Din seria “direct intre ochi”, avem un urs brun si un strut african:

O asociatie de protectie a mediului inconjurator a conceput un clip prin care sa atraga atentia asupra poluarii pe care o produc avioanele. Imaginile violente cu ursi polari ce cad din cer si se zdrobesc de cladiri si de asfalt s-au dovedit a fi una dintre cele mai bune metode de a atrage atentia oamenilor.
Realitatea pe care putini o cunosc este aceea ca pentru fiecare pasager, un avion produce o cantitate de gaze cu efect de sera egala cu greutatea unui urs polar…
Ca sa va luminez putin, momentan, capacitatea anuala a aeroportului International Henri Coanda este de 4,5 milioane de pasageri si va ajunge la 6 milioane. Si ca lumina sa fie si mai puternica, filmuletul de mai jos prezinta traficul aerian in 24 de ore pe tot globul.

So, don’t worry, be happy

For years California has courted a reputation as an eco-friendly, green-minded leader, but the state now finds its most basic program of recycling beverage bottles and cans mired in debt and litigation.

Dozens of supermarket recycling sites have shut down recently as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state legislators spar over how to close a massive gap in the program’s budget.   California’s 23-year-old recycling program, managed by the Department of Conservation through fees charged to beverage buyers, has been hurt this year by recession, rising redemption rates and raids of its coffers to help ease the state’s budget woes.

Schwarzenegger and the Democratic-controlled Legislature concede that the program, which collected more than 16 billion beverage containers last year, is in fiscal distress – but each has rejected the other’s solution.  “This is an important program for California and we are currently looking at ways to improve funding in this down economy,” said Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Rachel Arrezola.

Mark Murray of Californians Against Waste, a nonprofit advocacy group, said consumers are going to find it increasingly difficult to recycle their beverage containers.  “The net result is likely to be a drop in the recycling rate,” he said.  Shoppers remain entitled to their nickel or dime deposits for returning glass, plastic or aluminum beverage containers, but many consumers could be forced to drive farther, wait longer or comply with shorter center operating hours.

The number of supermarket parking-lot recyclers has grown gradually in recent years to about 2,100. But two of the largest operators, Tomra Pacific and NexCycle, announced the shutdown of about 90 centers recently, laying off more than 100 workers.  Tomra, which projects losses of $9 million this year, has joined with two other firms to sue the state, seeking to “stop the dismantling” of the program. Exacerbating problems, the scrap value of aluminum cans has plummeted in the past year, and the market for other containers has struggled.

“If consumers can no longer find convenient outlets for recycling used bottles and cans, they are more likely to go back to their old ways of discarding them in landfills – or worse, on streets, beaches and other property,” the lawsuit said.  “This will essentially end the Recycling Program as we have known it,” the suit said.

By law, supermarkets not served by parking-lot recyclers are supposed to either pay the state $100 a day – only one store is doing so – or redeem the containers themselves, but many do not.  In a telephone check of 15 such supermarkets Friday, only six accept empty cans and bottles. 

Many supermarkets are not prepared to pick up the slack from closures of parking-lot recyclers because of the time it would take to count bags of containers and the health and safety implications of doing so where food is sold, said Dave Heylen of the California Grocers Association.

“It’s something that would be quite a hardship,” he said.

Department of Conservation officials declined to discuss Tomra’s lawsuit or allegations of harm. But state officials clearly are not trying to kill the program because both Schwarzenegger and the Democratic-controlled Legislature have tried to intervene, thus far unsuccessfully.

In May, state finance officials projected a $162 million deficit for the program by July 2010, which sparked across-the-board cuts that affected subsidies paid to collection centers but not to consumers who redeem beverages.

Schwarzenegger’s relief proposal focused on targeted cuts and on compressing subsidiary efforts, such as for public education and recycling incentives, into a new program of competitive grants.

The Legislature rejected Schwarzenegger’s plan during budget talks and crafted its own proposal, Senate Bill 402, which would have relied on expansion rather than contraction to bolster the program.

In vetoing SB 402, Schwarzenegger said that consumers would have been hurt by provisions to double the fee on 20-ounce sodas, from 5 to 10 cents, and to expand the kinds of beverages and types of containers accepted.

“I recognize that without this bill there is an immediate hardship,” his veto message said, but “the lasting effects of this bill are far worse.”

As a stopgap, Schwarzenegger said he would order emergency regulations to require beverage distributors to submit payments to the state every two months, not three, which is expected to generate a one-time infusion of about $100 million.

California’s recycling program partly has been a victim of its own success, because each redeemed container takes a nickel or dime from funds for subsidies, outreach or operational funds.

Redemption rates have risen from 67 percent in 2007 to 74 percent in 2008, and to 85 percent for the first six months of 2009.

Meanwhile, beverage sales from January to June were 325 million containers less – about 3 percent – than for the same time span in 2008.

Bottom line? Projected revenue has dropped by about $74 million the past year, from $1.15 billion to a projected $1.086 billion.

But Chuck Riegle of Tomra said the most painful blow was self-inflicted by the state: Politicians have raided recycling coffers, through loans, to help balance the state budget.

Tomra’s suit seeks to force repayment of about $415 million that otherwise would have been used for recycling.

Four times this decade, the state has borrowed beverage funds, most recently during the current fiscal year when more than $99 million was diverted to the state’s general fund.

The deadline for paying back $286 million borrowed in 2002 and 2003 initially was June 2009, but it was extended three years ago to 2013. Only $30 million has been repaid, records show.

In borrowing fee revenue, the state requires that no harm be done to the affected program, yet more than half of this year’s projected $162 million deficit consisted of the $99 million loan to bolster the state’s general fund.

Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association said the multiple raids on recycling funds, the lack of timely repayment and the harm caused to collection centers raise questions about whether fees were spent illegally.

“It changes what otherwise might be characterized as a legitimate fee into a tax of questionable legality,” Coupal said.

State finance spokesman H.D. Palmer disagreed, saying that the program was projected to have an $81 million balance when legislation was signed in February to borrow for the next fiscal year. Changing market conditions made the deficit evident months later, in a May budget revision, Palmer said.

“This is just one example of the dramatic fluctuations we’ve seen in the state’s fiscal picture as a result of the recession,” he said.

Schwarzenegger’s veto message for SB 402 said he supports repaying past loans and banning any future loans from recycling coffers to the state’s general fund.

