WasteAway Services Converts Municipal Waste Into Structural Materials
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 04. 1.06
"Garbage: Everyone has it. Nobody wants it". That's the tagline from WasteAway Services, a company which turns mixed municipal waste into products such as a garbage can made from recycled garbage, a park bench, and 8" x 8" Tongue and Groove Composite Timbers (pictured in order). If your heart warms to solid waste, they've got some processing photos to share.
Comparing these products with the usual alternatives of landfilling, burning, or mechanical separation, there's something in-your-face pragmatic about them. Things of beauty, no; but functional and innovative yes.
Reportedly, "the process takes 20 to 30 minutes and produces something the company calls fluff, which can be used by nurseries and gardeners as a soil enhancer or pressed into a dense building product for benches or decking".
We can't help but wonder if rats would chew on these products, or if the usual municipal waste leachate would slowly ooze out after a rain. And, why wouldn't the products smell like garbage when wet?
Everyone knows that pesticides, house paint, and sometimes even industrial waste mysteriously end up in municipal landfills. Knowing that, would skin contact with the products be a good idea? Lots of questions.
We'll give the products an "A" for effort, a "B" for engineering valor in the face of gross feedstock, and a "D" for appearance. But we'll withhold a final grade point average until we see the results from USEPA's "paint filter test."
I'm working on a new project that GrahamH has been keeping a secret for me (thanks G! a few more weeks then the PR comes out)
But we are going to process about 20 tons of waste through the Wasteaway system. While they say no need to separate first, we will be taking out compost and recyclables first, but I will be happy to send you along the results.. it's so funny how things sometimes happen in grousp, huh?
i have th esame questions as you John, but well see very soon! Oh but the rumour is that those big 8x8s of theirs are going to be used in NYC for Parking! if it is all they say it is, the imnplications are huge...
This stuff again. Is there any new evidence that what they do is anything apart from shredding and heating the trash?
A whole site about a household trash treatment system with no particular mention of what happens with any kind of pollutants in it?
Check the comments on the original worldchanging.org post .
So is there any new info on pollutant levels? And once more, would you eat food grown on fluff?
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I did not realize that WorldChanging posted on it earlier. My presumption is that since several percent by weight of the solid waste stream is plastic, mainly polyethylene, that the heating process fuses and somewhat waterproofs the structural elements made with the fluff. That certainly might tie up the soluble nasties. The fluff would be a different matter entirely, as you indicate.
An analogy might be made to the famous Milwaukee WI wastewater sludge based fertilizer "Milorganite". http://www.milorganite.com/home/
Good for the lawn certainly but I'd not use it on food crops, especially leafy ones that may be nitrogen deficient (nitrogen limitation correlates with movement of soluble metals into plant tissues).
I meant this post.
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/002733.html