Chart of Pros and Cons for Waste to Energy vs Landfill, etc.

Very useful, thanks.

Danel Eitel
Teacher
South Windsor High School
United States

Dear colleagues,

Hello! I am very new to this interesting discussion group. During the 1970s, for several years I ran a small biological field station in a village about 150 kilometers south of the Orinoco. The area was in wooded savannas on the edge of primary lowland forest. The village had about 3,500 inhabitants. I was fascinated by the way they treated their solid waste:

1. Re-use of anything was the norm.

2. Poorer families piled up old cans and bottles in their front yards. It seemed to me that they were showing that they had the purchasing power to buy canned sardines and tuna, rather than have to go fishing.

3. Leftover food was quickly eaten by dogs, chickens, and other domestic animals.

4. Each household had a oil drum with holes in the side to burn other solid waste.

5. From time to time people would load up the oil drums full of ash and other waste on a pick-up truck and take it to the designated dump. The village had 5 square kilometers of municipal land for common use such as grazing livestock. The designated dump was about 1 kilometer from the edge of the village in a few hectares of mature deciduous woodland. People took their waste, including old mattresses, beds, stoves, refrigerators, etc, and dumped it in the woodland. They had been doing it for decades. You could not see the dump until you entered the woodland. The waste slowly degraded into the ecosystem. It was a great place to find amphibians and reptiles, which was my specialty. The dump actually benefited wildlife. In a way, the municipal waste was a terrestrial version of an artificial reef. A few thousand rural Venezuelans don't generate that much trash, but I have often wondered whether it would be worthwhile to test their method on a larger scale.

Cheers,
Steve Gorzula
MESAS LLC

There is a 3rd edition available at http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/wycd/waste/SWMGHGreport.html

Bob

Bob Jacques,
Cydlynydd Datblygiad Cynaliadwy/
Sustainable Development Co-ordinator,
Ymlaen Ceredigion,
[email protected],
http://www.ymlaenceredigion.org.uk
15/17 Ffordd Portland Road,
Aberystwyth SY23 2NL
Ffôn/Tel: 01970 633395
Ffacs/Fax: 01970 633392
Symudol/Mobile: 07976 134184

I just found this AMAZING website that will probably have what you are looking for: http://www.no-burn.org/ Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives. I found it thru this site: http://www.grrn.org/ The Grassroots Recycling Network, which has a lot of articles advocating zero waste over recycling programs.

Julie E. Gabrielli,

NCARB, LEED
410-530-0389
2002 Clipper Park Rd, 4th Floor
Baltimore, MD 21211
www.goforchange.com
www.gabriellidesignstudio.com

The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency offers its Waste Reduction Model (WARM), which compares greenhouse gas impacts from reduction, recycling, composting, landfilling and incineration. You can access the model at http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/wycd/waste/calculators/Warm_home.html The Model History and Users Guide should help with your research. EPA acknowledges, in the Guide, that compost impacts may not be fully addressed. California Integrated Waste Management Board's Lifecycle Assessment of Organic Diversion Alternatives will provide updated information http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/Climate/Organics/LifeCycle/

Hello Martha,

Look at the WARM model from the U.S. EPA. http://www.nrc-recycle.org/Data/Sites/1/Climate%20Change/EPAStudySolidWasteandGHG.pdf

There is also a Canadian version produced with funding from Natural Resources Canada, and Environment Canada. Both studies clearly shows that greenhouse gases from incineration are much higher than those produced from reuse, recycling, composting, etc. GHG's are also a proxy for 'energy use' in most cases. In other words, the energy extracted from incinerating waste, is much, much less than the 'embedded energy' inherent in the item. Thed studies are not simple to understand; if you need help in finding the relevant tables, contact me and I'll be glad to help you navigate the study(ies).

Norm Ruttan
iWasteNot Systems
www.iwastenotsystems.com

There are a couple of tools that compare disposal methods. A somewhat new tool is an environmental benefits calculator developed by Dr. Jeffrey Morris, which looks at lifecycle data (very important). It was reported on in BioCycle magazine this month: www.jgpress.com/archives/_free/001742.html

Also of interest may be a report released by the Institute for Local Self Reliance called "Stop Trashing the Climate." There was an article about that in BioCycle as well: www.jgpress.com/archives/ _free/001710.html

The report has its own website: www.stoptrashingtheclimate.org

Ostego County is in the northeastern U.S., so you can also use this: http://www.nerc.org/documents/environmental_benefits_calculator.html

Let me know if you'd like to report on your research/project in our magazine, Rhodes

Rhodes Yepsen,
Associate Editor
BioCycle magazine
Advancing Composting, Organics Recycling & Renewable Energy
(610) 967-4135, ext. 27