Sources: Fresno Bee and WIH Resource Group

Should you have any questions about this news or general questions about our diversified services, please contact Bob Wallace, Principal & VP of Client Solutions at WIH Resource Group and Waste Savings, Inc. at admin@wihrg.com

Feel free to visit our websites for additional information on our services at: http://www.wihrg.com and http://www.wastesavings.net and our daily blog at http://wihresourcegroup.wordpress.com WIH Resource Group on Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=1150967&trk=anet_ug_hm

 Follow Bob Wallace and WIH Resource Group on Twitter: http://twitter.com/wihresource

Un membru Ebay oferă spre vânzare un craniu de urs al peşterilor, despre care spune că l-ar fi găsit lângă Braşov. Aşa că, dacă sunteţi pasionat de paleontologie şi dispuneţi de 16.500 de dolari, puteţi să îl aveţi chiar în casa voastră!

Ofertantul de pe Ebay spune că acesta este un craniu gigantic de urs al peşterilor, găsit în Munţii Carpaţi, lângă Braşov. Fosila a fost restaurată profesional, se mai spune în anunţ.

Se pare că acest urs avea cântărea aproape o tonă şi trăia în Pleistocen  (acum 42,000- 100,000 ani).

Membru Ebay mai spune că, deşi Guvernul român nu mai permite scoaterea fosilelor de urşi ai peşterilor în afara ţării, el garantează livrarea acestui craniu oriunde în lume, cu tot cu acte de autentificare şi de provenienţă.

It’s been said that the cowboys working the range would pamper their mustangs and often neglect their own comfort for the sake of their workhorses. They made sure that the horses got clean water while the cowboys drank brackish water. The horses were given sweet grass to eat while their riders made do with a cold plate of beans. The cowpokes sacrificed their own well being for the sake of their mounts. And they did so with good reason: Their livelihoods (even their lives) depended on the care of their horses.

The waste industry has its own workhorses, the waste collection vehicles, and they come in various “breeds.” Like the cowboys of old, their riders perform a physically demanding, gritty, unappreciated but absolutely necessary job. Hollywood portrayals notwithstanding, cowboys back in the day were not glamorous; they were workingmen like everyone else. Being a cowboy was a tough way to make a living, something modern waste collectors can appreciate. And like the cowboys of the past, today’s waste collectors need the appropriate mounts with the right capabilities in order to do their jobs.

Basic Types of Vehicles
There are three basics types of waste collection vehicles and three specialized types. Each services a different kind of customer: industrial, residential, recycling, or specialized. The three basic types are classified by the location and manner of their loading operation and include front loaders, rear loaders, and side loaders. The two specialized collection vehicles collect either with a vacuum attachment or with a grappler arm. The third specialized type is classified according to the overall function of recycling.

Front loaders (not to be confused with front-end loaders used for earthmoving and stockpile material management) are used to collect waste from dumpsters that collect and temporarily store debris that is typically generated by businesses, retail operations, restaurants, and industry. These trucks combine a forklift with a waste hopper for containment during transport. As the truck approaches a dumpster, it inserts its fork lift arms into metal loops designed for the purpose and located on either side of the dumpster box. Once secured, the forklift arms lift the box up and over the truck cab, turning it upside down as it goes. The top of the dumpster will fall open and allow its contents to spill into the hopper below. Once emptied, the forklift arms return the now empty dumpster back to its position on the ground. Inside the hopper, the waste is compacted by a “packer blade” that pushes the waste back to the rear of the hopper. This increases its density and opens up more free space for the next load. Trucks that are equipped with “pack and go” hydraulics, have superior operational efficiency since the truck can be compacting waste as it moves to its next pickup, removing delays as the truck would wait motionless until the compaction process was completed.

Rear loaders typically accept residential waste from individual trash cans that are emptied manually into the rear of the truck. These trucks are usually serviced by a small crew consisting of the driver and two or more loaders. They are designed to take and compact smaller individual loads of waste, compared with the large bulk loads handled by the front loaders. Partially automated loading systems are available in addition to manual loading. Waste containers larger than the typical waste cans (often referred to as toters) can be lifted and dumped by an auxiliary loading mechanism. Sometimes this loading mechanism consists of a special grove slot in the truck that is sized to receive a standardized waste container. A chain that tightens and wraps itself around the waste container can then lift and tilt it to empty the contents into the back of the truck. No matter how the waste is loaded, it gets compacted within the truck. This is done by means of a hydraulically powered sweep-and-slide blade that shifts out and down to position itself for compaction and then sweeps the waste forward to the front of the tuck. This action effectively compacts the loaded waste and frees up space in the back end for additional loading.

Automated side loaders are collection trucks that pick up intermediate-size mobile garbage bins. Some models have mechanical arms that can reach out 9 feet from the side of the truck to grab adjacent bins. The arm is operated from within the cab by a joystick and is articulated so that it can be operated around obstacles. This allows the entire waste collection effort to be performed by a single worker instead of the typical driver and one to two loaders required by less-advanced collection vehicles.

Recycling trucks are a kind of specialized vehicle used by standard hauling routes. They are designed to manage source-separated waste, collecting and hauling it to a local multistream (“clean”) materials recovery facility (MRF). However, since most waste collection operations nowadays also include a pickup of source-separated recyclable materials, recycling trucks have become an integral part of the standard waste collection vehicle fleet. No compaction is typically performed in these trucks either, but they do come with multiple (usually four) containers, each of which holds a different kind of source-separated waste.

Pneumatic collection trucks are specialized vehicles equipped with flexible pneumatic tubes controlled and positioned by attached cranes or booms. The engines of these trucks can be used to generate a suction force that applies negative pressure to the mouth of the tube. The tube is positioned over an opening (typically a hole to an underground storage unit) and proceeds to suck up the waste into the holding tank on the back of the truck. The tube’s flexibility allows for effective operation even around nearby obstacles.

Grapple trucks are another type of specialized waste collector used primarily in large-scale industrial and recycling activities. These trucks come equipped with a hydraulically operated boom serviced by a clamshell bucket or an orange-peel grapple. The boom reaches out to an adjacent pile of debris or large and heavy waste items and grabs them with the grappling attachment. The oversized waste is then deposited into a dump container on the back of the truck for hauling offsite. Given the size, weight, and irregularity of the waste handled by grapple trucks, they do not typically compact their waste loads during transit.

Operational Characteristics
Standard waste collection vehicles perform two functions: They haul waste to the final disposal site, and they compact each load of waste to increase its density and reduce overall hauling costs. The municipal solid waste deposited at a landfill has a density of 550 to over 650 pounds per cubic yard (approximately 20 to 25 pounds per cubic foot). This is the result of compaction within the truck during collection operations as the truck’s hydraulic blades compress waste that has a typical density of 10 to 15 pounds per cubic foot at the curbside. The in-vehicle compaction effort should approximately double the density and half the volume of the collected waste. However, these values are rough averages only and can vary considerably given the irregular and heterogeneous nature of municipal solid waste.

