WEBVTT - Taking Out the Garbage 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.400 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:14.680 Forward Thinking. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:17.120 the podcast that looks at the future and says, trash, 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:19.680 go pick it up, don't take your life away. I'm 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:23.200 Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren Local, and I'm Joe McCormick. Today 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:26.000 we're gonna talk about waste disposal, the future of it, 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:29.600 the current situation, and what happens to all that garbage 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:32.560 that we generate. Uh. If you listen to our last episode, 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:34.640 we talked a little bit about recycling. Today we're gonna 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:37.320 talk about other stuff. We're talking talking about landfills for example. 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:39.440 That's a good place to start because that's where a 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:41.560 lot of our garbage is up, a whole bunch of it, 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:45.400 lots and lots of it trash. It actually peaked in 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:48.480 the nineteen eighties, didn't it. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, we've 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:51.480 gotten better at reducing the amount of garbage that goes 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:54.360 to landfills. Although you know, you could argue that the 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:57.400 amount continues to increase, but it kind of increases with population. 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:00.640 If you look at it as from a per person perspective, 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:04.440 it's going down. Um, But according to the New York Times, 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:08.480 New York City alone sends about ten thousand five tons 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:15.280 of residential garbage to landfills every day per day. Now, 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:18.080 let me think about that a little bit, because New 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:21.319 York City, that's not a place where you can just easily, 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:25.120 oh you know, about a mile away you can. Yeah, 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:27.440 those landfills aren't located in New York at all, not 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:31.120 New York State, not the Northeast. No, they're located in 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:35.200 Ohio and South Carolina. What yeah, they're shipping the garbage 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:40.280 to Ohio and South Carolina. Become a resident of Ohio. Hey, well, 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:42.360 you know, I kind of don't believe you what it's 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:45.680 high on the middle, and I know there's not like 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:49.400 a landfill in the middle of Manhattan, but what yeah, Well, 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:52.440 here's the thing is that with landfills, there is a 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:55.400 fee associated with throwing garbage into landfills. It's not like 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:58.600 there's just a hole that we dun't garbage in two 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:01.080 and then we just stroll a a merrely whistling a 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:04.880 happy tune. Probably for most of us, some of you 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:07.800 there may have a very different experience. But in general, 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:11.919 landfills are operated by private companies and these private companies 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:16.080 charge what is called a tipping fee. Yeah, so y'all, 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:19.720 have you all ever been to a landfill? Yes? I 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:23.799 had to in Florida for school field trips. Yeah. I 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:27.040 was helping somebody remodel a bathroom and we had all 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:29.720 this just junk, you know, from a smashed up tub 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:32.160 and stuff in the back of a truck and we're like, well, 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:33.920 we gotta take it to the landfill. I had no 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:36.360 idea how this worked, but yeah, you pull up and 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:39.680 they weigh your truck, and you go in, you dump 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:42.799 it out, and then you pay when you're leaving, right, Yeah, 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:46.040 to make sure it's see how much the the trash 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:49.320 weight that you dumped in there. In general, the the 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:52.480 tipping fees tend to be per ton. So on an 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:55.920 individual basis like that it would be pretty minor. But 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:59.480 for industrial, industrial use, municipal use, like if it's a 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:02.880 city that that's dumping tons and tons of New York 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:05.720 City tons of garbage, that racks up pretty quickly. So 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:10.040 on average in the United States, that tends to be 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:13.359 between thirty and forty dollars per ton. In the Northeast 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:16.639 that's closer to between seventy and eighty dollars per ton. 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:19.840 It's just landfill space there is is at a premium. 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:23.720 They're very few and they are very expensive, so uh, 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:28.000 it sometimes makes more sense economically speaking, to pay to 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:31.800 have your garbage the stuff you do not want to 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:34.880 be carried a very long way away to be dumped 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:38.760 in someone else's hole. So that's the case with New 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:41.960 York City. They're paying, you know, the shipping charges and 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:44.760 the tipping fees together are still less than it would 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:47.920 cost them if they were dumping the garbage closer to 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:52.680 home now. According to Popular Mechanics, they published a whole 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:59.920 UH article about landfills and myths and misconceptions about landfill 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:04.400 and recycling as well. They said that the United States 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:09.880 has about twenty years of disposal capacity left in existing landfills. 