Michael Theroux's Teru Talk addresses matters pertaining to waste conversion to renewable energy, biofuel,s and other bio-based products for resource recovery.
July 2013 news and other matters on waste conversion to renewable energy, biofuels and other bioproducts for resource recovery. Last update: 07/31/2013
January 4, 2016 Newsletter Volume VI, Issue 1. Think backward along the path of the Circular Economy to build out the supply chains, and the market draw will follow.
January 18, 2016 Newsletter Volume VI, Issue 3. Envision the ingredients of our purchased goods making it all the way back to become new goods, and that circular pathway has to include both the product, and the wrapper.
January 25, 2016 Newsletter Volume VI, Issue 4. We need to consider both the environmental and the social impacts of every product made, used, un-made, remade, and used again.
February 8, 2016 Newsletter Volume VI, Issue 6. We must constantly re-define what the buzz-words mean in our own business endeavors: ‘Corporate Responsibility’, ‘Sustainability’ and for that matter, ‘Circular Economy’.
February 15, 2016 Newsletter Volume VI, Issue 7. Like magic, bright folks have figured out how to unmake plastic and turn plastic waste back into useful stuff, and back into Business.
March 7, 2016 Newsletter Volume VI, Issue 10. Without waste conversion, we'll not only run out of new resources, we'll run out of places to put all the old stuff.
March 23, 2016 Newsletter Volume VI, Issue 12. There are some things that you can count on: you can count on an overwhelming, continuous supply of Trash.
April 4, 2016 Newsletter Volume VI, Issue 13. Resource recovery can be more economical and environmentally sane than pillaging for virgin materials, but it takes work and doesn’t happen by accident.
April 18, 2016 Newsletter Volume VI, Issue 15. Let's start putting in local tools to convert local waste back into local raw materials. Our recycling bucket is full.
May 2, 2016 Newsletter Volume VI, Issue 17.We have become so enthused and inspired by implementing our on-going move of the Teru Talk headquarters that we have taken on a much larger task: moving our data.
January 5, 2015 Newsletter Volume V, Issue 1. Financial tidbits such as those that might come from off-set protocols and tariffs just improve the balance sheet.
February 2, 2015 Newsletter Volume V, Issue 5. If you still insist on pointing fingers, follow the Money. Or, you could just get busy and correct the problem.
March 2, 2015 Newsletter Volume V, Issue 9. The California Energy Commission's IEPR recognizes that converting waste into energy is a primary key to recovery of resources, the environment, and our economy.
March 9, 2015 Newsletter Volume V, Issue 10. Well executed municipal waste management is a beautiful thing to behold (trust me on this one). Add waste conversion and we're ecstatic.
April 20, 2015 Newsletter Volume V, Issue 16. If that circular economy hat-trick can be done smartly, cleanly, does it really matter how it is accomplished?
May 18, 2015 Newsletter Volume V, Issue 20. It takes both proper tools and competent operation to accomplish clean, economical waste-sourced resource recovery.
May 26, 2015 Newsletter Volume V, Issue 21. When nothing else can be recycled from a region's waste, at least recover heat and power. It's much better than sending it to the dump.
June 29, 2015 Newsletter Volume V, Issue 26. No, it's NOT OK to throw a fit and stop that resource recovery here, only to have that burden and its solution happen elsewhere.
September 14, 2015 Newsletter Volume V, Issue 37. It takes a multi-feedstock, multi-tech, multi-product resource recovery park to close the gap in the Circular Economy.
September 21, 2015 Newsletter Volume V, Issue 38. Food waste is messy. Mixed into dry municipal solid waste, it’s almost impossible to separate and recover.
October 5, 2015 Newsletter Volume V, Issue 40. We need a standardized framework to achieve an acceptable, dependable, “end-of-waste” status for the recyclates we generate.
October 19, 2015 Newsletter Volume V, Issue 41. That constant flow doesn’t quit just because a whats-it in your magic trash discombobulator comes unhinged.
October 26, 2015 Newsletter Volume V, Issue 42. Green-washing is a term used to describe a cloak of environmentalism thrown over a less than green practice.
November 16, 2015 Newsletter Volume V, Issue 45. The law does not say that Recycling means to just separate out the easily salable items and have somebody else sell them off in bulk.
December 7, 2015 Newsletter Volume V, Issue 48. Eco-friendly waste conversion systems scaled for your home and business will become as commonplace as toilets.
December 14, 2015 Newsletter Volume V, Issue 49. Methane capture is the Big Thing, and a lot of waste conversion for resource recovery is focused on this short-term pollutant target.
December 28, 2015 Newsletter Volume V, Issue 51. We have these ready-made local mountains of raw materials, just waiting to be mined. Right now, we call them Landfills.
May 5, 2014 Newsletter Volume IV, Issue 18. To put the choice of Highest and Best Use into daily practice, we have to intercept resources before they become waste.
July 7, 2014 Newsletter Volume IV, Issue 27. Proper recycling must recover the raw resources from the things we throw away, and cycle them back into the marketplace
July 21, 2014 Newsletter Volume IV, Issue 29. There is a market niche for super-clean modules of all scales that can address conversion of all sorts of waste.
October 20, 2014 Newsletter Volume IV, Issue 42. We need Business to Business (B2B) synergy, networks of local, community scale waste conversion tools that put people to work and return resources to that same region.
