I don't expect anyone to read this... But just in case there are a few of you out there interested in what I'm doing down here - Here is my latest essay. It's a smaller version of what my thesis will be.
An End to Wasting Our Waste
Andrew Judkins
NRD 6091: Conservation and Development
Wednesday, November 26th, 2008
Products and goods produced, consumed, and disposed of play an integral role in economies and development strategies of societies across the globe. There is an obvious and dangerous flaw in this system, though, when conservation and sustainability are considered. That is, waste is being created, and resources are being depleted at an alarming rate.
Are waste production and resource depletion really problems that need to be solved? There was a time when resources were abundant and their depletion was not considered an issue, as there was a consistent supply to meet demands. Unfortunately, those times are gone. We are seeing resources depleted as we scramble to find viable alternatives. A growing contingent of geologists predict that sometime between 2010 and 2020 the gush of oil from wells around the world will peak at 80 million barrels per day, then begin a steady, inevitable decline (Kerr, 1998). We are trying in vain to slow our consumption to prolong the ultimate and thorough depletion of resources. The only thing there seems to be an excess of is waste. Waste has not always been a problem, either. There was also a time when people thought we threw garbage “away”.
There are several types of waste. Waste can be created as a result of a poor process. Waste can also come in the form of leftover material from producing something. There is also waste that is a result of human consumption. It is everything we throw “away”. Of course, we know now that there is no “away” for our garbage. All of our waste – trash, garbage, unused and unwanted material possessions, dead pets, etc - everything we do not want goes somewhere. Recycling is often not an available option for many communities throughout the United States. For many communities, the most responsible course of action available is a landfill. According to some accounts more than 90 percent of materials extracted to make durable goods in the United States become waste almost immediately. What most people see in their garbage cans is just the tip of a material iceberg; the product itself contains on average only 5 percent of the raw materials involved in the process of making and delivering it (Braungart & McDonough, 2002, p. 27-28).
In this paper, I will illustrate an optimistic outlook on our future with real solutions for tomorrow instead of analyzing what went wrong yesterday. Of course, an analysis of yesterday is imperative to deduce the right course of action for tomorrow, but the focus of this paper is on humanity's resolve, rather than its plight.
Problems of Waste and Resource Depletion In many cases, products are designed for one-time, or short-time use, to be replaced or disposed of quickly (Braungart & McDonough, 2002, p. 28). This is a simple factor of marketing called, “Planned Obsolescence”, that started catching on in the 1950s. Designers planned how fast they could make stuff break and still leave the consumer with enough faith in the product to go buy another one (Leonard, 2007). The idea is that production can increase as soon as the product needs to be replaced. Whether it is at the end of its useful life or just obsolete, there is a better financial incentive for the producer if its product is frequently purchased, thrown out, and replaced. The faster this process happens, the better profits there will be for the producer.
This practice has made many societies in today’s modern world function as disposable societies. Everything that is made, at some point or another, will be disposed of. This is a tragic phenomenon. It is linear, with a very clear end. For example, if you have a bag of chocolate chips and you’re making chocolate chip cookies – when you run out of chocolate chips, the game is over. No more cookies! When we run out of natural resources, that’s it – no more cookies. The option of going to the store to get another bag won’t exist, nor will the option of drilling another well. As Annie Leonard put it, in the Story of Stuff (2007), “The reason it [the system] is in crisis is that it is a linear system and we live on a finite planet and you cannot run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely.” The depletion of our natural resources is a waste-induced problem that deserves as much attention as the problem of waste itself.
How about the option of digging another hole to bury our waste? Is there anything wrong with burying our solid and toxic wastes? Well, it is certainly not the best example of environmental stewardship. Beyond stewardship: we are running out of space for landfills; landfills have a tendency to be a concentration of toxicity, which sometimes leaches into the surrounding environment causing ill health and environmental effects; and it is a costly process to pay for waste to be wasted.
The connection between waste leaching from landfill into a water table and negative impacts to the environment from landfills is obvious. This is not just the case for solid waste, but toxic waste and nuclear waste as well. Leachate is transported from a landfill into the environment via natural water flows that collect hazardous chemicals from within these landfills (Blazquez, Lema, & Mendez, 1988). The continued production of waste will only amplify the landfill leaching process. As we need and create more landfills, more incidences of chemical leaching from them will occur. This is not the only environmental problem associated with waste.
