Green Options » waste management

Waste Management Turns Landfill into Fuel Pump

Christopher DeMorro — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:22:44 +0000

As far as I am concerned, the two biggest problems facing humanity are kicking our addiction to oil, and figuring out a way to get rid of all our garbage without stuffing it into big, endless holes in the ground.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could kill two birds with one stone? One day, we might be able to, but for now at least one company is working on a way to fix their fuel woes within the confines of their own business.

Waste Management, one of the biggest garbage companies in the country, says it will be able to produce 13,000 gallons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) daily from just one landfill in Northern California.

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San Francisco’s New Recycling and Composting Laws

Becky Striepe — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 03:30:52 +0000

In just five weeks, San Francisco residents will face fines if they fail to separate their food scraps from their aluminum cans.

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Sewage Biofuel Hits the Big Time with Waste Management Venture

Tina Casey — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 11:44:49 +0000

Industry juggernaut Waste Management is convinced there’s a future in sewage-to-biofuel, and to prove it the company has just joined with the largest refiner in the U.S., Valero Energy Corp., to blend wastewater “crude” into gasoline. The two companies have invested in Terrabon LLC, which was formed in the 1990’s to commercialize three technologies including a biofuel process called MixAlco. With a half-billion people (and counting) contributing to the feedstock in the U.S. alone, it looks like sewage could be the answer to the search for a truly sustainable biofuel.

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ZapRoot: The Truth about Recycling

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:21:12 +0000

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Discover what really happens with your recyclables. It’s time for another round of That’s Just Weird.

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“Do Your Part”- A Reflection

John-Paul Maxfield — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:09:50 +0000

I bought a pack of gum a few months ago. I paid with a credit card. I signed my paper receipt, was handed my duplicate paper copy of the transaction, expressed my gratitude for the exchange and walked outside. I unwrapped the plastic packaging surrounding the paper box containing the aforementioned gum. I opened the lid, unwrapped the tin foil around the packets of individually wrapped goodness. Then I carefully selected my piece, unwrapped it and set to chewing. As I chewed, I looked at the green gum package blankly when something caught my eye. In between the main paper packaging, the secondary foil packaging, and the shelves that held the remaining individually wrapped pieces, there was a small picture. It was a picture of a stick figure throwing the accumulated ball of waste into a garbage pail, with words underneath that read “Do your Part.”

“Do my part”, I repeated. I chomped my gum a few more times, chewing on my orders. It seemed simple enough. I am not great with directions, but I felt that I could handle that. The picture made it look easy. I was just to throw away the ball of accumulated spent packaging, which was made up of trees that took years to grow, plastics derived from petroleum, and aluminum extracted with great effort all with the sole purpose of being wrapped around something destined to be unwrapped, thrown away, and reburied in a hole or better yet, burned to make room for more people to “do their part.”

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Building a “Green Economy”: A New Revolution in China?

Elizabeth Balkan — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:46:05 +0000

A “green economy” can be built in China in less than 20 years, argues a new McKinsey report. The new study, “China’s Green Revolution“, offers the most comprehensive quantitative analysis to date of China’s abatement cost curve.

Previous studies of a similar ilk, like the Stern Review, have incorporated social benefits to partially offset the cost of scaling up energy efficient and clean technologies. In contrast, the latest McKinsey report considers only technology-related costs and attaches a figure to the cost of green initiatives in China.

So what is the final damage? While costs are negative for upgrades in some industries, like buildings, due to the savings generated from energy efficiency improvements, a total 1.5-2 trillion yuan (USD 220-295 billion) would have to be spent every year until 2030 in order to reach McKinsey’s alternative scenario.

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Waste Management Grows Fleet of Natural Gas Garbage Trucks

Timothy B. Hurst — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:00:32 +0000

Waste Management of Seattle has begun construction on a new compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling station and unveiled a fleet of CNG-fueled solid waste collection trucks. The Seattle project is part of a larger national effort to cut the company’s CO2 emissions by 15% by 2020.

Waste Management is investing $29 million in 106 new vehicles and an additional $7.5 million to build a compressed natural gas fueling station in Seattle. When complete, the station will open to the public and within five years all 180 collection trucks in the Seattle fleet will be fueled by CNG.

Nationally, Waste Management already has 265 CNG and has 418 LNG (liquified natural gas) vehicles; and by the end of 2009, the company expects to have 500 LNG vehicles and 299 CNG vehicles in service.

As part of a broader national effort to convert trucks to CNG, the plan would seem to dovetail nicely with what has been proposed by T. Boone Pickens. In addition to advocating for more wind energy to power our light cars and trucks, Pickens supports converting the nation’s truck-fueling infrastructure to natural gas.

