. Take Toronto. With most of its city dumps closed and surrounding communities refusing the task of trashmaster, its garbage is mostly exported to a foreign country. A hundred gasoline-gulping rigs cross the Detroit River into Michigan every day, heading toward an ever-rising landmark of shame known to fed-up locals as Mount Trashmore. Then there's the Edmonton extreme. Just outside the city limits it turns household waste into windrows of brown odourless compost it sells to the public. And if there's any doubt this made-in-Canada technology has turned trash green, consider that it mines enough methane gas from its rotting landfill to power the entire waste treatment plant and more, all the while negotiating with Europeans to sell lucrative greenhouse gas-reduction credits on the stock market. Such is the contrast between environmental recklessness and responsibility. One city has created a North American border irritant to bury a problem nobody wants; the other has become a North American leader to resolve a problem by creating a benign product people buy. The Edmonton Waste Management Centre is a six-year-old technological marvel created by the necessity of landfills nearing capacity while facing a whole lot of not-in-my-backyard opposition to new sites. By far Canada's largest and most sophisticated composting operation, it has extended the landfill's lifespan by 20 years, while attracting copycat interest from around the globe. Mongolian authorities, for instance, seem fascinated by the concept. It has become so acclaimed that Grade 4 science students in the city examine it as part of their curriculum and about 11,000 students per year fill the lecture hall at the dump to learn how their trash makes gardens grow better. The $100-million Edmonton model is hardly rocket science, though. Which makes you wonder why it isn't the standard instead of the exception. The public puts recyclables in a blue bag and the rest of its trash in another. Garbage trucks empty the regular waste onto the floor of a warehouse where workers, who no matter how much they're paid earn too little, sort through smelly rows to remove obvious non-compostable material. Old shoes, bricks or car batteries, for instance. The approved mess is then mixed with raw human sewage and injected into a giant rotating drum wide enough to handle passing school buses. Just two days later, moved along by the force of gravity as pathogens are killed off in the 60 C heat generated by this composting kickstart, a dark-brown, flaky, bark-like substance showing a surprisingly advanced state of decomposition spills out the other end. Much scientific filtering, oxidizing and stirring ensues -- inside for one month, outdoors for another four months -- before 125,000 tonnes of dirt additive per year is ready for sale to farmers, golf course operators and gardeners. What's this got to do with clean air or climate change? Well, lots. Not only do you save truck exhaust from the nine-hour return trip to the United States for a one-minute cargo dump, but the city started "mining" its landfill for methane gas and CO2 emissions in the early 1990s, greenhouse gases that would otherwise have seeped into the atmosphere. It drilled 70 wells 25 metres into the rotting heap and tapped into enough gas to power a generator with the capacity to light up 4,600 homes. And the captured carbon dioxide has handed the facility a greenhouse gas-emission credit of 60,000 tonnes per year, which Edmonton is now negotiating for sale on the fledgling carbon market in Europe. Plans are also under way to start gasifying scrap wood on site, which, if it works, would create even more energy gases and generate more emission credits while leaving just 10 per cent of the total waste stream bound for the landfill. "There's been a phenomenal shift in North American Spotowski, a former trash collector who now serves as the site's educational co-ordinator. "Saving the environment is a hot topic. Composting has become a very important process in preventing pollution and using landfill methane to generate electricity almost completes the waste-disposal cycle." When it comes to living green in a chuck-it-out society, made-in-Edmonton compost beats a rotten mountain in Michigan on any garbage collection day. ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Trash Talk
