Water, Waste, Energy and Landfill Management

-- Quote of the Day --

“Civil engineering has not changed since the Roman era… they would pull water… and then they’d run it to the city, flush the city and send it down the river, and that really hasn’t changed much. …The solids are now captured… so the goal is to get that back onto the land. For example in the city of San Diego … a biosolid treatment plant… they squeeze all the water out of it they take as much energy out of that they can through anaerobic digestion – put that energy to electricity, and then, unfortunately they are then using it as alternate organic cover for their landfill.
…If we can shorten that cycle to using the materials closer to home (and building healthy soil) …will take less energy and be more sustainable. (There is this) economic piece to the circular (aspect of sustainability) …Compost is both carbon and the nutrients, if we are going to tie up those nutrients… we need to follow the carbon, where is the carbon going to go – in the soil, water or air? …We have 4 separate boards to manage air, water, solids and energy… we need to integrate our activities a lot better.
…I think there is going to be both market and policy competition between whether we use that energy to feed our energy system – or whether we use that energy to feed the bugs and the soil. … Particularly now that we move into bio-fuel… clearly there are some regularity issues on that. We tend to fall on the side of soil, because that is what our organization is all about. …Green fuel is from plants, in addition to solar and wind. …bio-fuel (Natural gas, alcohol, ethanol, cellulo-ethanal, methane…) can be produced from plants and waste material (compost & bio-solids).
…There is no magic bullet when it comes to soil, energy and food.”
~ Dan Noble 11/06/08

This quote was taken from an interview with Dan Noble on the Conscious Discussions talk radio show - which aired on Nov 6, 2008. To access the archived interview at your convenience, simply click on the hyper-linked show title here or look for the link to the right side of this blog.

-- Eco-News --

From the Zero Waste San Diego Group:

“A major cause of odors in landfills is organic matter decomposing under anaerobic conditions. Gases form because of the small amounts of oxygen and moisture inside the landfill. One gas, methane, is very unstable. Methane is prevalent at disposal sites. The deadly gas is colorless and explosive.” “…These anaerobic conditions can create hydrogen sulfide, mercaptans, ammonia, amines, volatile fatty acids, and other reduced-sulfur compounds”

Find Dave & Lillian Brummet, excerpts from their books, information about their radio shows & free resources & articles at www.brummet.ca