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:13.280 This was two thou eight, and so they said that 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:17.000 there were some places where space was getting a little tight. Uh. 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:21.440 Those spaces one of them Alaska, which considering that's a 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:26.680 huge state, but there's very limited uh landfill space. Connecticut, Delaware, 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:29.680 North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island all have less 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:32.720 than five years capacity, which obviously must have changed since 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:36.640 then because now it's five years later. But the northeastern 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:39.360 part of the country in general has the least available 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:42.000 landfill space, which is why that stuff is getting shipped 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:44.400 down to other landfills. I assume that, yeah, that means 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:46.719 if they don't take their trash to Texas or whatever. 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:51.919 Right well, And while the number of US landfills has 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:55.600 steadily declined, the average size of the landfills in the 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:58.479 United States has actually grown. So not just saying that 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:02.080 the piles of trash are get taller Sarah's Satia Sylvia 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:05.920 Stout style, just throwing my little shell silver state reference 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:09.960 in there, but but that the the land that's granted 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:13.880 to the landfill is is growing as well. Now in 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:16.839 the United States, we have and a lot of this 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:19.839 discussion is going to be about the the US, But 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:22.359 the United States we have lots and lots of land. 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:26.240 I mean, it's a huge country. So it's not actually 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:29.320 that we don't have land to dump trash, and it's 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:32.760 that you don't have appropriate land close enough, right, and 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:37.120 also that you have communities that resist having something like 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:39.960 a landfill put in. Now, you know, landfills are a 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:44.800 means of, uh creating some jobs, though not a whole 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:47.880 lot of them and also pulling in some money though 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:51.960 for mostly a private organization that's running the landfill. But 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:55.760 most communities look down upon it. It's not something that 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:58.880 adds value to a community generally speaking, so there's usually 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:03.880 a resistance. They're not especially fragrant in a good way. No, no, 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:09.920 and they have a they can have a like verminous 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:15.920 animals too. Yes, they do tend to do that. So, UM, 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:19.919 what ends up in a landfill. It's municipal solid waste, 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:21.960 which is made up of the things we tend to 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:25.480 use and then throw away. That includes everything from packaging, 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:32.800 food waste, old furniture, electronic waste, tires, grass clippings, etcetera. UM. 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:36.719 It does not, however, include industrial hazardous or construction waste 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:40.640 that's outside of municipal solid waste. And according to the 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:42.960 e p A, the United States generated about two or 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:45.039 fifty million tons of solid waste. You may have heard 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:46.920 that figure when we were talking about it back in 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:50.360 our previous podcast and UH that was back in two 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:52.880 thousand eleven. That was the most recent report we were 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:57.080 able to get information from UH. And then on average, 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:01.200 Americans recycled and composted a out one point five three 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:06.160 pounds of individual waste generation per day. But we generate 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:10.239 about four point four pounds of waste, So we're generating 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:14.240 four point four we're reclaiming one point five three. The 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:16.640 rest of that gets thrown away, which is more than 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:21.240 half of it um And uh, that stuff either ends 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:24.120 up going to a landfill or in a few places 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:26.800 it may go to an incinerator. But we'll talk about 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:31.600 the incinerator in a second. So about fifty three point 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:34.680 six of all the garbage in the United States ends 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:39.400 up in landfills. And uh, you know, some of that's problematic, 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:43.440 like anything that's organic is going to give off certain 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:46.520 gases that tend to be a little troublesome, like methane. 