Hello Todd and all, I´ll be happy to say more. Fault seven -- Fly ash, small (less than 10 microns) that cannot be seen, escape the scrubbers and the baghouses, pass through the protections to the human respiratory system and take up residence in the lungs causing at minimum increases in infection and asthma. Fault eight -- fly ash acts as an adsorbent or combines with heavy metals ( lead, zinc, mercury ) Fault nine -- fly ash acts as an adsorbent or combines with dioxin and furans Fault ten -- waste to energy plants are operated to maintain a constant steam flow to the turbine generating the electricity except when stack tests are being done. Then they try to burn as clean as possible, like no wet material or it just happens to coincide with burning all that waste (recyclable) paper we couldn´t find a buyer for. Fault eleven -- still need a landfill for the ash that is usually higher than 15% of the initial burn Fault twelve -- 99.99% clean means 0.01% dirty. Make sure you multiply the dirty part by the number of tons of material processed daily. That way you can get a feel for how much gets filtered by human lungs of those folks living in the plume Feel free to add more folks these were just my favorites being an asthmatic Tom From: Appal Energy [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]To: biofuel@sustainablelists.orgSent: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 20:31:17 -0300Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Trash TalkThis is a PR piece, with the author being used to represent only a few of the facts.One of these little puppies is in the vicinity of Leesburg, Florida. In order to build it, the owner required a consistent volume of garbage and had the county/municipality agree to the tonnage. Unfortunately, upon startup they found out that the only way the monster could be adequately fed was to start hauling in garbage from outlying regions at a considerable cost to the municipality/citizens.That's fault one.Their recycling program was also scrapped as a method of generating a larger waste stream for the monster in order to adhere to the contract.That's fault two.It is virtually impossible to "screen" garbage sufficiently in order to prevent hazardous waste from entering the combustion chamber. It is also virtually impossible to prevent the ad hoc combining of elements under such temperatures. The biggest hazard is the uncontrollable formation of dioxins and furans - carcinogens. Essentially, "waste to energy" plants are nothing more than hazardous waste incinerators in miniature.That's fault three.The fly ash from waste to energy plants literally is classified as hazardous waste under RICRA. Unfortunately, these types of facilities, along with coal fired power plants, etc., are given exemption and the toxic ash is deposited in landfills where it becomes a component of the leachate. When the liner eventually fails, Wallah! The toxic leachate becomes an ever widening underground plume that contaminates the hydrology (to be read "drinking water eventually.")That's fault four.And let's not forget that capitalistic nasty called toxic racism. Take a good look where these plants are located and look at the residential areas in closest proximity. Low property values (going lower once a plant like this is installed), generally populated by low income families. You don't see these facilities going up in upper crust or middle-class environments.That's fault five.And the industry massages authors under a flag of green washing, as they have for twenty years and better, in a push to make the public feel all warm, fuzzy and environmentally at peace, having failed to inform the writers of all the "little," ugly nuances surrounding the industry.That's fault six.Need anyone say more?Perhaps what we need to do is produce a fair bit less waste? Perhaps a really serious economic drought or depression is in order to achieve what we fail to instill in the consumer mindset.Todd SwearingenD. Mindock wrote:>Trash Talk at: >http://www.the-rude-awakening.com/RAissues/2006/march/RA071806.html>By Justice Litle>>Remember the classic '80s movie Back to the Future, in>which Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) traveled to 1955 in a>time machine built by Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd)? The>initial version of the time machine, a souped-up DeLorean,>was fueled by plutonium. At the end of the movie, Doc Brown>returns from the future with a new-and-improved version>that runs on garbage.>Getting a nuclear reaction from coffee grinds and banana>peels seems a bit of a stretch. In fact, turning the>contents of your garbage can into any form of clean energy>sounds like a pipe dream. But Covanta Holdings Corp. (NYSE:>CVA) does just that. It turns garbage into electricity, in>a process known as waste-to-energy.>So how does the waste-to-energy process work? In a>nutshell, safety-inspected garbage is fed into a feeder>chute by an overhead crane.>The feeder chute delivers the garbage into a giant furnace,>where it is forced onto a downward-sloping grate. A>churning action is creat
Re: [Biofuel] Trash Talk
We should render them down for the fat first!! Can't waste good bio. Malcolm -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joe Street Sent: 21 July 2006 14:07 To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Trash Talk How much energy could we get by incinerating politicians? Would that make toxic ash? Poly = many Tick = blood sucking parasite ergo politics = many bloodsuckers. BURN EM! Joe ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Trash Talk
