Teru Talk Newsletter
Volume VI, Issue 14, April
11,
2016
Teru Talk by Michael
Theroux (pronounced
"TerĂº")
Teru's Trash Talk
If you're looking for gold,
it's in the trash. So is
platinum, rhodium, osmium,
oh-my-goshium and all the rest
of those rare and precious
metals; you can find 'em in the
rubbish. Those precious
materials are there because we
throw them away, a fly-speck
worth in every discarded cell
phone or other electro-gadget.
Granted, the quantities are
small, but it doesn't take much
of the stuff to sift out of a
ton of trash to make the search
a worthy
effort.
One estimate said we should be
able to extract one to two
grams of mixed precious metals
out of one hundred tons of
trash, depending on the
'richness' of the electronic
waste fraction in the incoming
trash. Careful daily trash
mining might produce 35 grams
of bling at a big Materials
Recovery Facility that
processes 3,500 tons of
municipal solid waste every
day, not too
shabby.
But that's on the bright side,
and with waste there is always
a Dark Side. That single
solvent-soaked rag tossed into
the trash with the electronic
remnants may not have any great
quantity of nasty stuff on it.
Added to all the other
high-volatiles that we've
soaked up and tossed away,
we've got a lot of Bad. Caution
is warranted: some fraction of
everything we make, buy, and
use gets trashed. When we work
to recover good things out of
that rich mix, sooner or later
we'll get some of the rest of
it on our proverbial
boots.
That's the beauty of trash:
it's in there, whatever
resource you are trying to
find. And that's the problem
with trash: it's
all
in
there, every possible
contaminant, poison,
hazard and dose
imaginable - because we
throw the bad actors away
with the good, mixing the
precious with the
problems, the diamonds
with the
dirt.
We know where our discarded
resources go, and now with all
the cool tools and nifty
techniques, we also know ways
to recover them. But to do so
means exposure to all the waste
that we don't
want as
well. Resource recovery carries
risk; ask any hard rock miner.
Careful planning is just as
necessary for mining trash as
it is for mining mountains. If
we wait to mine trash at the
MRF, we get both the risks and
the rewards. But unlike the
hard-rock mining, we can claim
precious resources before the
goods enter that mixed
flow.
We can practice Source
Separation and Recovery, and
dramatically reduce the risk of
the Unknown. We can collect
no-longer-wanted goods before
the materials are mixed in with
the rest of the trash, and
short-cut the mining process.
We can extend this source
separation and recovery method
to all types of discards, not
just urban, but from
agriculture, forestry, and even
marine operations. To assess
the economics of this new
discard-mining infrastructure,
compare the cost of
intercepting at the source to
the cost of picking through the
rich but risky mountains at the
MRF.
Hey Rube!
Recycling has long been a
process where we pick
identifiable goodies out of the
mixed waste and returning them
to use. This week's news shows
a shift in that focus toward
the odd stuff, the residues,
the left-overs after the cans
and bottles are high-graded.
Remanufacturing ingenuity
produces new goods from old
residues, the very definition
of a circular economy. We are
moving past the challenges of
aggregation, extraction and
conversion to that last
remanufacturing stage. Once we
have the myriad 'specs' for
this new Making, we're good to
go.
The Week's Top Story
Fetzer
Vineyards to Use Worms and
Microbes to Treat Winery
Wastewater
California based Fetzer
Vineyards, in a move to change
the way US wineries conserve
water, has announced that it
will install the BioFiltro
BIDA® System at its Mendocino
winery.
04/10/2016
The Week's News
CalRecycle
to Consider Organics Grant
Program Criteria at Monthly
Meeting
At its next public meeting on
Tuesday, April 19, 2016, the
California Department of
Resources Recycling and
Recovery (CalRecycle) will
consider proposed eligibility,
scoring, and evaluation process
criteria for the Organics Grant
Program 2016-2017 as announced
last month.
04/08/2016
J.R. Simplot
Will Distribute Cool
Planet's Biocarbon
Agricultural Product in
US
Cool Planet has announced that
the J.R. Simplot Company will
serve as a distributor for Cool
Terra throughout the Western
United States and portions of
the Midwest in agriculture,
turf, nursery, and landscape
markets.
04/08/2016
New
Waste-to-Energy Plant in
Tennessee Will Use CETI
Power
Technology
California based Clean Energy
Technologies, Inc (CETI) has
announced a waste-to-energy
system under construction in
Tennessee that will provide
renewable electricity from
waste material to a municipal
waste water treatment plant.
04/07/2016
DOE
Schedules Webinar on How
Feedstock Type Affects
Biofuels
Conversion
The US Department of Energy
(DOE) has scheduled a webinar
in honor of Earth Week about
its Bioenergy Technology
Office's (BETO) Field-to-Fleet
project and its outcomes to
date on Wednesday, April 20,
1–2 p.m. Eastern Time.
04/07/2016
Green
Biologics Selects Nexeo
Solutions as its US
Distribution
Partner
Green Biologics, Inc, the US
subsidiary of United Kingdom
(UK) based Green Biologics Ltd,
has announced a distribution
agreement with Nexeo Solutions,
a Texas (U.S.) based
distribution company.
04/07/2016
Orineo Voted
'Bio-Based Material of the
Year 2016' By Industry
Peers
Belgium company Orineo was
awarded the prestigious
Bio-based Material of the Year
2016 for its bio-based Touch of
Nature® materials at the 9th
International Conference on
Bio-based Materials in Cologne,
Germany.
04/07/2016
Therma-Flite
Provides Biosolids Drying
System to Wisconsin
Cities
Texas based Therma-Flite has
been awarded a contract to
provide a biosolids drying
system for a Wisconsin sewerage
commission representing a joint
effort by two cities to upgrade
from Class B, to Class A
biosolids of exceptional
quality (EQ).
04/06/2016
Covanta ES
Acquires Material Processing
Facility in Augusta,
Georgia
Covanta has announced that its
subsidiary, Covanta
Environmental Solutions
(Covanta ES), has acquired a
material processing facility in
Augusta, Georgia from US
Ecology, Inc.
04/06/2016
Air Canada
Joins CBSCI to Introduce
Sustainable Aviation Biofuel
to
Airport
Air Canada has announced that
it will participate in Canada's
Biojet Supply Chain Initiative
(CBSCI) and introduce 400,000
litres of sustainable aviation
biofuel (biojet) into a shared
fuel system at a Canadian
airport.
04/06/2016
Air Products
Will Exit Energy-from-Waste
Business and Tees Valley
Projects
Air Products (NYSE: APD) has
announced that the Company will
exit its Energy-from-Waste
(EfW) business and focus on its
core Industrial Gas business.
04/05/2016
The Week's Action
Items
Due
04/22/2016: Comments to CARB
on Draft Emissions
Calculator,
Methods
The California Air Resources
Board (CARB) has published a
Draft Quantification
Methodology (QM) and Draft GHG
Emissions Reduction Calculator
for assessing FY 2015-16
Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund
(GGRF) applications.
04/08/2016
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