December 1, 2014 Newsletter Volume IV, Issue 48. We need smart waste conversion technologies and smart policies that include training for managers and operators. Having one without the other is just dumb.
December 22, 2014 Newsletter Volume IV, Issue 51. And who's watching Clean Conversion? …that would be, us. Teru Talk's heart-felt wish for our planet's health. A Christmas poem.
January 14, 2013 Newsletter Volume III, Issue 2. What does the rare earth metals shortage have to do with waste conversion and conversion technologies?
February 4, 2013 Newsletter Volume III, Issue 5. It always comes back to the Money. If you have to manage something that costs you dearly on an on-going basis and you can figure out a way to turn that liability into an asset, you get a double economic bump for the better.
February 11, 2013 Newsletter Volume III, Issue 6. If we know what is happening to the waste we collect, sort, separate and sell as recyclable goodies, we can figure out how to do the whole process better.
February 18, 2013 Newsletter Volume III, Issue 7. The approach to waste conversion must be feedstock driven, technology neutral. Otherwise, agencies and regulators are trying to herd cats.
February 25, 2013 Newsletter Volume III, Issue 8. The path to Recover raw materials for making more goods is convoluted and fraught with misinformation.
March 4, 2013 Newsletter Volume III, Issue 9. The Circular Economy concept bets that Molecular Recovery is a Higher and Better Use for waste than just heat and power.
April 22, 2013 Newsletter Volume III, Issue 16. Let's start the next phase of the Recycling Movement, and focus on building the recyclate reprocessing infrastructure right near where the wastes are generated. Call it: Earth Day 2013!
May 13, 2013 Newsletter Volume III, Issue 19. Community-scale waste conversion: that's the idea that one size doesn't fit all and cleaning up our mess where we make it makes sense.
July 8, 2013 Newsletter Volume III, Issue 27. Two decades ago, it was the lack of Technology that posed the most difficulty. Now we have clean energy systems that don't depend on the bubbling crude.
August 5, 2013 Newsletter Volume III, Issue 31. humans, and their stubborn determination to cling to entrenched precepts about what is and what isn't acceptable, based not on today's knowledge, but on what they knew a decade ago.
August 12, 2013 Newsletter Volume III, Issue 32. Recognizing that someone else's by-products are a problem for them and a feedstock for you provides the perfect Business Opportunity.
September 3, 2013 Newsletter Volume III, Issue 35. With everything at our "disposal", conversion of the stuff we throw away back into the stuff we need should rank high.
September 30, 2013 Newsletter Volume III, Issue 39. Let us clasp our hands and stand in awe of the mighty machine that makes this Legislative Sausage, year after year, after year …
December 9, 2013 Newsletter Volume III, Issue 49. When is a waste not a waste? It is all too easy to go from waste-sourced materials to resource and back to waste.
June 4, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 23
MRF First! A "MRF" is a Materials Recovery Facility, which is a fancy name for a garbage pick-apart station. Before we send trash elsewhere, before we decide what else to do with the stuff we toss, we try to send it through a MRF first.
July 16, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 29
It doesn't have to continue; California can become a self-supporting machine any time the political will and the public consciousness say it's time. Pull the Jobs back into the state, make sure the Materials remain here long enough to be "cleaned, treated and reconfigured" for re-entry into California's own marketplace.
September 10, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 37. Our country's got such a Mother Hen over-protective attitude, not just in our laws, but in our whole social approach to governing. That certainly extends into blocking common sense for resource recovery from waste.
October 8, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 41. No disrespect intended to England, but there are certain similarities between London and Los Angeles County, and much that they can learn from each other about waste management and resource recovery.
November 26, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 48. The waste conversion industrial sector right now is showing strong signs of clumping, bundling, and dog-piling, all technical forms of aggregation, and we've gathered up a number of examples in this week's News.
December 3, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 49. For the World of Waste Conversion, we can smile at the growing global recognition that intercepting discards and turning them back into raw materials locally makes more sense than brokering waste overseas.
December 17, 2012 Newsletter Volume II, Issue 51. Not one forest fire has applied for a permit, nor would they have stopped if they'd been denied permission.
TERU Focus Report on the Interagency Forest Working Group's trip to the south end of the Lake Tahoe Basin for "What We've Learned" discussions walking through the devastated area of the Angora Fire of 2007. 10/15/2010
"AB 32 and the Waste Management Sector" by Michael Theroux. California Recycling's Place in Greenhouse Gas Reduction. June 2013 Reference to commentary added 07/12/2013
Previous Articles by Michael Theroux archived on Teru Talk on waste conversion to renewable energy, biofuels and other bioproducts for resource recovery.
Discussion of the difference between "dirty" incineration and "clean" conversion, a bright line not yet clearly defined in laymen’s terms and therefore not commonly accepted, by Michael Theroux.
Document files available for download on Teru Talk associated with waste conversion to renewable energy, biofuels and other bioproducts for resource recovery.
This site is intended to Incite Dialogue about all matters related to Waste Conversion for Resource Recovery. Please join me.
Michael Theroux
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"I've looked through your site, Terutalk - What a great resource. Your action items and due dates are particularly helpful." Su Anne Huang - Market Manager, Landfills FlexEnergy, Inc
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