How much energy could we get by incinerating politicians? Would that make toxic ash? Poly = many Tick = blood sucking parasite ergo politics = many bloodsuckers. BURN EM! Joe Appal Energy wrote: > This is a PR piece, with the author being used to represent only a few > of the facts. > > One of these little puppies is in the vicinity of Leesburg, Florida. In > order to build it, the owner required a consistent volume of garbage and > had the county/municipality agree to the tonnage. Unfortunately, upon > startup they found out that the only way the monster could be adequately > fed was to start hauling in garbage from outlying regions at a > considerable cost to the municipality/citizens. > > That's fault one. > > Their recycling program was also scrapped as a method of generating a > larger waste stream for the monster in order to adhere to the contract. > > That's fault two. > > It is virtually impossible to "screen" garbage sufficiently in order to > prevent hazardous waste from entering the combustion chamber. It is also > virtually impossible to prevent the ad hoc combining of elements under > such temperatures. The biggest hazard is the uncontrollable formation > of dioxins and furans - carcinogens. Essentially, "waste to energy" > plants are nothing more than hazardous waste incinerators in miniature. > > That's fault three. > > The fly ash from waste to energy plants literally is classified as > hazardous waste under RICRA. Unfortunately, these types of facilities, > along with coal fired power plants, etc., are given exemption and the > toxic ash is deposited in landfills where it becomes a component of the > leachate. When the liner eventually fails, Wallah! The toxic leachate > becomes an ever widening underground plume that contaminates the > hydrology (to be read "drinking water eventually.") > > That's fault four. > > And let's not forget that capitalistic nasty called toxic racism. Take a > good look where these plants are located and look at the residential > areas in closest proximity. Low property values (going lower once a > plant like this is installed), generally populated by low income > families. You don't see these facilities going up in upper crust or > middle-class environments. > > That's fault five. > > And the industry massages authors under a flag of green washing, as they > have for twenty years and better, in a push to make the public feel all > warm, fuzzy and environmentally at peace, having failed to inform the > writers of all the "little," ugly nuances surrounding the industry. > > That's fault six. > > Need anyone say more? > > Perhaps what we need to do is produce a fair bit less waste? Perhaps a > really serious economic drought or depression is in order to achieve > what we fail to instill in the consumer mindset. > > Todd Swearingen > > > > D. Mindock wrote: > > >>Trash Talk at: >>http://www.the-rude-awakening.com/RAissues/2006/march/RA071806.html >>By Justice Litle >> >>Remember the classic '80s movie Back to the Future, in >>which Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) traveled to 1955 in a >>time machine built by Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd)? The >>initial version of the time machine, a souped-up DeLorean, >>was fueled by plutonium. At the end of the movie, Doc Brown >>returns from the future with a new-and-improved version >>that runs on garbage. >>Getting a nuclear reaction from coffee grinds and banana >>peels seems a bit of a stretch. In fact, turning the >>contents of your garbage can into any form of clean energy >>sounds like a pipe dream. But Covanta Holdings Corp. (NYSE: >>CVA) does just that. It turns garbage into electricity, in >>a process known as waste-to-energy. >>So how does the waste-to-energy process work? In a >>nutshell, safety-inspected garbage is fed into a feeder >>chute by an overhead crane. >>The feeder chute delivers the garbage into a giant furnace, >>where it is forced onto a downward-sloping grate. A >>churning action is created by the moving bars of the grate, >>mixing burning garbage with incoming garbage to help it >>ignite. This furnace runs hot - roughly 1,800-2,000 degrees >>Fahrenheit. The walls of the furnace are lined with steel >>tubes; heat from the combustion process turns water in >>these tubes to steam. >>The steam then drives a turbine generator, which produces >>electricity. After the garbage is burned, ash and gas are >>left over. The gas is filtered through a "baghouse," a >>system of hundreds of fabric filter bags that captures more >>than 99% of all particulates. The gas is also run through a >>high-tech pollution control system, and potentially acidic >>gases are neutralized by a lime slurry sprayed into the >>exhaust. The physical ash is then taken to a contamination- >>proof landfill, if not first processed for extraction of >>recoverable scrap metal. >>The Environmental Protection Agency has declared that the >>waste-to energy process has "less environmental imp
Re: [Biofuel] Trash Talk
