One man's trash: the state of modern waste

[DainBramaged]

This week's edition of Science contained over a dozen articles on a subject that sounds deceptively simple: waste. Human societies produce a dizzying variety of waste purely as a byproduct of functioning, from agricultural waste or discarded electronics to excrement. In a world of finite resources and limited fossil fuels, it's obvious that we have to make better use of our waste. But doing so isn't just a challenge; it's dozens of them.

Organic waste
Take agricultural waste. The edible portions of most plants are generally accompanied by huge amounts of inedible material, primarily in the form of cellulose (a long string of sugars) and lignin (a chemical that links them together). Right now, if this is used at all, it's burned directly as fuel or used for feed. And, right now, efforts directed towards getting more out of it are focused largely on using it for fuel.

But one of the reviews notes that, assuming we can, diverting waste to biofuels may not make economic sense. The glycerol in biological material can be readily converted to fuel, but transforming it to epichlorohydrin produces a product that's three times more valuable (and 10 times more valuable than burning it to generate electricity). And that's a niche chemical. Ethylene and propylene are two of the major industrial chemicals made from fossil fuels; switching to bioethanol as the raw material to make these would currently require about 30 percent of all the land allocated to farming. (Although that could be sharply reduced if we could efficiently produce bioethanol from agricultural waste).

So, even a relatively simple and homogenous waste source requires two things: technology to efficiently convert it into useful materials, and significant thought about what material would be the most useful end point.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/08/one-mans-trash-the-state-of-modern-waste/

[phantom power]

1. the big thing recycling requires is energy to pump the cycle

energy in the form of heat to break down products, or in the form of labor for sorting and processing, or in the form of manufacturing to rebuild materials into new products.

In that regard, recycling may be yet another victim of receding horizons as energy becomes more expensive.

[Ezlivin]

2. I've suspected that about the use of cooking oil/grease as a fuel

As long as our economy continues along, fed by fossil fuels, there are plenty of restaurants that discard oil or grease. But if the fossil fuel supply is constrained, it also constrains the amount of discarded oil/grease. Those who think that they'll be able to drive their vehicles off of discarded cooking oil/grease after fossil fuels become unavailable are vulnerable.

[FBaggins]

3. Aw... don't go bursting my bubble!

We finally (after almost a decade of waiting) have access to recycling pickup at my house. I've spent the last couple weeks paying attention to what we throw out (and what the new single-stream recycling will accept) and was excited to learn that we should be able to cut our normal trash pickup by more than half (as well as the fee).

Give me at least a year of feeling better before bringing me down... ok?