Today I was in a tutorial where we were discussing ways to use domestic waste in anaerobic digester, which I understand for most people is not a standard item for discussion. Take organic waste, introduce microbes which thrive happily without oxygen, exclude air by covering and let it fester. You will soon have a wonderful collection of really putrid smelling gases and very angry neighbours. The gases are flammable (and a potential energy source) so you can create some pretty cool flame throwers or blow something up which could reduce your neighbourhood popularity.
Of course, your local council landfill is actually an industrial-strength anaerobic digester and your local council may have already be fitted it with an industrial strength flame thrower. The point of burning off the methane is so it doesn't migrate into the atmosphere and actively become 21 times more effective than its friend carbon dioxide at contributing to the greenhouse effect. There is an art to preventing explosive situations in local housing estates nearby but that is a completely different story....
Landfill is not always an option. After all, what do you do it when you have limited places to bury it?
Welcome to the waste challenge (of the non-nuclear variety) which is an everyday issue in Japan. The entire country separates their waste into three piles - flammable, non-flammable and recyclable. Japan relies on incinerating their waste, by the hundreds of thousands of tonnes annually. The key environmental issue is the combustion products when waste containing chlorine is burnt includes dioxins as a by-product. Nasty little creatures which are persistent in the environment, bio-accumulate in fatty tissue (stick and don't leave your body) and potentially cause cancers and reproductive defects.
So when new regulations regarding incineration closed down the options for a Japanese town, they began a journey towards Zero Waste. The video is worth the view (bear with the advert and the subtitles). It is not without frustrations - 34 different types of separating, the requirement that everything needs to be washed, an ageing population and the whole time commitment.
How far are you away from Zero Waste?
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