Holding capacity varies according to make and type of truck. Effective capacity may be reduced by the use of multiple storage hoppers (as in recycling trucks) or due to the nature of the collection apparatus (as with the pneumatic hose) or the physical characteristics of the waste itself (such as large sized, uncompactable debris managed by grapple trucks). Front-end loaders tend to be larger, with body storage capacities of 30 cubic yards to 40 cubic yards. Rear-end loader capacities range from 11 cubic yards to 31 cubic yards, with 25 cubic yards being typical. Side-loader capacities are somewhat smaller still, from 6 cubic yards to 28 cubic yards.

The operational lifetime of a waste collection vehicle is not that much different than for any other similar truck chassis or vehicle performing similar functions (such as dump trucks). The key to prolonging the life of a waste collection vehicle is to perform regular maintenance and repairs as needed. Like similar trucks in a rough-use environment, special care has to be made to the drive trains in general and the transmissions in particular. Aside from the accumulated effects of constant stopping and starting along the collection route, the only real difficult operational environment for a waste collection truck is at the landfill itself. Judging by the extensive resale market for waste collection vehicles, a properly maintained truck can expect an extensive operational lifetime (often for more than a decade or two). But as the saying goes: “It ain’t the years, it’s the mileage.”

Typical capital costs vary with the type of waste collection vehicle being acquired. Standard vehicles managing commingled municipal solid waste can cost from $110,000 to $140,000 per truck for manual rear loaders or $115,000 to $140,000 per truck for mechanically operated front loaders and side loaders. Recycling trucks with the standard four separate waste compartments can run from $120,000 to $140,000 per truck (all costs from Handbook of Solid Waste Management, Kreith and Tchobanoglous, 2002; with costs adjusted to the Engineering News Record Construction Cost Index of 6,500).

The operations and maintenance costs can vary considerably, depending on the length of the collection routes, the number of stops made along the route, and the tonnage collected on each route. It isn’t the continuous running of the truck that causes wear and tear; it’s the repetitive stops and starts required by waste collection operations. These are what wear down the brakes, transmission, et cetera. Annual O&M costs are measured in terms of dollars per ton each year. Operating costs also include the labor costs associated with the driver and the loaders (for non-automated collection vehicles). Typical O&M costs for collecting commingled municipal solid waste range from $50 to $70 per ton. Being more labor intensive with the handling requirements for multiple wastestreams, the collection of source-separated recyclable materials can vary from $100 to $140 per ton.

There is an old saying in the waste industry that “You don’t make money picking waste up; you make money by putting it back down again.” Given the labor-intensive requirements of waste collection operations (even with automated loaders) versus the capital-intensive requirements of landfill construction and operations, it is easy to see why this is so. The costs of collecting and hauling wastes can be determined in a relatively straightforward manner (e.g., truck miles or labor hours) and vary mostly with population density. The more densely populated the area being serviced by a waste collection vehicle fleet, the lower the O&M costs due to less wasted transit time spent traveling between stops. Operations at the landfill where the waste is disposed are unique in that they combine relatively high upfront capital costs (associated with permitting and constructing the landfill itself) and relatively low operating costs. Therefore, it is often best to treat the two operations as separate cost centers for the purposes of accounting.

Major Makes and Models
One of the biggest names in heavy-duty trucks, Mack Trucks, has an extensive line of waste collection vehicles. The design of its TerraPro Series is based on the successful MR and LE Series, with an emphasis on operator comfort and ergonomically designed workflow to maximize productivity. The flexible design of the TerraPro Series can accommodate front-loader, side-loader, and rear-loader applications. Equipped with a diesel particulate filter, the TerraPro series runs cleaner than its predecessors. The TerraPro Cabover model is the industry’s leading seller and is augmented by the versatile Low Entry model. Designed for rugged use, the Cabover optimizes maneuverability with a small turning radius. It comes equipped with a 300-horsepower engine delivering more than 1,200 foot-pounds of torque to an eight-speed transmission.

Mack’s Low Entry waste collection vehicle is the result of comprehensive customer research and engineering redesign of traditional waste collection concepts. Its design combines an in-cab control Link with a back-of-cab body link system serving as quick connection, bodybuilder interfaces. This allows for flexibility in body installation, allowing for the use of side-loader or rear-loader systems. Its 300-horsepower engine delivers over 1,200 foot-pounds of torque to a six-speed transmission.

In an industry dedicated to protecting human health and the environment, it’s surprising that more manufacturers don’t “go green.” Well that is exactly what Volvo has done with its new Volvo FE Hybrid waste collection vehicle. Volvo plans to put this newly developed diesel-electric hybrid into full production later this year. Waste collection vehicles constantly stop and start as they make their way around collection routes. In doing so, they become big wasters of fuel as they sit around idling while the waste is being loaded. Volvo’s simple hybrid design includes a 320-horsepower diesel engine with a 120-kW lithium-ion electric battery and motor. The electric motor can power the truck up to speeds of 12 miles per hour and will receive energy recharges every time the truck hits its brakes. Initial estimates indicate that the new trucks will use 20% less fuel with a proportional reduction in emissions.

In step with Volvo is Peterbilt’s (a division of PACCAR Inc.) new hydraulic hybrid Model 320 HLA, equipped with hydraulic launch assist (HLA) technology developed by the Eaton Corp. HLA works by recovering up to 75% of the energy normally lost to waste heat while braking. This system captures braking energy and stores it as pressurized hydraulic fluid in an onboard accumulator, instead of an eclectic battery. The fluid is then used to help propel the truck when the driver gets it back under way. Not only can the compressed fluid drive the vehicle at low speeds, it can also provide an 18% improvement in acceleration efficiencies. Early estimates indicate that the reductions in emissions and fuel consumption by the Model 320 are significant. Furthermore, the use of a hydraulic hybrid system results in a 50% reduction in annual brake realignment maintenance requirements. “The Model 320 HLA is an ideal environmental option for refuse applications,” says Bill Jackson, Peterbilt general manager and PACCAR vice president. “Dramatic improvements in fuel economy, reductions in emissions, and lower maintenance costs spotlight the Peterbilt Model 320 Hydraulic Hybrid as the environmentally responsible, fuel-efficient solution for municipal and residential solid waste transportation fleets. These fleets operate in some of the most demanding of truck applications, often making 800 to 1,200 stops per day on collection routes.”

Peterbilt’s traditional Model 320 is ergonomically designed for driver comfort. A removable three-frame cross-member allows for ease of service. Power trains are available in either front-mounted or transmission-driven configurations. Optional frame liners are available for heavier applications (like hauling concrete and bric-a-brac from construction-and-demolition debris. It offers a full range of axle selections in single, tandem, or tri-drive configurations, plus a full complement of tag and pusher axle option. The Model 320 is available in a variety of configurations with a full range of options for the refuse, construction, and inner-city hauling markets. It comes equipped with a 306- to 470-horsepower engine delivering power to an 8- or 13-speed transmission. The various combinations of options allows for customized applications for specific operations.