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:48.920 If you have a lot of organic material all sitting 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:52.360 together and it's just piling up, it'll give off methane, 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:56.960 which is a green euse gas and can affect decomposition. Yeah, 0:07:57.240 --> 0:07:59.800 as a decomposers will give off methane. Obviously if you 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:03.320 were burn it, that would cause other issues. Other toxins 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:06.320 would be emitted as well as greenouse gases like carbon 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:09.920 dioxide would would be a byproduct, as as some of 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:12.880 the chemicals and plastics. Well, I know that's plastics breakdown. 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:15.520 But as some of the chemicals start reacting with each other, 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:19.360 you wind up with this toxic soup stuff called a leachate. 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:22.920 You don't want to you don't want that to get 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:25.680 into your water table for example, right right, it can 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:28.520 wind up right penetrating down through the soil and getting 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:31.280 into the water table and causing bad news for everyone around. 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:34.079 And it's bad, bad stuff. So landfills in general are 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:37.320 looked down upon. They're seen as you know, it's a 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:40.440 temporary solution. Really, it's just getting stuff out of sight 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:42.959 so that you don't have to think about them anymore. Though, 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:45.840 let me stick up for landfills in a way for 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:48.319 a second here. I mean, there's always going to be 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:52.200 at least some small amount of garbage that you can't 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.199 really do anything else good with and we can't reuse 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:58.000 or recycle in any way. Yeah, yeah, No, there's going 0:08:58.040 --> 0:08:59.880 to be some stuff that we are going to end 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:04.080 owner that we cannot reclaim and we cannot you know, 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:06.400 put to some other use. And I mean that's just 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:09.040 a fact of life. But the question is what percentage 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:11.880 of the stuff we're throwing away is that? And it's 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:14.720 it's a much smaller percentage than the amount of stuff 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:17.679 that's actually ending up in landfills. Absolutely, I'm just pointing 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:21.079 out that I think if we're talking down on landfills 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:23.880 in a bit, that the goal should be reducing use 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:25.800 of them, not saying like we should live in a 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:30.280 world where there's no garbage. Yeah, that's that's unrealistic. Although 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:31.960 although part of the problem I think right now is 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:35.559 the manufacturing processes that are leading to uh TO to 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:40.400 waste materials that we have a difficulty post processing. So 0:09:40.480 --> 0:09:42.200 so part of the change is going to need to 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:45.880 be our manufacturing right for getting packaging materials that can 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:49.040 actually be broken down in an easy way and and 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:51.079 sorted in an easy way. If you listen to our 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:55.160 recycling podcast, then you know that one of the challenges 0:09:55.520 --> 0:10:00.120 is really the sorting process and making sure that the 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.679 the materials that are going into a recycling plant are 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:06.680 actually recyclable. In other countries, um, some of this burden 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:11.560 has been pushed onto the manufacturers already. In fact, in Germany, UM, 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:14.400 they they set out a legal precedent that really made 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.800 it the job of the manufacturers to figure out how 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:20.520 to deal with all of that, and and and they 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:24.960 created a coalition that has since created a national recycling program, 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:27.560 which is pretty nifty. Would you guys like to know 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:33.200 what what stuff makes up by percentage our municipal solid waste? Please? 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:39.959 Just all right? So how much? How much of a 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:42.720 percentage do you think paper and paperboard make out of 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:48.920 all the municipal solid waste? A thousand thousand percent? Okay, 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:55.840 how much? Jackass? How much food waste? How much food waste? 0:10:55.880 --> 0:11:00.400 So paper and paper boards about how much? About food waste? Five? 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:05.200 So close, So it's exactly it's going to go down 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:08.920 from here, so don't go over. Plastic would be about 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:14.080 metals are about nine percent, and then you have a rubber, leather, 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:16.840 and textiles which make up eight percent or a fun 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:21.720 Saturday night wood is about six and glass is about 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:25.560 five percent. So that's that's just the general makeup of 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:28.880 the organic materials and other materials that you find the 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:32.160 municipal solid waste. Now, we did talk a lot about 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:34.559 recycling in that last podcast, and we covered pretty much 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:40.960 everything except well, there's there's some really creative recycling going on. Yeah, 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:49.960 some some dark recycling, some criminal recycling. Soprano, like these 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:52.880 recycling bins fell out the back of a truck. I 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:55.840 I don't think it's it's as organized as they talk 0:11:55.920 --> 0:12:00.240 about in in some some movies and television unorganized crime. 