wastenotIOWA
Working for a landfill free IOWA
New landfills must have a liner however the hazard of the waste that is buried there does not go away. If new landfills are needed, they are very difficult to site requiring years of negotiations, much land area at high cost, not to mention dissention in the community. Other waste is shipped out of state requiring fuel to get it there. Recycling only answers part of the problem. The City of Marion, wastenotIOWA and the University of Iowa have issued a Request for Qualifications for a feasibility study and economic analysis for a project in Marion and/or the University. Please go to www.cityof marion.org for details.
Why bury energy?
Locked up in the waste we send to landfills is an enormous amount of BTUs. These BTUs can be recycled into useful forms including energy. This can be in the form of heat, gases and electricity. Citizens and local governments all over the world are getting excited about the possibilities technology can bring, especially with high energy prices and reliance on unstable foreign governments. There are successful existing applications and new ways to use proven technologies that are moving past the research stage, being developed and built.
Plasma Arc
One technology that wastenotIOWA is enthused about is Plasma Arc technology. It uses an electric arc much like lightning that creates high temperatures virtually destroying waste and converting it to gases and inert materials that can be used to make useful products. This is all done using only part of the energy from the waste itself. The rest is used for productive purposes.