International’s Durastar waste collection vehicles are designed and built for simplicity and endurance with minimal downtime. The integrated wiring design of its Diamond Logic electrical system utilizes 40% less wiring than standard waste truck electrical systems. This reduces the need for maintenance and the potential for repair. Well-planned, synchronized service intervals further reduce maintenance costs. Durastar’s MaxxForce DT engine provides up to 9% to 13% improvement in fuel economy. This fuel-injected V6 engine provides the industry’s best combination of horsepower and torque.

Freightliner’s Business Class M2 series of waste collection trucks provides flexible configurations based on four models. These trucks are designed to support a wide variety of bodies and chassis-mounted equipment. This can come with MBE900 engines that can deliver up to 350 horsepower, and with wheelbases that provide a tight 55-degree wheel cut for ease of maneuverability. The MS models can come with either manual or automatic transmissions from Mercedes-Benz, Eaton Fuller, or Allison, along with Freightliner’s Smart Shift option. The multiplex wiring system reduces the number of wires by nearly 50%, and comes with color-coding and ServiceLink diagnostic tools for ease of maintenance and repair. The most versatile of these models is the M2 106V, providing front engine power-train operation housed in front frame extensions. These frame extensions come in increments of 6 inches, 12 inches, or 24 inches.

The Crane Carrier Corp. (CCC) provides both a packaged front loader (PFL) and a packaged side loader (PSL) model waste collection vehicle. Utilizing a Cummins ISC-260 engine delivering 258–800 horsepower to an Allison transmission, the PSL model carries waste storage bodies ranging in size from 25 cubic yards to 37 cubic yards. It is built on the company’s standard low-entry tilt chassis.

As the only ISO 9000–certified domestic refuse body manufacturer in America, Heil provides a full range of refuse collection vehicles (front loaders, rear loaders, side loaders, and recyclers). Its front loaders come with a patented clamp-on arm that reduces maintenance by 70% and comes standard on its Half Pack and Half Pack Sierra front loaders. The Sierra is a lightweight version of the standard Half Pack, with all of the features and performance characteristics of the Half Pack but with 13% less gross body weight. The 40-cubic-yard Half Pack Sierra weighs just 16,700 pounds versus 19,300 pounds for the same size standard Half Pack body. Both bodies offer payloads up to 1,200 pounds per cubic yard, a packer cycle time of 22 to 26 seconds, and arm cycle times of 18 to 20 seconds. Rear loaders are represented by Heil’s Formula series trucks (4000, 4060 SB, and 5000). They come in a variety of sizes from 11 to 32 yards, with an optional narrow body version also available. The SB is a split-body model with a dual tailgate refuse or recycling rear loader. It has separate compartments and independent unloading capability.

A greater diversity is provided in Heil’s side loaders. The original Square Body is the loader designed for Class 7 and Class 8 tucks ranging in size form 18 to 33 cubic yards. The Durapack is a high-compaction version with somewhat higher capacity ranging from 26 to 33 yards. With its exceptionally long-reach arm, Heil’s Rapid Rail is the company’s original model automated side loader. The Starr system is a trailer version of the Rapid Rail with a very small turning radius, and the Co-Collector is a split-body version. For designated routes where full-size collection vehicles cannot go (small alleys and narrow roads), Heil has its Retriever class of small side loaders. For recycling application, Heil provides the Recycle 2000. With its two-commodity compaction recycling body for tandem trucks, it is loaded from side-mounted buckets.

McNeilus, a manufacturer of concrete trucks as well as refuse trucks, provides a complete ensemble of rear, front, and side loaders. The company’s front loaders come in the matched Atlantic and Pacific models. The Atlantic has AR-450 abrasion-resistant sidewalls and an arm capacity of 10,000 pounds. The Pacific is designed to meet tougher weight laws out on the West Coast. The company’s line of automated side loaders greatly increases waste collection operational efficiencies. A more flexible version is the Manual/Automated side loader that also allows for manual rear loading. The McNeilus Standard rear loader has a packing cycle of only 16 seconds, significantly increasing the speed of operations. The Tag Axle version has the rear axle built into the tailgate, creating better weight distribution to all three axles. The Heavy Duty version is suitable for large loads and commercial waste pickups. The XC Extra Compaction is the extreme limit of waste compaction capabilities, allowing for more tonnage per load of waste. The large-scale vehicles are augmented by the cost effective Metro-Pak and the smaller, more agile McNeilus M5.

Autocar LLC builds and supports Class 8 LCF refuse trucks. Running both on diesel and on natural gas, the Autocar E3 Advanced Hydraulic Hybrid Drive has the best overall strength-to-weight ratio in the industry. Equipped with a Cummins 345-horsepower engine that delivers 1,150 foot-pounds of torque, the E3 has a wide range of vehicle and body configurations. The company’s new E3 Hybrid stores energy from braking and provides 50% fuel savings and reduced emissions.

GS Products delivers a family of mobile solid waste and recycling equipment and highly specialized collection equipment, including its MP-8000 Sideloader, 6000 Side Dump, 5000 Top Loader, and 3000 End Dump. Based on proven design concepts and readily available parts, its goal is to produce durable, easy-to-maintain machines.

Sources: MSW Management Magazine and WIH Resource Group

Should you have any questions about this news or general questions about our diversified services, please contact Bob Wallace, Principal & VP of Client Solutions at WIH Resource Group and Waste Savings, Inc. at admin@wihrg.com

Feel free to visit our websites for additional information on our services at: http://www.wihrg.com and http://www.wastesavings.net and our daily blog at http://wihresourcegroup.wordpress.com

WIH Resource Group on Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=1150967&trk=anet_ug_hm

Follow Bob Wallace and WIH Resource Group on Twitter: http://twitter.com/wihresource

Most recently, WIH Resource Group has been contacted and retained by a range of public and private sector clients to assist in performing wastebyrail feasibility studies, facility siting studies, waste generator radius market studies and to conduct financial analysis for various clients throughout the nation. 

Berkshire Hathaway already owned about 22 percent of BNSF, the nation’s second largest Class One railroad.

This move by Buffett will most likely spur even more interests in railroad transportation.  Railroad transportation compared to Trucking allows for an approximate 3:1 ratio of weight and volume per rail car to that of an individual truck.  By comparison, and on a per ton calculation, rail emits a much smaller percentage of harmful diesel-fuel carcinogens than that of trucking.  In addition, the cost for rail transportation is almost a third to that of trucking costs for the same traffic lane. 