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:03.960 Unorganized crime is much better, yes, um, but see see. 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:07.520 The thing is is that the prices for for metals 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:12.280 like copper are skyrocketing, partially due to the electronics industry, 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:15.600 um and and just all of the other industrial uses 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:17.480 that we are finding frost. I think I see where 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:21.920 you're going here. So um, you know you've you wind 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:25.400 up having people stealing things like the bleachers out of 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:29.160 football fields, um and selling them for scrap, or breaking 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:33.440 into an an unoccupied house in or to steal the 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:36.680 copper wiring, stripping out the old copper white wiring, or 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:40.840 pipes shore or um uh, getting the catalytic converter out 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:43.240 of a car and selling that for You have to 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:45.400 slow down. I'm ranging these down for things to help 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:48.839 supplement my income, and you're going too fast. Um. And 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:51.240 kind of the sad thing about this is that when 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:53.400 you sell something for scrap, you're not going to get 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:55.320 very much of it. You know, a set of bleachers, 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:58.559 for example, is going to cost several thousand dollars. You're 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:01.040 going to get about six hundred for it. Um, a 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:03.680 catalytic converter is going to cost about two thousand bucks 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:05.640 to put in your car. It'll get you about a 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:08.400 hundred twenty at the scrap heat. Yeah, it turns out 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:10.960 the the I mean, if you're stealing it, then you 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:13.959 didn't spend any money into this this in the first place. 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:16.320 But well no, I imagine a stealing enterprise. You got 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:20.680 to invest in that like any other business marketing for blachers. 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:23.839 I mean there's manpower and trucks involved in taking those away. 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:26.920 There was an artist named Henry Moore, sculptor who was 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:30.320 very prolific in the sixties through the eighties about and 0:13:30.520 --> 0:13:35.400 um made these gorgeous, giant, weird metal sculptures. UM one 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:39.840 of them, one of his reclining figure series, was two 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:42.600 tons in weight about about five thousand pounds in weight 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:48.360 UM worth three million pounds in money British British fellow 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:52.360 so um pound sterling right, and was stolen using a 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:55.760 crane and a truck and melted down. They suspect for 0:13:56.920 --> 0:14:00.720 pounds sterling. That doesn't even seem worth it. That's a 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:04.040 lot of crane they need. Its gotta cost a whole 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:11.640 lot to rent a crane. So yeah, you know, you 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:15.080 can't can't just assume that it's like those kids you 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:17.840 know who like they would cheat on tests in school, 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:20.840 but they were like working way harder on the cheating 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:24.360 scheme than it would actually take to study. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:29.120 that's the dark side. I guess let's let's talk about well, 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:31.440 let's continue the dark side here. But there are there 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:33.240 are things that people are doing about this. There's UM, 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:36.360 the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries here in the United States, 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:41.240 which is a large organization of companies that are working 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:44.600 towards being more efficient with our resources. Have a theft 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:47.400 alert system in which if someone, for example, steals you 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:51.080 are UM five million dollar statue, you can call them 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:53.240 and say, hey, be on the lookout for this. UM 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:58.280 scrap programs would like that back. Yeah, I wonder, I 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:01.440 mean should should There will be suspicion to begin with, 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:03.680 if somebody shows up with a pickup truck full of 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:07.880 pipes or do people often sell their own pipes? I 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:10.920 think I think it happens in post construction projects, like 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:14.160 if if you're if you're scrapping a house except for 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:17.880 the foundation or something with a famous sculpture in the 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:20.840 back of your truck. Yeah, if you show up with 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:23.000 a truck full of pipes and maybe you know a 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:26.040 lot of meth paraphernalia, someone should be watching out. But 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:30.440 but they people do suspect that the drug addicts are 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:34.240 the largest portion of people who are you. That makes 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:36.880 