WasteAway Services Converts Municipal Waste Into Structural Materials

"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."