Sources: WIH Resource Group & Berkshire Hathaway

Should you have any questions about this news or general questions about our diversified services, please contact Bob Wallace, Principal & VP of Client Solutions at WIH Resource Group and Waste Savings, Inc. at admin@wihrg.com

Feel free to visit our websites for additional information on our services at: http://www.wihrg.com and http://www.wastesavings.net and our daily blog at http://wihresourcegroup.wordpress.com

WIH Resource Group on Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=1150967&trk=anet_ug_hm

Follow Bob Wallace and WIH Resource Group on Twitter: http://twitter.com/wihresource

The 2,600 cows at Vintage Dairy west of Fresno produce up to 140 tons of manure per day. 

 

Four times a day, 5,000 gallons of water flush manure down the rows of the open-stall barns at Vintage Dairy – collecting about 90 percent of the waste. Photo by Jennifer Baldwin

 

David Albers is a third-generation dairy farmer, and environmental lawyer, and founder and CEO of BioEnergy Solutions. Photo by Jennifer Baldwin

 

Albers demonstrates the thickness of the polyurethane liner covering the anaerobic digestion lagoon at Vintage Dairy. His guests are students from Independence High School’s energy academy in Bakersfield. Photo by Jennifer Baldwin

 

 The “scrubbing plant” at Vintage Dairy upgrades the biogas to high-quality methane that matches the purity of natural gas. The black tower on the left is the desulfurization tower and the white tower on the right burns off the carbon dioxide. Photo by Jennifer Baldwin

 

 A red valve marks the spot where Pacific Gas & Electric Company takes title to the biomethane produced at Vintage Dairy. Photo by Jennifer Baldwin

 David Albers knows the power of poop. Cow manure, that is. The third generation dairy farmer from Bakersfield has 2,600 cows producing about 130 tons of manure each day.  But he prefers to count it differently.

 “The way we’ve broken it down is, two cows can power one home each day. So our cows power about 1,300 homes.”

 Just how does he make the leap from poop to power? Albers’ Vintage Dairy, located west of Fresno, is the first in the state of California – and one of the first in the nation – to capture the gas released from the decomposing manure, turn it into high-quality methane, and sell it directly to a power company as natural gas.

 In his case, he injects the gas into a Pacific Gas & Electric Company line that runs through his property. The utility company pays Albers for the gas, then pipes it to an energy plant, where it is burned to produce electricity.

 So not only does Albers make a profit as a dairy farmer, he also brings in income for creating and selling renewable energy. Furthermore, he’s helping to lessen the affects of global warming by reducing his dairy farm’s greenhouse gas emissions.

 It’s a practice he believes in so wholeheartedly, he has launched an entire business devoted to it. As founder and CEO of BioEnergy Solutions, based in Bakersfield, Albers offers to fund and install biogas systems at other dairies and split the gas revenue and emission credits with the farmers. So far, his is the only dairy with the system, which went online in 2008. He reports he has contracts with 39 dairies and letters of intent from 150 more.   His project is certainly gaining attention.

 In September, the California Environmental Protection Agency and other state agencies honored BioEnergy Solutions with a Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award in the “climate change” category.

 Albers’ project “is at the top of our list for uses for methane,” said Dave Warner, director of permit services for the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District. “It gets fed directly into a pipeline, so it’s a perfect solution.”

 What to do with all that gas

There are about 1.8 million diary cows in California producing methane – one of the main greenhouse gasses that cause global warming, and also one of the main sources of energy in this state. With a little “scrubbing,” all that methane can be purified and used to heat homes, generate electricity and even fuel cars.

 So why aren’t more dairies capturing and selling their methane? It comes down to money.

 “Financing is the big obstacle,” said Allen Dusault, program director for sustainable agriculture with the San Francisco-based nonprofit, Sustainable Conservation. He works with dairies that want to capture their methane and put it to use. But these systems are very expensive, and until recent law mandated power companies to use more renewable energy, dairies had a hard time selling either the natural gas or electricity generated on-site. For most dairies, the cost benefit of installing the methane digesters and scrubbing plants does not outweigh the savings from generating their own power. The systems can cost into the millions. 

Even so, there are about 30 dairies in California that digest manure and generate power on-site, according to Cindy Pollard, spokeswoman with PG&E. Of the dairies that use internal combustion engines to burn the gas and generate power, some have recently shut down, according to Dusault, after new regulations required the dairies to cut down on the nitrogen oxides released from those engines.Nitrogen oxides are one of the main culprits for ground-level air pollution, including summertime smog, said Warner of the air pollution control district. This is why the district prefers other uses for purified methane, called biomethane, such as injecting it into natural gas lines – or compressing it to fuel vehicles.

One large dairy in Lindsey is doing just that. Hilarides Dairy has converted its fleet to run on natural gas and compresses its biomethane to fuel their trucks. According to an article by Dairy Herd Management, the 9,000-cow dairy is capable of producing an equivalent of 700 to 800 gallons of diesel fuel each day.Could California’s dairies effectively fuel natural gas-powered vehicles? A 25 report, researched by Ken Krich of Sustainable Conservation, posed this fact:“Manure from about half the cows in California could provide enough biomethane to power all the natural gas vehicles currently operating in the state,” according to the report, Biomethane From Dairy Waste.Other industries that also produce a lot of methane, such as swine farms, landfills, waste water treatment sites and food processing plants, are also prime for biomethane production. California may want to look to Europe, particularly Sweden and Germany, where biomethane has become an industry standard over the past 10 years, according to Dusault.Warner says some waste water treatment plants in California are already capturing their methane and using it to produce their own electricity. And earlier this month, the world’s largest landfill gas to liquefied natural gas facility opened in Livermore. The gas can fuel up to 300 garbage trucks operated by Waste Management, according to the company’s website.

How it works

A tour of David Albers’ Vintage Dairy shows just how big of an operation it is to capture, clean and sell natural gas-quality methane. The tour starts in one of the long, open-stall barns that houses row after row of cows. Each row has a feeding station along one side and a sandy spot for the cows to lay down on the other. All manure is aimed into the center of the row.

The first step in the process is effective manure collection, Albers explains, and this type of housing – unlike an open feed lot – allows his dairy to collect about 90 percent of the manure.“Four times a day, 5,000 gallons of water is pushed through here,” washing the manure down the row into a canal, Albers says.

The canal transports the sludge to a processing pit, where it is then pumped about 200 yards away to a mechanical separator. Solids are dumped into a composting pile to be turned into fertilizer for the dairy’s feed crops.The liquid remainder flows by gravity into a 5-acre, 38-feet-deep pit covered with a thick liner made of high-density polyurethane. This is the anaerobic digester.

