Turning trash into treasure
It's said that one person's trash is another person's treasure.
This often applies to discarded items that others find have real value. But it's not just those discarded trinkets that can benefit others.
When trash like food scraps and other refuse can be turned into a fuel that powers machines or reduces solid waste, it can be a win-win situation.
An innovation called Micro Auto Gasification System, or MAGS, is the world's first solid waste treatment appliance. The technology is being developed by the U.S. Navy in conjunction with Terragon Environmental Technologies, Inc. and the Canadian Department of Defense for use in military applications and isolated habitats.
How the process works is that paper, cardboard, wood, plastic chemicals, food, cloth, oils, grease, biological material, animal waste, agricultural waste, and sludge are loaded into the treatment appliance. MAGS can process up to 40 kg (88 pounds) of as-received waste. The unit then powers a thermal process that "cooks"the waste in a high-temperature, low-oxygen environment, which essentially kills all organic material in the waste.
The remaining material is a fuel gas dubbed "syngas." MAGS uses this fuel to run itself. Any residual waste in the unit like carbon is sequestered as a product called bio-char. It is a carbonaceous material that can be safely placed in landfills or used as a soil additive.
Terragon says that a MAGS unit can treat the waste generated by a community of up to 500 people in a single day by reducing the volume by 95 percent.
A system of waste management such as this can be beneficial in many applications. Ships that remain at sea for long durations of time, isolated communities without waste-treatment options, resorts, hospitals, and other situations where waste cannot be transferred to other facilities can use a MAGS unit to get garbage under control. The company has also developed strategies for liquid waste treatment that is married with MAGS into one product. The goal in all of Terragon's innovations is to sequester carbon to reduce the release of greenhouse gases and other pollutants that can critically harm the environment.
While the technology is still in its infancy, the idea of harvesting energy from trash can have very practical applications beyond isolated markets.
Some information indicates that enough trash to fill garbage trucks stretching from the Earth to the moon is generated every year in the United States alone. In America, 55 percent of waste is buried in landfills and most garbage decomposes very slowly.
Relying on this garbage as fuel solves the problem of overflowing landfills and the dependence on fossil fuels. Also, the technology protects the environment in a number of other ways, especially by reducing ground and water contamination. (Although precautions are taken to protect surrounding groundwater, air and rain from landfill contamination, few people can argue that landfills are the most efficient method of waste management.)
An offshoot of the green movement has been finding innovative ways to handle many of the problems of waste management around the world. MAGS is still being developed, but could prove an important part of the waste management industry in the years to come.