Filed under: Gadgets and Tech, Alternative Energy

It's practically a post-holiday tradition: averting your eco-eyes as you drive past piles of non-recyclable, non-compostable, non-reusable trash crowding the curb, waiting for a ride to the Landfill of Non-biodegradeable Limbo.

Don't look away! Things can be different. We can use that trash for good!

Waste to energy plants take solid trash like non-recyclable plastic, and incinerate it, capturing the energy produced by the burn and sending it into the grid to heat homes and supply electric power.
But burning plastic, that's about as Carbon Awful as you can get, right?

Wrong. We're not talking about setting fire to a bunch of 2 liter soda bottles in an oil drum in the backyard -- that is an egregious act of pollution. And probably also deadly for everyone on the block.

Thanks to sophisticated technology, the emissions of your average waste to energy plant are generally lower than coal or gas powered energy plants. Counter-intuitively, the technology of burning trash helps us reduce greenhouse emissions!

This fascinating video about how a solid waste plant works, from Wheelabrator, which owns and operates several waste to energy plants in the U.S., illustrates the process. You can see the methods used to sort and neutralize the various components -- ferous metals, dioxins, particulate matter -- and capture the energy produced.

It's kind of inspiring to see how much can be recovered from "unusable" trash. Especially since landfills around the world are running out space fast. Many locations have less than 10 years of space left!

Added bonus? Communities that use waste to energy power sources tend to do more recycling, more reusing and generally make more conscious choices about consumption and waste disposal, so waste management improves across the board.

It's Not Waste, it's Energy! originally appeared on Green Daily on Wed, 13 Jan 2010 12:01:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

 

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