This is a PR piece, with the author being used to represent only a few of the facts. One of these little puppies is in the vicinity of Leesburg, Florida. In order to build it, the owner required a consistent volume of garbage and had the county/municipality agree to the tonnage. Unfortunately, upon startup they found out that the only way the monster could be adequately fed was to start hauling in garbage from outlying regions at a considerable cost to the municipality/citizens. That's fault one. Their recycling program was also scrapped as a method of generating a larger waste stream for the monster in order to adhere to the contract. That's fault two. It is virtually impossible to "screen" garbage sufficiently in order to prevent hazardous waste from entering the combustion chamber. It is also virtually impossible to prevent the ad hoc combining of elements under such temperatures. The biggest hazard is the uncontrollable formation of dioxins and furans - carcinogens. Essentially, "waste to energy" plants are nothing more than hazardous waste incinerators in miniature. That's fault three. The fly ash from waste to energy plants literally is classified as hazardous waste under RICRA. Unfortunately, these types of facilities, along with coal fired power plants, etc., are given exemption and the toxic ash is deposited in landfills where it becomes a component of the leachate. When the liner eventually fails, Wallah! The toxic leachate becomes an ever widening underground plume that contaminates the hydrology (to be read "drinking water eventually.") That's fault four. And let's not forget that capitalistic nasty called toxic racism. Take a good look where these plants are located and look at the residential areas in closest proximity. Low property values (going lower once a plant like this is installed), generally populated by low income families. You don't see these facilities going up in upper crust or middle-class environments. That's fault five. And the industry massages authors under a flag of green washing, as they have for twenty years and better, in a push to make the public feel all warm, fuzzy and environmentally at peace, having failed to inform the writers of all the "little," ugly nuances surrounding the industry. That's fault six. Need anyone say more? Perhaps what we need to do is produce a fair bit less waste? Perhaps a really serious economic drought or depression is in order to achieve what we fail to instill in the consumer mindset. Todd Swearingen D. Mindock wrote: >Trash Talk at: >http://www.the-rude-awakening.com/RAissues/2006/march/RA071806.html >By Justice Litle > >Remember the classic '80s movie Back to the Future, in >which Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) traveled to 1955 in a >time machine built by Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd)? The >initial version of the time machine, a souped-up DeLorean, >was fueled by plutonium. At the end of the movie, Doc Brown >returns from the future with a new-and-improved version >that runs on garbage. >Getting a nuclear reaction from coffee grinds and banana >peels seems a bit of a stretch. In fact, turning the >contents of your garbage can into any form of clean energy >sounds like a pipe dream. But Covanta Holdings Corp. (NYSE: >CVA) does just that. It turns garbage into electricity, in >a process known as waste-to-energy. >So how does the waste-to-energy process work? In a >nutshell, safety-inspected garbage is fed into a feeder >chute by an overhead crane. >The feeder chute delivers the garbage into a giant furnace, >where it is forced onto a downward-sloping grate. A >churning action is created by the moving bars of the grate, >mixing burning garbage with incoming garbage to help it >ignite. This furnace runs hot - roughly 1,800-2,000 degrees >Fahrenheit. The walls of the furnace are lined with steel >tubes; heat from the combustion process turns water in >these tubes to steam. >The steam then drives a turbine generator, which produces >electricity. After the garbage is burned, ash and gas are >left over. The gas is filtered through a "baghouse," a >system of hundreds of fabric filter bags that captures more >than 99% of all particulates. The gas is also run through a >high-tech pollution control system, and potentially acidic >gases are neutralized by a lime slurry sprayed into the >exhaust. The physical ash is then taken to a contamination- >proof landfill, if not first processed for extraction of >recoverable scrap metal. >The Environmental Protection Agency has declared that the >waste-to energy process has "less environmental impact than >almost any other source of electricity." A combination of >strict regulations and mature technology have made waste- >to-energy plants both green and efficient. >The United States turns roughly 12-15% of its solid waste >into electricity each year - that's more than 100,000 tons >per day - and generates enough energy to serve 2.8 million >homes. >So if the proces
Re: [Biofuel] Trash Talk
Or look up gasification and gasifiers...