In the absence of oxygen, bacteria break down the sludge and release biogas, which is composed of mostly methane and carbon dioxide, with a little hydrogen sulfide as well.The gas enters a perforated pipe that runs the perimeter of the covered lagoon and is delivered to an on-site “scrubbing plant” that first desulfurizes the gas, and then removes the carbon dioxide.

The carbon dioxide is “flared,” or burned off (the effects of which are not harmful to the air, Warner of the air pollution control district said). What is left is high-quality methane that matches the purity of natural gas.The gas runs to a station 1,500 feet away where a compressor brings it up to the same level as the natural gas flowing through PG&E’s line running through the dairy’s property.

Then, at a red valve, PG&E takes title to the gas.And, what happens to all of that water? Albers points to a crystal clear pond on the other side of PG&E’s right of way.“There’s nothing floating in it. It’s all been broken down in the digester,” Albers says. The water will be used to irrigate the dairy’s crops of alfalfa, wheat and sorghum when the economy lets up and it becomes feasible to grow their own feed again, he says. For now, their crop farming operations are shut down.

Affects of the economy

The economic recession has also slowed Albers’ plans for expansion. Once he’s able to secure the financing, his first step will be to build digesters at four neighboring dairies and pipe their biogas to his plant for processing.Next up will be to build a similar system in Shafter, starting with Tjaarda Dairy and expanding to its neighbors.

That 3,000-cow dairy also has a PG&E natural gas pipeline running through it. By clustering the digesters, Albers can invest in one scrubbing station to be shared by several dairies.Perry Tjaarda has been in the dairy business for 45 years, starting in Corona, then Bakersfield and now, for the past 10 years, in Shafter. He’s experienced ever-tightening regulations and knows he has to do something to get ahead of future greenhouse gas emission rules.

“Over the last few years a lot of focus has been put on dairies and the possible pollutants they produce. Are we polluting or are we not? And if we are, what are we doing about it?” he said.Regardless of the “science behind the rhetoric,” Tjaarda says he sees an economic benefit to capturing and utilizing the methane from his dairy’s manure – especially if Albers’ BioEnergy Solutions is willing to front the cost of the system.“By pumping into PG&E’s gas line, we get paid a little, David gets paid a little, and we get (emission) credits. It’s a win-win. It makes sense,” he said.

All this wouldn’t be possible if a new law hadn’t been passed in 2006 that mandated utility companies in California to get at least 20 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2010. It also helps that Albers has 10 years under his belt as an environmental lawyer and knows his way around the legal issues and permitting processes for dairies.

Every time a project he represented was up for environmental review, “at least one person would say, ‘Why not build an anaerobic digester?’” he said. “Under California law, I would have to respond with an analysis showing we researched the economic feasibility.”And in every case it would not be economically feasible to build a digester only to produce an excessive amount of power that utilities would be unwilling to pay for.

But when Senate Bill 107 passed in 2006, utilities changed their tunes. And, in November 2008, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an executive order that utilities obtain at least 33 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020.Furthermore, dairies face possible mandatory greenhouse gas emission reductions under Assembly Bill 32.

That bill, called the “California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006,” mandated the California Air Resources Board to develop a scoping plan to reduce statewide greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.That plan points out that 6 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in California come from agriculture, and they are “largely methane emissions from livestock, both from animals and their waste.”

While the plan currently calls for voluntary reductions among dairies, it also recommends revisiting the issue in 2013 to possibly make the reductions mandatory.If that becomes the case, manure digesters could become the industry standard for large dairies in California and Albers’s BioEnergy Solutions could very well be the state’s leader in the effort.

PG&E spokeswoman Pollard said the utility does have contracts with other companies to buy biomethane. One of those is Microgy, a subsidiary of New York-based Environmental Power Corporation, which has plans to build three scrubbing stations near dairy clusters in Kerman, Riverdale and Hanford. But those projects are not yet online.

Albers’ Vintage Dairy is the only one injecting biomethane from dairy manure into existing pipeline in California today.“I love what we’re doing,” Albers said. “With this kind of thing, we have to pinch ourselves. How cool is it to come up with something that’s good all the way around? We are doing an environmental project on a dairy, we are providing renewable energy to PG&E, the dairyman gets a new revenue stream, and all of us get cleaner air because there are less emissions in the atmosphere.

”David Albers will be one of the featured speakers at the third annual Kern County Energy Summit presented by the Kern Economic Development Corporation. “Kern County’s Emerging Energy Technologies” is from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 12, at Bakersfield Marriott at the Convention Center, 801 Truxtun Ave. Registration is $50. For a registration form, go to www.kedc.com or call 862-5150.

Sources: Bakersfield Express & WIH Resource Group

Should you have any questions about this news or general questions about our diversified services, please contact Bob Wallace, Principal & VP of Client Solutions at WIH Resource Group and Waste Savings, Inc. at admin@wihrg.com

Feel free to visit our websites for additional information on our services at: http://www.wihrg.com and http://www.wastesavings.net and our daily blog at http://wihresourcegroup.wordpress.com

WIH Resource Group on Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=1150967&trk=anet_ug_hm

Follow Bob Wallace and WIH Resource Group on Twitter: http://twitter.com/wihresource

Aţi fi crezut că blana nu este chiar aşa importantă pentru urs. Pentru Dolores este însă esenţială, întrucât ea şi-a pierdut tot părul de pe corp şi a rămas doar cu câteva fire în jurul capului.

Veterinarii au rămas fără cuvinte la vederea ursului cu ochelari, din zoo Leipzig. Dolores nu este însă singura în această situaţie: toate femelele urs de la zoo au fost afectate.

Unii experţi cred că ar putea fi o problemă genetică, întrucât animalele nu par a suferi de vreo boală.

Urşii cu ochelari, originari din America de Sud, au în mod normal o blană foarte pufoasă, închisă la culoare. Acum, fiind aproape iarnă, ar trebui ca blăniţă lor să fie şi mai stufoasă.

În schimb, ursoaicele au făcut bube şi diverse inflamaţii pe piele. Din păcate pentru animale, lipsa blăniţei a atras extrem de mulţi oameni doritori să le vadă chelia.

Să sperăm că grădina zoologică va porni căldura în căsuţele urşilor.