sense because desperation would could drive you to that sort 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:39.680 of thing. If you'll listen to our previous podcast, we 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:42.720 don't spend the whole time painting recycling with the drug 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:48.359 crime brush. So we're pro recycling, yeah right, pro recycling, 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:52.680 but we're anti steal that thing that was meant for 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:57.160 one purpose so that you can make as on the dollar. Well, 0:15:57.240 --> 0:15:59.960 let's talk a little bit about another way of dealing 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:04.240 with trash, which is burning it. That's uh yeah here 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:06.400 in the South, that used to happen in like a 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:11.320 big metal oil drum. Like I remember people, uh in 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:14.680 my my grandparents neighborhood who would occasionally burn parts of 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:19.280 their garbage. Um, because I mean this meant this was 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:21.640 a place where they didn't have any sort of curbside pickup. 0:16:21.680 --> 0:16:23.920 You had to haul your garbage out to a dump. 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:28.120 So I mean that totally makes sense, right, because when 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:34.680 you burn something, all of its mass disappears. You can 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:37.160 tell already from the snark emanating from the other two 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:40.920 microphones that this is not necessarily the best idea, depending 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:44.320 upon your facility. Now that that being said, I need 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:45.640 to get this out of the way first. There are 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:50.280 incinerator facilities out there that use very sophisticated methods to 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:54.440 scrub and capture all the toxic materials that are released 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:57.520 from burning garbage, and then they're using the actual burning, 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:03.440 the incinerating of the garbage as a means of generating energy. Well, 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:05.880 you know, it's not just burning like you could imagine 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:08.040 an incenterator that the only purpose for it was just 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:09.840 to get rid of garbage. But that's not the case. 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:14.320 Characters from toy Story right right, It's it's a plot 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:17.560 device to make you more emotionally invested in some three 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:21.560 D animated characters. Uh No, it's usually part of an 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:25.080 energy plant of some sort that they're trying to reclaim energy. 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:27.920 Especially you're reclaiming some of the energy that was used 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:33.160 to make those products by converting it back into uh well, 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:36.400 really you're just applying heat and then usually you're converting 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:40.000 water into steam to turn steam turbines. But there are 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:42.639 other methods as well, and we'll talk about one of 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:45.320 them in a little bit. But because of the definition 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:48.200 of what incenterating is, so a lot of incinerators use combustion. 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:52.119 That's where you're burning trash. You're actually literally burning it 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:55.320 in the uh in you're having oxygen inside the environment. 0:17:55.640 --> 0:18:00.159 You're setting fire to stuff. Uh And uh, you know, 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:03.520 in the old incenterators in the United States, and most 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:06.000 the incentrators in the United States are old. There haven't 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:08.680 been a lot of new ones made recently. There weren't 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:11.959 a whole lot of filters systems that would capture a 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:15.280 lot of the toxic materials that would be released, So 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:19.520 stuff would get released into the environment, uh, whether it 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:22.720 was through gases or through the fly ash, which is 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:26.360 really dangerous stuff. Fly ash is the ash that's left 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:30.639 over after you have burned your your trash, and it 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:36.560 can contain concentrated amounts of toxic material in it. Nice 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:42.399 deep breath of diaper and bleach, yeah, and and chlorine 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:46.160 and mercury like all other stuff that's really really really 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:48.480 bad for you, like deadly for you, and to the 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:51.920 point where you know, the disposing of that is its 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:56.440 own industry, where the the ash from these incenterators is 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.359 so toxic that it has to be stored in special 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:05.080 containers and dumped in toxic waste areas. Um nasty, nasty stuff. 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:07.679 I mean, you can talk about byproducts like hydrochloric acid, 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:14.879 sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, dioxins, and furins. These are deadly materials. Now, 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:17.760 Like I said, in the United States, there weren't a 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:19.600 whole lot of incinerators that can handle this in a 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:22.800 safe way. In Europe, it's a totally different story. In Europe, 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:26.600 they have incinerators that are designed to capture and scrub 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:30.200 all of this stuff to make it either useful or inert. 