D. Mindock wrote:
>Trash Talk at:
>http://www.the-rude-awakening.com/RAissues/2006/march/RA071806.html
>By Justice Litle
>
>Remember the classic '80s movie Back to the Future, in
>which Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) traveled to 1955 in a
>time machine built by Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd)? The
>initial version of the time machine, a souped-up DeLorean,
>was fueled by plutonium. At the end of the movie, Doc Brown
>returns from the future with a new-and-improved version
>that runs on garbage.
>Getting a nuclear reaction from coffee grinds and banana
>peels seems a bit of a stretch. In fact, turning the
>contents of your garbage can into any form of clean energy
>sounds like a pipe dream. But Covanta Holdings Corp. (NYSE:
>CVA) does just that. It turns garbage into electricity, in
>a process known as waste-to-energy.
>So how does the waste-to-energy process work? In a
>nutshell, safety-inspected garbage is fed into a feeder
>chute by an overhead crane.
>The feeder chute delivers the garbage into a giant furnace,
>where it is forced onto a downward-sloping grate. A
>churning action is created by the moving bars of the grate,
>mixing burning garbage with incoming garbage to help it
>ignite. This furnace runs hot - roughly 1,800-2,000 degrees
>Fahrenheit. The walls of the furnace are lined with steel
>tubes; heat from the combustion process turns water in
>these tubes to steam.
>The steam then drives a turbine generator, which produces
>electricity. After the garbage is burned, ash and gas are
>left over. The gas is filtered through a "baghouse," a
>system of hundreds of fabric filter bags that captures more
>than 99% of all particulates. The gas is also run through a
>high-tech pollution control system, and potentially acidic
>gases are neutralized by a lime slurry sprayed into the
>exhaust. The physical ash is then taken to a contamination-
>proof landfill, if not first processed for extraction of
>recoverable scrap metal.
>The Environmental Protection Agency has declared that the
>waste-to energy process has "less environmental impact than
>almost any other source of electricity." A combination of
>strict regulations and mature technology have made waste-
>to-energy plants both green and efficient.
>The United States turns roughly 12-15% of its solid waste
>into electricity each year - that's more than 100,000 tons
>per day - and generates enough energy to serve 2.8 million
>homes.
>So if the process works so well, why do we burn just a
>fraction of our trash? Why not all of it, or at least most
>of it? It comes down to economics.
>Waste-to-energy makes more sense in some geographic
>locations than others. Dollar for dollar, coal, hydropower
>and nuclear power are still cheaper ways to generate
>electricity. But waste-to-energy has other advantages, like
>the reduction of landfill usage. In densely populated areas
>of the United States, such as the Northeast, lack of
>landfill space is becoming a real problem. Existing
>landfills are getting full, and negotiations for new
>landfill space are typically squashed by NIMBY politics
>("not in my back yard").
>There is plenty of open space elsewhere in the country, but
>it doesn't make economic sense to transport garbage any
>great distance. There is just too much of it. Burning the
>garbage, on the other hand, goes a long way toward solving
>the landfill problem. The ash left over from the waste-to-
>energy process takes up just 10% of the space that unburned
>refuse requires. The practical considerations of large
>cities and dense population distributions thus make waste-
>to-energy a winning solution.
>The waste-to-energy process is also a winner in the global
>warming department. Conventional landfills emit methane, a
>smelly greenhouse gas, while burned ash does not. On top of
>that, not only do waste-to-energy facilities produce zero
>net greenhouse gas emissions, they help cut down on fuel
>usage and truck emissions by reducing long-distance waste
>transportation. As the cost of fossil fuels rises and
>global warming concerns escalate, these advantages will
>only become more pronounced.
>Environmental skeptics fear that waste-to-energy harms
>recycling efforts, but this fear is largely unfounded.
>Waste-to-energy plants have an economic incentive to
>presort the garbage they burn and set aside the recyclable
>materials.
>Certain types of waste make good sense to salvage and
>recycle, while the rest is best viewed as an energy source.
>According to www.wte.org, "Waste-to-energy annually removes for
>recycling more than 700,000 tons of ferrous metals and more
>than 3 million tons of glass, metal, plastics, batteries,
>ash and yard waste at recycling centers located on site."