We are depleting the earth’s natural resources at an incredible rate. In the past three decades alone, one-third of the planet’s natural resources base have been consumed (Leonard, 2007). We preach about renewable resources, but the lack of sustainability of renewable resources continues to hinder our responsible use of them. We are taking, taking, taking from the earth and only returning a minimal amount. We mine resources, use them, and instead of continuing to use them in another form, we set them aside and ignore them as best we can. We search for new resources, while the vast majority of our waste is locked and bound in landfills (except for the leachate, of course).
There is also an energy crisis in our modern society. We depend on foreign oil to fuel our economy. As the developing world continues to develop, there is an increasing demand for oil to fuel their economies as well. This competition for oil serves only to more severely deplete the world’s energy reserves. Alternatives are being sought, but only at a snail’s pace. Alternatives have shown great potential, but are lacking in marketability, effectiveness, efficiency, and the political influence necessary to be implemented properly. There is a huge demand for energy in today’s global society, and that demand gets bigger every day. Alternatives, so far, are not filling the tanks of the world’s energy needs. What should be the course of action?
Drilling for oil in wildlife reserves only prolongs the complete depletion of the resource. There needs to be something cyclical that will continually supply a resource that can fuel world economies. Perhaps combining a waste crisis and an energy crisis could make a recipe for success.
Waste Production and Natural Resource Depletion The process that describes the linear transition of product from beginning to end is referred to as, “Cradle to Grave” (Braungart & McDonough, 2002, p. 27). It describes the entirety of a product’s life, from its creation to its end of life:
- Acquisition of the various raw materials necessary to construct a particular product.
- Material manufacturing is necessary to process the raw materials so that they may be in a useful form.
- The particular product is created/assembled/constructed in the manufacturing process.
- The product is marketed and sold.
- The product is used or consumed.
- The product’s life ends at a landfill or incinerator.
Energy is required to facilitate the processes in each of these six steps. Some products require more energy use than others do. Either way, constantly putting energy into the system, while rarely receiving energy from it, is a depleting process. Energy needs to come from somewhere – and the resources most often used for energy production are limited. Limited means there is an end.
Waste production can be seen in each of these steps, be it a byproduct or the product itself. Waste is produced in different ways and in different forms; some of it is useful, some of it is not. The good news is that much of this waste is avoidable. With better product and process design, the linear timeline of a product’s life can be effectively turned into a resource cycle.
If products are designed sustainably, that is if they are designed to be recycled, they can go directly from step six (i.e., the landfill) to step two (i.e., processing) without extra waste production, and without compromising the resource’s integrity. Currently, a product that finds its way to a recycler instead of a landfill can be sent back to either step two, or three (i.e., manufacturing). The problem with today’s methods of production, however, is that recycling does not create a resource cycle – it simply prolongs the Cradle to Grave process.
Most materials were not designed for recycling. Take, for example, a plastic product – water bottle, Tupperware, etc. Plastic products are made with plasticizers. Plasticizers are chemical additives, which give plastic a particular property or characteristic, like flexibility and durability. Once a plasticizer is introduced into the molecular structure of the polymer making up a plastic, that polymer base is altered. This method makes sense from a material usefulness standpoint, but not from a resource cycle standpoint, because the plastic takes on a new property and can no longer be used in any other form. Once this plastic takes on a modified molecular structure, the plastic is extremely difficult to use for anything else. Forcing products and their additives into the process of recycling jeopardizes the base material’s durability. This means that they can only be recycled a finite amount of times before the material is so broken down, diluted, and weak that it ends up at step six anyway (Braungart & McDonough, 2002, p. 56-59).
Product reuse is another way to prolong product arrival at step six. Reuse directs the product from step six to step five (i.e., product use). Depending on the construction of the product, reuse can significantly draw out its ultimate end. Nevertheless, the end will inevitably arrive.
In step six, the process of landfilling or incinerating waste is equivalent to wasting our own waste. This is the end of the line. This is what needs to be addressed for humanity to have a future with enough energy and resources to fuel its development ambitions. Although a product may meet the end of its intended use, its usefulness is by no means finished. Designing a process that can fully utilize the remaining product usefulness is the task at hand. New technologies are slowly being implemented that hold potential answers pertaining to our past and future waste management issues.