Prin targ se zvoneste cum ca as fi luat gripa porcina. Mi-am precizat in prealabil, in variate ocazii, afinitatea sincera pentru cea aviara. Totusi n-a fost sa fie. In schimb am reusit sa petrec  o saptamana geniala in compania Ursului. In patria adoptiva a Ursului. Cand o sa fiu mare o sa vreau sa ma fac scotiana, sa fiu civilizata, sa-mi curga conservatorismul prin sange si sa rezist cu stoicism zilelor cu ploaie si vant. E pur si simplu prea interesanta bucata asta de lume ca sa nu va dau coate insistente sa dati si voi o fuga cu proxima ocazie sa va bucurati de ea. Si daca mai aveti si norocul meu de a avea un ghid local drag si extrem de simpatic si rabdator, sunteti mareti. Cu mai multe detalii revin in zilele ce urmeaza, sunt intre reacomodari cu scoala, reclamatii pentru un bagaj facut harcea parcea de lufthansa si bagat bomboane de ciocolata la greu in gura ( Stiu, Urs, erau pentru maica-mea, dar ce sa fac daca nu-i fana a caramelului…Ma sacrific, deh ).

Pana una alta va las in compania unui amic pe care mi l-am facut la gradina zoologica din Edinburgh – Evil Penguin ( nu tu, Silescule, altu ) :

Multumesc, Sasa !

klau|s|ens, keine LIVE-gedichte zu urs widmer? heute abend? remagen-rolandseck?

leider ausverkauft!

oha!

ja, ja, ich hätte noch warten können, ob jemand seine karten nicht abholt …

aber?

… es war zu ungewiss. siehe: wenn es keine klare warteliste gibt, und wenn man das alles nicht weiß, dann muss man sich überlegen, ob man dahinwartet.

“dahinwartet”? — das machst du doch sonst so oft.

ja, ja, aber der mensch ist keine wartemaschine. manchmal denkt man: heute mal nicht!

du hast also nicht für oder auf oder um urs widmer gewartet?

nein, ich gebe es zu – aber ich bin ja hingefahren.

warum denn?

ich wusste doch vorher nicht, dass es nachher ausverkauft war.

ach so.

siehst du, zweitklausens!

und dann?

dann habe ich ganz schnell ein gedicht ins gästebuch des arp-museums geschrieben. es müssen wenigste sekunden gewesen sein …

und?

… ich habe das gedicht noch abfotografiert …

… und …

… während nun wahrscheinlich in remagen urs widmer liest, setze ich zeitgleich und parallel dieses mein-gedicht hier ins internet. jetzt!

ja, ja, das könnte so hinhauen.

und dann kann ich wieder sagen: ich habe LIVE zu urs widmer gedichtet.

gedichtet nicht, aber das gedicht abgelegt.

dann habe ich eben LIVE zu widmer geschrieben. parallel. — und vorher war ich in seiner nähe, denn um 19.18 uhr muss er doch schon da gewesen sein, im museum rolandseck. die veranstaltung sollte gegen 19.30 uhr beginnen.

was du nur immer machst!

alles ist ein spiel, und die kunst daran ist, das spiel als spiel zu betreiben.

wie lautet denn der text deines höchst-schnellen urs-widmer-gedichtes?

URS

Leider ausverkauft
Haare dennoch
Nicht gerauft
In den Regen nun zurück
Wartet dort ein and’res Glück!

LIVE geschrieben am 3.11.2009 gegen 19.18 Uhr, an einem Dienstag, im Arp Museum Rolandseck Remagen, ins Gästebuch. Copyright Klau|s|ens in allen Schreibwaisen und Schreibweisen, u.a. als Klau/s/ens oder Klau(s)ens oder Klau=s=ens.

und was war dann dein anderes glück?

das siehst du doch hier: ich schreibe von meinem missglückten urs-widmer-besuch und dem glückvollen gedicht nun hier im blog(g).

das heißt, du schreibst? das ist dein anderes glück?

ja, ist es nicht ein noch größeres glück, selber zu schreiben, als anderen schreibenden zuzuhören, wie die ihr geschriebenes vorlesen?

aber dann hättest du doch direkt zu hause bleiben können!

aber dann hätte ich doch nicht die inspiration gehabt, um das hier zu schreiben.

dann sind also das gedicht und dieser blog(g)-eintrag zusammen doch noch eine würdigung für urs widmer?

so kann man es sehen, ja, ja, so kann man es lesen. (und für uns, zweitklausens. für uns natürlich auch.)

du immer mit deinem “lesen”!

mit dem “schreiben”, das hat dir doch nicht gefallen.

doch, doch, ich finde, man sollte selber viel mehr schreiben.

stell’ dir mal eine welt vor, in der alle nur schreiben.

eine welt, in der alle nur schreiben, und keiner jemals hört, was der andere geschrieben hat.

wieso?

weil doch alle mit ihrem eigenen schreiben so beschäftigt sind.

fast ist es durch das internet schon so geworden.

aber du nimmst doch mit deiner bloggerei und dichterei und scharlatanerei daran teil!

nein, nein, ich ich mache nur kunst. nicht mehr und nicht weniger. keine scharlatanerei! – und vergiss nicht: alles ist nur ein spiel.

letztlich ist das ganze leben nur ein spiel.

jetzt hast du es doch noch begriffen. urs widmer wird es schon länger kapiert haben.

auch ohne uns?

ORIGINALVERSION mit Fettdruck und allen Bildern
und allen Links bei KLAUSENS BLOGG (mit 2 G !!!)
KLAU|S|ENS – LOG – W E L T L I N G
http://klausens.blogg.de

HOMEPAGE VON KLAU|S|ENS: http://www.klausens.com

Not water waves but sand waves – shipwrecks in the once coastal town of Myunak
Image via artificialowl

Deserts are not the places one would associate with shipwrecks. But ghostly remains of once proud schooners, cruise ships or freighters smack in the middle of a desert are not as rare as one might think. Deserts and accompanying dust storms steering unsuspecting ships off course are often the culprits but also advancing deserts and sadly, increasing desertification worldwide. Here’s a look at five places that can boast of some quite bizarre shipwrecks.

Ships seem to turn into whale bones on the Skeleton Coast:

Image: Patrick Giraud

1. Skeleton Coast, Namibia

Namibia’s Skeleton Coast, named for the huge whale skeletons and ghostly shipwrecks found on its shores, is one of the earth’s most inhospitable and least visited places. Travelling sand dunes rule the area and make travelling on land hardly advisable. Even vehicles with four-wheel drive will not go far for fear of getting stuck in the soft sand, their passengers at risk of running out of drinking water before help arrives. Namibian tribes shun the region that they call “the Land God Made in Anger” and Portuguese sailors once referred to as the “Gates of Hell”. Charming!

Even big ships can’t help fall under the Skeleton Coast’s spell:

Image: Patrick Giraud

The Skeleton Coast’s isolation has given rise to the untouched beauty of the area, which has produced a unique flora and fauna. Cold sea breezes are often accompanied by dense fog that has led many a ship astray, left in desert silence and a barren landscape once the fog has cleared. Among the roughly 1,000 ships that didn’t manage to navigate past this inhospitable area and now litter the coastline, slowly succumbing to the sand, are famous ones like the Eduard Bohlen, the Otavi, the Dunedin Star, and the Tong Taw.

