Teru Talk Newsletter
Volume VI, Issue 13, April
4,
2016
Teru Talk by Michael
Theroux (pronounced
"Terú")
Teru's Trash Talk
There’s nothing like moving to
smaller quarters to let you
know you have accumulated too
much stuff. Teru Talk’s team is
mid-move, an all-consuming
exercise, especially when
trying hard not to simply toss
the excess into the back bin.
Time to assess what to keep,
what to part with – yet as
careful as we can be, we are
making more trash in a month
than we’ve let loose in a year.
Apparently, just storing odd
items does not equate to Not
Making Waste.
We’re pretty much obsessed with
making as little trash as
possible, but good grief! It
seems every desk drawer, closet
and cubby hole is full of stuff
and very little of it has risen
to the We Need That level in a
long time. If we have really
converted from paper files to
digital records, why oh why do
we still have so much paper?
Binders from the distant past;
manila folders holding letters
for projects long since closed.
And the mementos! How can we
possibly get rid of that
beee-uutiful Lucite whats-it we
won for being so special, for
something or another so long
ago. A sturdy rollie-cart
becomes rubbish since the
behemoth work station it once
carried is now Waste
Electronics - whatever we did
on that beast can all be
accomplished on our cell phone.
Useful in their day, still
functional if the things were
still needed - which they are
not. Now
what?
So far we’ve sent a couple
truck loads to local charities,
swapped perfectly useful but
unneeded bookcases and such for
fresh eggs and veggies (that
was cool) and have been selling
a continual stream of
identifiable items online.
We’ve barely made a dent. What
sort of detritus ends up in the
dumpster, when Zero Waste
fanatics have to accept that we
too are trashy? Broken chairs,
mildewed boxes, out-of-date
business cards, envelopes with
the wrong address, and that
easy-erase white board someone
used a permanent marker on –
tossed.
Where we are located,
everything goes in one big bin,
and ends up at the massive
central Materials Recovery
Facility (MRF). Yep, they’ll
separate out white paper,
cardboard and wire cables,
anything else that fits one of
the umpteen categories
designated as Recyclable by the
plant’s administration on that
particular day. The decision to
pull an item from the MRF
conveyer belt line is a complex
one, a balance of cost of the
separation and cleaning versus
the spot price for the
particular recyclate. But those
prices are down, and when the
sorting is done, half or more
of all that stuff that came in
the front, goes out the back
and on to the
dump.
For
almost six years now Teru Talk
has yammered on about all the
currently available clean tools
and cool techniques we can use
on the trashy residual left
after recycling to convert it
into useful solids, liquids and
gases – into foundation
materials, reclaimed resources.
Meanwhile the Powers that Be
have continued to rely on the
market price of recycled
bottles, glass, cardboard, and
metal to dictate what does or
does not end up in the dump. We
are still
paying to
bury half of the discards we
generate. Resource recovery can
be more economical and far more
environmentally sane than
pillaging for virgin materials,
but it takes work and doesn’t
happen by
accident.
Hey Rube!
With our all-consuming move,
our newsletter schedule has
become somewhat varied. The
news continues however, and
progress is evident globally on
all fronts. Many cool tools and
advanced techniques are surging
forward for turning waste into
non-waste. Pick a favorite or
two, contact the blokes
involved and let ‘em know that
Humans actually are paying
attention to their
efforts.
The Week's Top Story
Tytec
Recycling Launches Green OTR
Tire Recycling
Solution
The new Australian company
Tytec Recycling is launching
environmentally friendly off
the road (OTR) tire recycling
process this year.
03/31/2016
The Week's News
BETO to Host
Bioenergy 2016, Releases
Multi-Year Program Plan
Update
The US Department of Energy
(DOE) has announced that its
Bioenergy Technologies Office
(BETO) will host the ninth
annual conference on July
12–14, 2016: Bioenergy 2016:
Mobilizing the Bioeconomy
through Innovation.
03/31/2016
Orange
County Landfill Gas to
Energy Project Powers
Up
A ribbon cutting ceremony has
been held to officially open
the Bowerman Power Project
renewable energy facility at
the Frank R. Bowerman landfill
in Orange County east of
Irvine, California.
03/30/2016
Rivertop
Renewables and DTI Facility
Exceeds Nameplate
Capacity
Montana based Rivertop
Renewables has announced that
it exceeded the nameplate
capacity of its first
commercial production facility
during benchmark testing.
03/30/2016
ElectraTherm
Power+ Generators Shipped to
Biomass Plant in
Italy
Nevada based ElectraTherm has
shipped two Power+ Generator
6500’s to a biomass facility
site in Italy.
03/29/2016
Farmers and
Comet Biorefining to Develop
Biomass Supply
Chain
Canada based Cellulosic Sugar
Producers Cooperative has
entered into a memorandum of
understanding (MOU) with Comet
Biorefining to collaborate on
the development of a
sustainable agricultural
biomass supply chain in
southwestern Ontario.
03/28/2016
Oregon
Council Schedules Biomass
Market Fundamentals
Workshop
The Central Oregon
Intergovernmental Council
(COIC) is hosting the Biomass
Market Fundamentals Workshop as
part of the Central Oregon
Woody Biomass Cluster
Development Project (Project).
03/28/2016
CalRecycle
Hosts Composting, Recycling
and Solid Waste Facility
Workshops
The California Department of
Resources and Recycling
(CalRecycle) will conduct the
first two workshops in a series
for stakeholder feedback on
regulation development for the
new recycling and disposal
reporting requirements
per Assembly Bill (AB) 901
(Chapter 746, Statutes of
2015).
03/25/2016
CBEA
Supports AB 2700-Energy
Procurement to Update
California's
RPS
The California Biomass Energy
Alliance (CBEA) is supporting
Assembly Bill (AB) 2700 -
Energy Procurement, introduced
by Assembly Member Rudy Salas
last month to update the
Renewable Portfolio Standard
(RPS) to provide an incentive
for utilities to procure
biomass resources.
03/25/2016
Aemetis
Licenses LanzaTech and
Edeniq Technologies for
Cellulosic
Ethanol
Aemetis, Inc. has announced the
acquisition of exclusive rights
to LanzaTech's patented
technology for the conversion
of agricultural waste, forest
waste, dairy waste, and
construction and demolition
waste (CDW) to ethanol in
California.
03/24/2016
Pork Power
Gets New Meaning with Duke
Energy Deal in North
Carolina
Duke Energy has announced that
it will buy swine and poultry
waste power from a facility
planned for eastern North
Carolina using the captured
methane gas to generate
renewable electricity at four
power stations.
03/23/2016
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