Real sustainable design is too idealistic of a goal for our modern society. It requires a complete overhaul of the entire manufacturing and producing industry throughout the world. It is a great goal for which to strive. It should be sought, but in the meantime, why not find a solution that will take our waste problem and create something we need? Waste is mounting and resources are depleting. Industry is producing and communities are consuming. It’s the way things work. In order to maximize energy efficiency, it is essential that someday we find a way to minimize that waste. But for now, what if we could do better than simply minimizing waste? What if we could, instead, use that waste for something we wanted, or even needed? Waste could be a great renewable resource, and even a source of energy. Disposable Societies? If we had a way of transforming waste into material or energy resource, there would be no problem with continuing our way of life in a disposable society. We have the technology to make this happen, but we need to make sure that we use only responsible technologies.
Some alternative technologies are becoming more trendy than they are responsible. The actual effectiveness of certain alternative technologies is questionable, as they compete with food resources, generate hazardous waste products, and lack appropriate efficiency to make them viable tools of progression. For example:
- Solar - Solar energy technology is nearly 60 years old and extremely inefficient. The production of solar cells is very energy intensive and the use of that solar cell takes from one to four years to create the amount of energy that was used in its production. They do, however, have an estimated lifetime of 30 years (The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 2004).
- Wind - Energy production from windmills is a controversial alternative energy because migratory birds are being killed by the rotating blades (Gipe, 1995).
- Biofuel - The controversy with biofuel is that some say there is a competition for agricultural crops between the food and fuel industry. Also, there is a debate on whether or not this is an eco-efficient technology (Mitchell, 2008).
Alternative technology is a catch phrase in today’s society. It contains the possibilities of a clean and healthy future for the development of our communities and conservation of our environment. Appropriate choices must be made for our management policies. Research is needed to identify which alternatives are responsible, and which are just marketable.
Resource Production and Waste Depletion If it was possible to force everyone to conform their daily activities and habits to those consistent with environmentally sound practices, waste problems might not exist. Unfortunately, forcing people to adopt a new lifestyle is seldom successful. In fact, change is usually met with resistance (Holling, 2001). And in the end, the waste problem still exists. Is it even possible then, to create an atmosphere of change? We could implement methodologies of manipulation and propaganda to “convince” the masses that being responsible for their actions and their waste generation is ultimately in their best interests. We could also campaign heavily for environmental education. How can we most effectively convince the world to be responsible for their actions? Well, perhaps we do not have to.
Through new, available technologies, it is possible to transform waste directly into pure and usable resources. The products of a disposable society that plague future development and conservation could be used as fuel and many other useful products in a society that contributed to a solution rather than a problem. The best part is that citizens do not even have to be environmentally aware or change their actions! Of course, a conscious, educated society would be ideal, but environmental education has been a tactic for a long time, and there is still so much to achieve. The green agenda should not be forgotten, but while it is being pushed, let us consider more effective options to maximize the rate at which we reduce human impact to the planet.
In the United Kingdom, a system called Vantage Waste Processing (VWP) has been developed to utilize waste in the production of energy. The system can effectively prepare waste for processing, reduce its volume by more than 60%, extract raw materials for recycling, and produce biofuel from the organic waste. VWP uses a process called Thermal Hydration Steam Treatment to break down organic material into a useful form. Each waste treatment unit can process up to 10 tons per hour, totaling up to 75,000 tons of household waste per year. The breakdown of its output, which is based on a European waste norm, is 63% biomass fiber, which can be used to make building materials, biofuel or biodiesel. 18% plastics, mostly recovered from bottles, reduced in size but not melted - once sorted, they are clean and sterile and can be recycled back to plastic processors or ethanol/diesel. 4% ferrous metals from food cans - all labels have been stripped and cans are clean ready for recycling. 1% non-ferrous metals, mostly from drinks cans, paint cleaned off and metal ready for recycling. 5% textiles in the form of rags and textiles, which are sterilized and ready for sale/collection. 9% other residues, mostly glass, china and rubber – they can be sold back for aggregate (Resource Reclaim Limited, n.d.).