>
>
>___
>Biofuel mailing list
>Biofuel@sustainablelists.org
>http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org
>
>Biofuel at Journey to Forever:
>http://journeytoforever.or
[Biofuel] Trash Talk
Trash Talk at:
http://www.the-rude-awakening.com/RAissues/2006/march/RA071806.html
By Justice Litle
Remember the classic '80s movie Back to the Future, in
which Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) traveled to 1955 in a
time machine built by Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd)? The
initial version of the time machine, a souped-up DeLorean,
was fueled by plutonium. At the end of the movie, Doc Brown
returns from the future with a new-and-improved version
that runs on garbage.
Getting a nuclear reaction from coffee grinds and banana
peels seems a bit of a stretch. In fact, turning the
contents of your garbage can into any form of clean energy
sounds like a pipe dream. But Covanta Holdings Corp. (NYSE:
CVA) does just that. It turns garbage into electricity, in
a process known as waste-to-energy.
So how does the waste-to-energy process work? In a
nutshell, safety-inspected garbage is fed into a feeder
chute by an overhead crane.
The feeder chute delivers the garbage into a giant furnace,
where it is forced onto a downward-sloping grate. A
churning action is created by the moving bars of the grate,
mixing burning garbage with incoming garbage to help it
ignite. This furnace runs hot - roughly 1,800-2,000 degrees
Fahrenheit. The walls of the furnace are lined with steel
tubes; heat from the combustion process turns water in
these tubes to steam.
The steam then drives a turbine generator, which produces
electricity. After the garbage is burned, ash and gas are
left over. The gas is filtered through a "baghouse," a
system of hundreds of fabric filter bags that captures more
than 99% of all particulates. The gas is also run through a
high-tech pollution control system, and potentially acidic
gases are neutralized by a lime slurry sprayed into the
exhaust. The physical ash is then taken to a contamination-
proof landfill, if not first processed for extraction of
recoverable scrap metal.
The Environmental Protection Agency has declared that the
waste-to energy process has "less environmental impact than
almost any other source of electricity." A combination of
strict regulations and mature technology have made waste-
to-energy plants both green and efficient.
The United States turns roughly 12-15% of its solid waste
into electricity each year - that's more than 100,000 tons
per day - and generates enough energy to serve 2.8 million
homes.
So if the process works so well, why do we burn just a
fraction of our trash? Why not all of it, or at least most
of it? It comes down to economics.
Waste-to-energy makes more sense in some geographic
locations than others. Dollar for dollar, coal, hydropower
and nuclear power are still cheaper ways to generate
electricity. But waste-to-energy has other advantages, like
the reduction of landfill usage. In densely populated areas
of the United States, such as the Northeast, lack of
landfill space is becoming a real problem. Existing
landfills are getting full, and negotiations for new
landfill space are typically squashed by NIMBY politics
("not in my back yard").
There is plenty of open space elsewhere in the country, but
it doesn't make economic sense to transport garbage any
great distance. There is just too much of it. Burning the
garbage, on the other hand, goes a long way toward solving
the landfill problem. The ash left over from the waste-to-
energy process takes up just 10% of the space that unburned
refuse requires. The practical considerations of large
cities and dense population distributions thus make waste-
to-energy a winning solution.
The waste-to-energy process is also a winner in the global
warming department. Conventional landfills emit methane, a
smelly greenhouse gas, while burned ash does not. On top of
that, not only do waste-to-energy facilities produce zero
net greenhouse gas emissions, they help cut down on fuel
usage and truck emissions by reducing long-distance waste
transportation. As the cost of fossil fuels rises and
global warming concerns escalate, these advantages will
only become more pronounced.
Environmental skeptics fear that waste-to-energy harms
recycling efforts, but this fear is largely unfounded.
Waste-to-energy plants have an economic incentive to
presort the garbage they burn and set aside the recyclable
materials.
Certain types of waste make good sense to salvage and
recycle, while the rest is best viewed as an energy source.
According to www.wte.org, "Waste-to-energy annually removes for
recycling more than 700,000 tons of ferrous metals and more
than 3 million tons of glass, metal, plastics, batteries,
ash and yard waste at recycling centers located on site."
___
Biofuel mailing list
Biofuel@sustainablelists.org
http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org
Biofuel at Journey to Forever:
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html
Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages):
http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
