Re: [greenyes] Re: Changing World Technologies

[thanal@no.address]

Date sent:      	Thu, 11 Mar 2004 23:09:42 -0500
From:           	Alan Muller <amuller@no.address>
Subject:        	Re: [greenyes] Re: Changing World Technologies
To:             	JRay3@no.address, greenyes@no.address

Dear all,

I am writing from Kerala India where we are running a programme called the Zero 
Waste Kovalam. (www.zerowastekovalam.org)

While we are talking about confusing on combustion, lets not forget that no body is 
blaming combustion.  Its only burning the wrong stuff that is being blamed, and most of 
our materials that are used and thrown out as waste are on the wrong side.  

In our programme, we fought down an incinerator which was to burn tons of waste left 
off by the tourist who visit this beautiful beach.  And instead embarked on the Zero 
waste.  And in the first stage when we implemented a biogas (anaerobic digestor ) plant 
and a Resource Recovery facility for the non-biodegrdagabe waste, we recovered 
something like 2000 dollars worth of fuel gas and another 50 dollars worth of recovered 
material in an year from a small institition alone, which generates some 400 kg of 
garbage per day. So, what would all this translate to for tons of garbage that are 
recklessely being burnt in incinerators ( or called by any other fancy names ) and 
wasted.  

And incinerators are surely not at all the best way to get back fuel, and not worth it on 
the ground, whatever it be on the papers that these companies give out.

sridhar


At 05:42 PM 3/11/2004 -0500, JRay3@no.address wrote:
>Alan and others,
>
>I was trying to point out how mindfully.org was confusing the issue by
>equating depolymerization with incineration. I know the differences very 
>well.
>Several organizations have in my view been confusing the issue by making
>sweeping generalities about waste combustion in any form, such as
>www.mindfully.org and GAIA at www.no-burn.org
>Combustion will provide the great majority of our power for the forseeable
>future, so we should advocate for the least harmful methods of combustion
>available.

I don't have a lot of energy for debating this, but I looked around the 
mindfully.org site for a few minutes.   That site has articles on both 
sides of the issue, including one in which a gullible reporter calls 
garbage incinerators "transformation 
stations." 
(http://www.mindfully.org/Air/2003/Incinerator-Waste-to-Energy5may03.htm).

As I, Bob Krasowski and others keep pointing out, the incinerator people 
are always coming up with new terminology for the same nasty old stuff.

Also note that the EPA has apparently given ten million $ in grants for the 
CWT turkey whatever-it-is and other such projects.

Green Delaware has never taken the position that there should never be any 
burner of any kind anywhere on earth.  And we try to be reasonably 
open-minded.    But garbage burner proposals never stand up to 
scrutiny.  If one has a very uniform, well-characterized waste stream it 
might be possible to burn it very carefully.  But in that case there are 
always better things to do with it.  The question here seems to be whether 
CWT is really offering a "better thing" or whether they are just offering 
some sort of combustion system.

We certainly disagree with this:

>"Combustion will provide the great majority of our power for the forseeable
>future, so we should advocate for the least harmful methods of combustion
>available."

This is a bit like saying that since the death penalty is here to stay, we 
should all advocate for the most humane methods of execution.

Alan Muller