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:35.400 So they're generating energy from their garbage. It's not necessarily 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:36.960 the most efficient way of doing it, but it's a 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:39.320 way of dealing with the garbage and reclaiming some of 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:41.520 the energy that was used to produce the products in 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:44.560 the first place. And they're trying their best to make 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:48.639 sure that any kind of emissions are well below the 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:53.040 safety standards of whatever particular nation they are, if they're 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:56.520 in the European Union, etcetera. The United States, again, not 0:19:56.600 --> 0:20:01.040 that many incinerators here, um, but there are people who 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:02.760 are trying to build more of them, and some of 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:06.240 them don't fit into the definition of incinerator as far 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:10.840 as combustion goes. Incinerator, as it turns out, in the definition, 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:15.879 is applying thermal energy to garbage in order to treat 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:19.320 it and reclaim energy in some form. So in that case, 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:21.679 one of the things we're talking about in a second, 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:26.439 which are plasma converters, are actually they fall in this 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:29.680 realm of incinerator under that definition. Even they're very much 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:33.840 more efficient and they're not burning so much as applying 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:36.240 huge amounts of energy to break down molecular bonds. But 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:38.880 we'll chat about that in a second. Before we get 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:41.720 to that, let's talk about another way. We've talked about recycling. 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:44.120 We've talked about stuff going to the landfill. One thing 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:47.960 we haven't really touched on is something that another way 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:51.439 of dealing with some garbage, especially organic material, specifically organic 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:54.919 material UH that has a lot of attention in some 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:57.560 parts of the world. In the United States, for example, 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:00.440 UH in San Francisco, there are a lot of people. 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:04.000 In fact, I think it's municipally mandated that you that 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:06.280 you do this, but it's not here in Atlanta, we 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:09.679 don't have this, but composting or for my friends in 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:15.639 the UK composting. Yeah. This this is a This is 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:21.080 a process that uses the natural organic decomposition of of 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:25.679 of materials by microorganisms and UM, you know, basically, all 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:28.879 all you're doing is is mixing some nitrogen heavy materials 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:32.280 you know, UM, grass or food products, UM, with carbon 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:35.520 heavy materials like dry leaves or wood chips or something 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:39.600 like that. UM in the right balance. UM you wanna 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:41.920 you want to process them, you know, to shred them 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:44.520 in some ways so that the micro organisms are going 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:48.680 to have a better surface area to to work off of. UM. 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:51.200 You know, make sure you've got enough air in them 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:54.560 so that they can so that the critters can breathe 0:21:55.160 --> 0:21:59.159 m aerobic not anaerobic. Aerobic not anaerobic correct, thank you, UM, 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:03.919 enough water for them to survive and uh around at 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:06.280 the right temperature for them to do their thing. And UM, 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:09.840 it's it's a it's a layering process that that speeds 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:15.440 decomposition at the right rate to create a multua hummus 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:19.280 that you can then use to um to to fertilize 0:22:19.280 --> 0:22:23.160 other stuff for many other purposes. Right. So, so this 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:25.760 is uh, this is a way of generating something that's 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:30.120 useful while getting rid of you know, organic garbage. Uh 0:22:30.160 --> 0:22:32.919 and uh. And like I said, there are certain areas 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:37.719 of the United States that are very much savvy about this, 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:40.520 like that it's part of the daily existence of living 0:22:40.520 --> 0:22:43.840 in that place. Yeah, there are actually some places, um 0:22:43.920 --> 0:22:47.600 that are trying to become what's now being called zero 0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:52.040 waste cities. Now that's kind of a misnomerum because again, 0:22:52.200 --> 0:22:55.800 we don't really have the technology to scre waste right now. Yeah, 0:22:55.840 --> 0:22:59.280 So sort of what's going on here is these cities 0:22:59.320 --> 0:23:02.680 are saying, like, well, if we can divert not nine 0:23:03.280 --> 0:23:07.360 of waste from landfills, we'll just say it's zero, but 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:12.480 mathematics zero, so it's yeah, it's zero ish. It's not 0:23:12.560 --> 0:23:17.560 exactly true, but it's still pretty cool. Um. So I 0:23:17.720 --> 0:23:20.760 read a Wall Street Journal blog about this from a 0:23:20.760 --> 0:23:23.159 couple of years ago. I think it's from September two eleven, 0:23:23.160 --> 0:23:26.119 and it was talking about Uh, San Francisco was the 0:23:26.160 --> 0:23:30.159 big one at the time. They were they had made 0:23:30.200 --> 0:23:34.240 it able to divert seventy seven of all of their 0:23:34.400 --> 0:23:38.520 municipal solid waste from landfills, and they did this with 0:23:38.560 --> 0:23:42.800 a combination of recycling and composting. And when you think 0:23:42.800 --> 0:23:46.080 about it, if you put those together, that takes care 0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:50.280