A United States company, Global Resource Corporation (GRC), claims their process requires only a finely tuned microwave that uses 1200 different frequencies within the microwave range, which act on specific hydrocarbon materials, and a mix of materials made from oil to reduce the product back to oil, a combustible gas, and a few leftovers. GRC's machine is called the Hawk-10 and an example of its output from running 9.1 kilograms of ground-up tires produces 4.54 liters of diesel oil, 1.42 cubic meters of combustible gas, 1 kg of steel and 3.40 kg of carbon black (Bio-Medicine, 2007). GRC is now manufacturing the equipment that is revolutionizing the applications of tire processing, and future applications will include: shale into diesel fuel, coal into methane and hydrogen gas, upgrading heavy oil at the wellhead, plastics into gas fuel, and many other carbon-based substances into fuels without CO or CO2 emissions (Global Resource Corporation, 2008).
Another United States company called Changing World Technologies, Inc. (CWT), developed a process called the Thermal Depolymerization Process (TDP), which it designed to create resources and energy from any kind of organic waste. Using this process, any organic material can be converted into oil, gas, minerals and carbon, as well as sterilized water. TDP accomplishes this by using extreme heat and pressure to decompose complex hydrocarbons into simple, small-chained hydrocarbons. CWT developed a demonstration facility for the TDP technology where process refinements were accomplished as the TDP evolved into a more directed Thermal Conversion Process (TCP). According to CWT, this technology is more than 80% efficient and offers a closed loop cycle (Changing World Technologies, Inc., 2008). Their stance is that organic material takes carbon from the atmosphere as it grows. We harvest that organic material whether it is trees for paper, or oil from dinosaurs, and we put it into some kind of product. We then consume and use that product until it is no longer useful. The waste, which would ultimately break down and return carbon to the atmosphere, is converted directly back into organic material. This organic material is used to create new products, completely bypassing the atmospheric phase of its existence.
It sounds like the cycle is foolproof. There is definitely a potential for organic material to be cycled completely when we are talking about solid products for it to be made into and from which it can be broken down. However, when waste is broken down through thermal depolymerization and made into non-solid products, such as fuel, it puts carbon directly back into the atmosphere through its use. Sure, in time, it will be taken back up by plant life to become organic matter once again, and so the cycle goes. Is this still a responsible cycle? Is this technology the best thing for the environment and for humanity?
These are examples of humanity’s potential – advanced technology in alternative energy and alternative resources that address a possible solution to an ever-pressing problem. In their early stages, these technologies demonstrate the potential to transform every landfill into a resource-laden mine. They are also demonstrating a potential for the future of all waste management. Imagine waste management being synonymous with alternative energy production and alternative resource acquisition.
Test runs for research will pave the path towards the implementation of these technologies. If a conclusion is made that these technologies are truly responsible in that they are clean, efficient, and productive, then all former landfills will become resource mines. Instead of waste being “thrown away”, it will be thrown into the device as a very valuable source of raw materials. If these technologies become what they have the potential to be, we need to implement drastic changes to our waste management policies and practices. Where do we start? This is a situation in which local governments and the private sector will have to work together to successfully implement a new waste management regime.
Local government participation is essential in creating policy conducive to restructuring waste management within communities. More specifically, city planners will have the task of outlining a methodology in which hazardous waste and recyclable material are separated from the solid waste load. Once the solid waste is free of inorganic and dangerous compounds, it can be treated as a raw material and then processed. Furthermore, city planners will need to contract out labor for the installation and management of the TCP, Hawk-10, and VWP technologies.
The infrastructure needed to implement a project such as this is very much in the hands of local governments. Once that is in place, the private sector should take over and facilitate its operations.
Profit is the main motivator that will ensure these technologies’ economic sustainability. Raw material, in the form of garbage, will be delivered to the facility, and the party responsible for producing the waste will be charged normal disposal fees. Nothing changes for the consumer. The disposal industry, however, is now being paid to take raw materials, which they will then process and indirectly sell back to the consumer via the manufacturing industry.
