Environment Forum
Global environmental challenges
From illegal landfill to natural urban oasis
The green hill in the distance looks to be natural but then you think “hang on, this is Dallas. There aren’t any hills here … ”
The hill, in fact, masks what was once an illegal landfill filled with cast off debris. The garbage now lies beneath a thick clay cap to prevent the methane, a greenhouse gas on steroids, from seeping out. Natural grass has been planted on the top.
Nearby fish-filled ponds mark the gateway to a 6,000 acre ecosystem which is the largest urban hardwood forest in the United States. And it is all just minutes away from historically disadvantaged and mostly black neighborhoods on the south side of Dallas.
I had been meaning to visit the Trinity River Audubon Center, a partnership between the city of Dallas the National Audubon Society, since it opened in October of last year. I got a gap the other day and it was an eye-opening visit.
Basically, the city and the green group are transforming a wasteland into an urban oasis on the banks of the Trinity River which is a magnet for bird life and mammals such as beaver and white-tailed deer.
This is a “good news” green story that shines a spotlight on many different issues: the environmental costs of poverty (no illegal landfills in affluent white suburbs); the range of sources for the greenhouse gases linked to global warming (people think of cars and power plants, not garbage sites);and our ability to reverse environmental damage.
Compost — or else! San Fran’s not just asking
No more Mr. Nice Green! San Francisco passed what it called the first mandatory requirement to throw carrot peels, moldy bread and other icky compostable material into separate bins in order to improve recycling. Total recycling would rise to 90 percent from a current 72 percent if all of the paper and scraps currently in the garbage were put in the right cans, the city said.
Mayor Gavin Newsom soft-pedaled the sticky side of the situation (although who wants any carrot in this story?). There is a $100 cap for fines on residences and small businesses, and the main goal is public awareness, he said in a statement.
The picture, by Reuters’ Daniel Aguilar, is of a dump in Mexico City, which is facing a crisis on where to put its garbage.
Its very simple either we recycle or we run out of resources while we die in our own filth.
Canadian company wants trash to fuel your car
Enerkem Inc, a private company based in Montreal, wants to kill two birds with one stone — fuel your car while getting paid for reducing trash mountains. They say they can do it by using garbage and biomass as feedstocks for plants that make second generation ethanol and other advanced biofuels
Vincent Chornet, the president and chief executive, said that Enerkem and GreenField Ethanol has reached a deal with the city of Edmonton to take its trash. “They will pay us to take it away from them,” he said. ”Fifty percent of what we put in trash is not recyclable.” That plant should start making fuel in 2011.
Edmonton will pay less than it normally would for hauling away trash, Chornet said, but he wouldn’t say how much his company is making per ton for taking away the smelly stuff.
On Thursday Enerkem announced plans to take the process to the United States, which, it is probably safe to say, has bigger waste bounties. My city New York, for example, exports tens of thousands of tons per day of trash to states as far away as Ohio on trains and barges.
Enerkem, which is financed by U.S. venture capital firms Rho Ventures, Braemar Energy Ventures and others, plans to build and operate a plant in Pontotoc, Mississippi. Under an agreement, the Three Rivers Solid Waste Management Authority of Mississippi will supply nearly 190,000 tons per year of unsorted municipal solid waste for the plant to help make some 20 million gallons per year of fuel.
Chornet says the beauty of using trash as a feedstock is that small decentralized plants can make fuel close to where it is needed, which could one day, perhaps, trim reliance on big oil refineries for fuel.
The company plans to gasify the garbage at 400 degrees Centigrade, or higher depending on the feedstock, and then convert the gas into liquid fuels. Once the process gets started, the trash itself fuels the plant. Like the process of burning coal, the gasified garbage leaves behind ash waste, which would have to be dealt with through landfilling or as an ingredient for concrete.
I agree with the bit of monitoring it. Even best plans and projections don’t always guarantee success in the long run. Too bad they can’t bring back chain gangs…let the folks who dumped the stuff get 20 years walking in circles chained together picking up anything anybody else just dumps. And like the residents in the area, they get no warning or protective gear.