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Indiana Town Could Get Plant that Makes Ethanol Out of Garbage

Dave Tyler — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 18:21:54 +0000

The town of Lowell, Ind., is examining whether or not to build a $ 200 million plant that would convert garbage into ethanol.

Though such a plant might conjure up visions of the “Mr. Fusion” unit in Doc Brown’s DeLorean, the plants could create 165 permanent jobs and 400 construction jobs in the small town southwest of Gary.

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Economy Down. Green Spending Up By Fortune 500

mcmilker — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 14:11:54 +0000

Heartening news for purveyors of green. Sustainable Brands Weekly reports:

Eighty percent of corporate sustainability executives in the Fortune 500 plan to maintain or increase their budgets in 2009 - despite today’s down market, according to a new survey.

As we discussed in this piece on How To Cut Your Costs And Make Your Package Greener, cost saving efforts often have the unintended or sometimes intended impact of making your product and processes more eco friendly. As more and more companies discover this salient fact, the scales will tip from just incidental greening of product to full scale efforts to promote sustainability WHILE cutting costs.

We may have reached a tipping point.

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Denver Landfill Electrifies Waste, Powers 3,000 Homes

G. Riley Meyers — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:08:58 +0000

Notorious for producing the greenhouse gas, methane, and then having to flare it off to avoid the potential danger of explosions, landfills are now converting this gas to electricity that can be fed to the grid.

This September, the Denver Arapahoe Disposal Site, known as DADS, brought its waste-to-energy capabilities online, powering four V-16 Caterpillar engines that generate and sell electricity to utilities company, Xcel Energy.

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Poop Power - Turning Farm Waste into Fuel

Becky Striepe — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:00:51 +0000

[image credit: Jelle at Flickr under a Creative Commons license]

Researchers at Michigan State University are working on technology that could help small farms transform animal waste from pollutant to fuel. Through funding from both public and anonymous, private sources, MSU is planning an Anaerobic Digestion Research and Education Center. The Center will test methods for efficiently using bacteria to turn animal waste into biogas, which farms can in turn use in place of fossil fuels for things like electricity and heat. The aim is to make this an affordable option for small- to mid-sized farms. This technology simultaneously addresses two issues that farmers face: farm waste management and increased energy prices.

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Is the Black Market for Recycling Garbage in Peru a Good Thing?

Levi Novey — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 04:05:42 +0000

Imagine getting up in the morning, collecting the garbage in your home, and taking it outside. After opening your door, you see a person watching you intently from the corner of your street. You walk a few steps, and place your trash bags where they will eventually be picked up. No sooner than you turn your back, that eager person from the corner is making their way over to your refuse. Within moments they are rummaging through the waste. Searching for bottles and other items of value, you might occasionally see them kicking toward hungry street dogs to protect their bounty and themselves from a painful bite. While this scenario might seem ridiculous to you, it happens every day in Peru. The circumstances for why people in Peru collect re-usable and recyclable items in the trash is complex, intriguing, troublesome, and potentially wonderful.

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Is Peru’s Bid to Host the 2016 Summer Olympics Genius Move or Gigantic Blunder?

Levi Novey — Tue, 27 May 2008 04:01:04 +0000

Perhaps encouraged after their recent success in hosting the European Union and Latin American and Caribbean Summit, the office of Peru’s President, Alan Garcia Peréz, announced last week that Peru would bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Never mind that the application deadline was in September of last year.

Critics of the plan emerged quickly, and Peru’s prime minister was equally fast to label the critics as “the same ones that some time ago said Peru couldn’t host the EU-LAC summit and were pessimistic when it was announced.” Peru’s current infrastructure does raise numerous doubts about how successful the Olympics could be in Peru. Lima would no doubt host the lion’s share of events, while Cuzco, Trujillo, Arequipa, and others cities might play a part as well. Traffic problems, environmental and social issues, and financial difficulties could all make the Olympics a disastrous and harmful event for Peru. But, also, despite what the critics might say, the move to bid for the Olympics might have been a brilliant and ingenious action thought up by President Alan Garcia’s staff.

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Fuel from Trash Will Power California Garbage Trucks

Sarah Lozanova — Thu, 08 May 2008 07:40:12 +0000

300 garbage collection trucks in California will soon be fueled by the same trash that they haul. Landfill gas will be purified and liquefied, producing up to 13,000 gallons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) daily.

This facility at Waste Management’s (WMI: NYSE) Altamont Landfill in Livermore, California will begin operation in 2009. It comes with a price tag of $15.5 million, with grants providing $1.4 million.

Cleaner Fuel

Waste Management is the largest waste management company in North America and operates the largest US fleet of heavy-duty collection trucks. The company has a goal to reduce fleet emissions by 15% by 2020.

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