CWT claims that their TCP technology can produce 4 billion barrels of oil in a year from agricultural waste in the United States alone. This is equivalent to amount of oil that the United States imports each year, and more than half of the 7.3 billion barrels a year that it consumes (Changing World Technologies, Inc., 2008). Imagine the possibilities if we created 4 billion barrels of oil from just agricultural waste, and if landfills were used to supplement our raw material resources! CWT’s subsidiary, Renewable Environmental Resources, LLC (RES) has been created to demonstrate these claims.
In Carthage, Missouri, RES installed a plant that is currently producing 100-200 barrels of oil per day utilizing byproducts from an adjacent turkey processing facility. This facility is converting approximately 250 tons/day of turkey offal and fats into approximately 20,000 gallons of a renewable diesel fuel oil and valuable fertilizer products. And this is only 30% of the plant’s capacity (Gelfand, 2008)!
It is extremely appealing that with TCP, Hawk-10, and VWP technologies, two crises could become one grand solution. But is it feasible? Would these technologies simply further prolong the ultimate end of oil resources? After all, there is only a finite amount of waste on the planet. If we keep producing waste, and if TCP, Hawk-10, and VWP technologies are supremely successful in converting waste to resources, then it stands to reason that all waste could become products. If the technologies are what they claim, then an efficient cycling of resources may be attained, thus negating the possibility of an end of resources.
Conclusion The nature of our societies, economies, and industries has ended up producing a significant amount of waste. This waste creation has led to a depletion of resources, inspiring questions into the future. How are we going to create more things if we don’t have any more stuff out of which to make them? Where do we find more resources and where do we put the resources that we no longer want? Other questions are directed towards the environment. What pollution implications does our waste have on the future of the environment?
Identifying how this waste is created is a good first step towards figuring out a potential solution. One potential solution is in the concept of planning and designing of products. Products can be designed for recycling and waste minimization. Another, more feasible, solution is designing and adapting a process to accommodate waste production and resource depletion. We have the technology available to adapt our waste production problem into being a solution that fills in the holes of our depleting resources.
Environmental education has told us that everyone has to do his or her part in helping to lessen the impact to our natural world. While this is absolutely true in most cases, the beautiful thing about these technologies is that they do not require the participation of every last individual. When less participation is required in achieving a goal, that goal will be achieved with greater efficiency.
Although the problems of waste and resource depletion may seem overwhelming, humanity’s ingenuity and resolve have shown us that real solutions to our problems exist. If we work toward implementing those solutions, as preliminary examples of these technologies have shown, we will succeed.
For the future of these super-decomposing technologies, the best thing that can be done would be to ramp up the scale, and increase the efficiency with which they run. Optimizing efficiency levels for these devices will optimize their economic viability. Economic viability leads to social and political support. And support leads to success!
This paper has been written with Western countries in mind. However, there are enormous positive implications in utilizing such technologies in developing countries as a means to alleviate poverty. These technologies have the capacity to reduce the stress on the availability of overburdened energy and resources. Giving developing countries energy and resource independence would be a huge gain that could facilitate further progress in the direction of eliminating poverty.
Bibliography
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I met Becca in a hostel in 2002 in Switzerland, and I had a crush on her immediately. She was the first girl with whom I had ever made a first move. She "tripped" as I tried to kiss her on a star-lit walk through a Swiss mountain village so I decided to try again. She tripped again, of course, before I realized she wasn't tripping... Oh well. Got her email in the morning and then left town. We stayed in e-contact for a while, during which time I found out she had had a boyfriend while we were in Switzerland. 
During our time together in Eastern Europe, she reciprocated my feelings and gave me grand hope for a future together, but as she had a boyfriend at this time, she ended up breaking my heart and going back to him.
The academic part of my year in Costa Rica peaked just as it was ending. My favorite scholarly moment occurred during my last class when we learned that the current-ish health craze to remove trans-fats (hydrogenated oils) from the market is, in fact, destroying the rain forest! Ha! I even laughed out loud in class at that one. Turns out, the foods we love so much that used to contain trans-fats require some kind of delicious alternative. That alternative is palm oil. All of a sudden there was a giant demand in the market for palm oil to which suppliers responded in force! Oil palm plantations are dominating land where rain forest once thrived. This is mostly so in Indonesia - but apparently it's happening to a lesser extent (though still significant) in Costa Rica as well.
