Day 87: On Earth Day, let’s talk about trash, man

I once knew a man who had done very well in the garbage business. I don’t know the details, but I do know he operated our city’s trash-pickup services (and grabbed the contracts in outlying, multiple-county areas as well).

 I lost count of the number of fancy cars he drove.

Once I asked him: Why don’t we recycle here? He hemmed and hawed just a little, but basically said it comes down to the bottom line: it costs too much. And I said something like, ‘yeah, but it would keep a lot out of the landfills, wouldn’t it — could there be an ethical benefit?’” And he said, “trash is money,” and he laughed as if he’d made a joke.

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The Minard Construction logo; click on it to visit Jack's site.

Fast forward to this afternoon, when I got a call from my brother. Both of my brothers are in the construction business; this brother in recent years has been building high-end homes, often on the beach. 

Jack’s business has always been green in the sense that he uses highly energy-efficient products in construction, and he’s consistently shown an interest when I’ve written about green technologies like residential wind and solar. But lately, he’s been taking a step back and considering how to implement a bigger-picture, Earth-friendly approach in his own work.

In some ways, he’s frustrated. Last week, he went to bidding meeting with other construction professionals. Sixteen demolitions of various commercial and residential properties are up for grabs in Pensacola, Florida, where, potentially, perfectly good materials will be ripped off or crushed and carted away to a landfill.

In order to reuse the materials, “you’d have to go in there and take it apart instead of tearing it down,” he said. “But the client is looking for the lowest bid.”

Now, my brother is getting involved with solutions.

First, a rough characterization of the problem.

On the one hand, it’s just good sense to consider how much space we want taken up by landfills, and how much we’re willing to foul our collective nest.

The United States has more than 3,000 active landfills and at least 10,000 old municipal landfills, with many leaking or at risk for leaking toxins into the nearby soil and water supplies (sources here and here). According to the EPA, landfills are the number one human-caused source of methane, a greenhouse gas. An American Geophysical Union conference abstract offers some details. The carbon dioxide numbers aren’t as alarming; emissions from the burning of fossil fuels for electricity and transportation make 16 million tons from landfills look pretty insignificant.

On the construction side, there are some solutions; my brother has been seeking them out. He’s been talking to representatives from Habitat for Humanity. They’ll salvage house parts in good shape — like doors and windows — for use in their stores. 

I may have actually helped him find an outlet for the pieces they won’t take. I recently struck up a new acquaintance on the social networking site Twitter. Ben Haber (follow him at @bhaber602) responded to a query I’d put out for Earth Day post ideas. His father is the CEO for a company called IST Energy, which has manufactured an on-site, compact waste-to-energy machine called the GEM.

“It can convert three tons of trash into energy through a [zero-emissions] process every day,” wrote a clearly enthusiastic Haber, in an email. “This system eliminates the need to transport trash to a landfill, and one system can reduce greenhouse gases by 540 tons every year.”

Haber suggested this video link by way of explanation (and this slide show for more details), but I enjoyed this short news clip about the GEM from a Boston TV station.

Naturally, I was excited when my brother let me know he’d written Haber today, to express interest in the GEM. 

I just hope solutions like these continue to intervene in our country’s trash stream and divert it to a better, safer and more ethical endpoint.

And although I have nothing personal against the trash entrepreneur, I won’t be too heartbroken if he has to give up one or two of his cars.