Waste

Review: Plan C by Pat Murphy and Small is Possible by Lyle Estill

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Pat Murphy’s Plan C is a rich treasury of practical suggestions for reducing fossil fuel consumption and fostering community cooperation—while Lyle Estill’s Small is Possible is an engrossing portrait of a small Southern town that is already taking these steps

Good organic garbage

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While this misguided attempt to make money off of high gas prices is going on, America for the most part throws its organic garbage into plastic bags that are sent to landfills, where it decays and pollutes ground waters. But what if municipalities across the country passed ordinances requiring homeowners to keep their organic garbage—paper, leaves, yard waste, kitchen scraps, and so on—separate? What if all this garbage was not discarded, but was taken to centers where it was treated with simple enzymes that turn starches into sugars, and those sugars were fermented into ethanol?

An ode to horse manure and other by-products called waste

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Either we must adopt a new attitude toward waste, or, as ecologists and city planners are warning, we will bury ourselves in it. Wastes must be seen as a natural part of the life cycle and food chain; decay is a necessary prelude to life. And if man has, in his infinite wisdom, invented brilliant materials like plastic that will not decay in a suitable length of time, then he must reuse them or go buy an empty planet someplace for a dumping ground.