Sand as far as the eye can see and what’s left of the Eduard Bohlen, shipwrecked in 1909:

Image: mistress_f

The Skeleton Coast as seen from space:

Image: NASA

2. The Aral Sea

The Aral Sea, located between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, was once the fourth-largest inland salt lake. It has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s when its two crucial water sources, the rivers Amu Darya and Syr Darya were diverted for Soviet irrigation projects.

An abandoned ship in a now dried up part of the Aral Sea near Aral, Kazakhstan:

Image: Staecker

Since then, the Aral Sea has shrunk to 10% of its original size, leaving behind three separate lakes instead of one, of which two are too salty to support fish. Many former coastal towns find themselves now literally stranded in a desert, deprived of their livelihood and affected by ecological changes. Testimony to this are huge shipwrecks that lie around abandoned like stranded metal whales.

Even the camels seem to be wondering what happened to all the water:

Image via artificialowl

Muynak in western Uzbekistan is one of those once bustling fishing towns that today has problems keeping its few thousand remaining inhabitants. The receding Aral Sea has placed Muynak dozens of miles away from the coast, subjecting it to dust storms and more severe weather conditions than before.

Before and after – the Aral Sea in 1989 (left) and in 2009:

Image: NASA

3. The Sahara

In a list of bizarre shipwrecks, we can’t give the Sahara a miss – just the term Saharan shipwrecks sounds rather strange. The world’s largest hot desert covers almost all of northern Africa or about the size of the United States or Europe. It is one of the harshest climates in the world, with north-easterly winds causing severe sandstorms and dust devils that can even be seen from space. No wonder that many a ship, especially in Western Sahara, had to succumb to the elements.

A shipwreck in Western Sahara that looks in quite good shape:

Image: Urban Bryngeld

A picturesque shipwreck near Tarfaya, Morocco:

Image: gezonkenbootje

A massive dust storm transporting sand westward across the Atlantic Ocean:

Image: NASA

4. The Red Sea

The Red Sea is the Indian Ocean’s seawater inlet wedged between Africa and Asia. As the world’s northernmost tropical sea, the Red Sea climate is governed by two distinct monsoon seasons.

Despite being the world’s hottest and saltiest body of seawater, the Red Sea’s efficient water circulation with the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean via the Gulf of Aden reduces the sea’s high salinity and surface temperature. The region’s corals have adapted to these conditions and have in fact – coupled with dust storms – been the end of many a ship’s journey in shallow parts of the sea.

Abu Soma is a Red Sea resort known for its amazing wind- and kite-surfing opportunities. However, as some of the shipwrecks found on its beaches prove, it is not without dangers for ships navigating along these shores.

Abu Soma, Egypt:

Image: Henning Leweke

The Loullia was a Panama freighter, built in Sweden and launched in 1952. On a voyage from Aqaba to Suez, it ran aground at Gordon Reef in the Straits of Tiran in September 1981. The crew got evacuated after four days but the ship’s remains have become a part of the reef ever since.

Stuck on a reef since 1981 – the Loullia:

Image: Alex Polezhaev

A dust storm over the Red Sea as seen from space:

Image: NASA

5. Greece

Greece is not a place that comes to mind when thinking of advancing deserts but fact is that more than 80% of Greece’s landmass is at risk from desertification and almost 10% already is arid. Most in danger are hilly areas where soil erosion adversely affects the fertility, depth and productivity of the earth. Agricultural machines, a growing population, salination and exploitation of already stressed resources are to blame. Currently, most of the Peloponnese, parts of the Ionian Islands, eastern and central Crete, parts of Thessaly, Macedonia, Thrace and mainland Greece are affected.

A shipwreck at Navagio a.k.a. Shipwreck Beach in Zakynthos:

Image: Anna Oates

… and the shipwreck’s scenic location seen from a bird’s eye view:

Image: Anna Oates

Though there is a certain charm – and not to forget the surprise effect – to seeing ships in a desert, this is not a sight that we hope to see more of any time soon.

Source:   Environmental Graffitti & WIH Resource Group

If you have any questions about this news or general questions about our diversified services, please contact Bob Wallace, Principal & VP of Client Solutions at WIH Resource Group and Waste Savings, Inc. at admin@wihrg.com

Feel free to visit our websites for additional information on our services at: http://www.wihrg.com & http://www.wastesavings.net and our daily blog at http://wihresourcegroup.wordpress.com

WIH Resource Group on Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/wihresourcegroup Follow Bob Wallace and WIH Resource Group on Twitter: http://twitter.com/wihresource

October 14, 2009, the 30^th annual awards ceremony of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund took place at the Asia Society in New York City. Lu Guang from People’s Republic of China won the $30,000 W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography for his documentary project “Pollution in China.”

Lu Guang (卢广), freelancer photographer, started as an amateur photographer in 1980. He was a factory worker, later started his own photo studio and advertising agency. August of 1993 he returned to post-graduate studies at the Central Arts and Design Academy in Beijing (now is the Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University). During graduate school, he studied, traveled all over the country and carved out a career, became the “dark horse” of the photographer circle in Beijing. Skilled at social documentary photography, his insightful, creative and artistic work often focused on “social phenomena and people living at the bottom of society”, attracted the attentions of the national photography circle and the media. Many of his award winning works focused on social issues like, “gold rush in the west”, “drug girl”, “small coal pit”, “HIV village”, “the Grand Canal”, “development of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway” and so on.

 1. “At the junction of Ningxia province and Inner Mongolia province, I saw a tall chimney puffing out golden smoke covering the blue sky, large tracts of the grassland have become industrial waste dumps; unbearable foul smell made people want to cough; Surging industrial sewage flowed into the Yellow River…”

 - Lu Guang

 

 2. Chemical waste from Jiangsu Taixing Chemical Industrial District (江苏泰兴化工园区) dumped on top of the Yangtze River bank. May 15, 2009

 

 3. Fan Jai Zhuang in Anyang City, Henan province, (河南安阳市范家庄) there is only one wall separating this village from the steelmaking furnaces. The villagers live in this heavily polluted environment where the village is under the iron rain every day. March 24, 2008

 

 4. Industrial sewage of Zhejiang Xiaoshan Industrial District (浙江萧山化工园区) eventually flowed into Qiantang River. April 24, 2009

 

 5. Henan Anyang iron and steel plant’s (河南安阳钢铁厂) sewage flowed into Anyang River. March 25, 2008

 

 6. Guiyu, Guangdong province, (广东省贵屿镇) rivers and reservoirs have been contaminated, the villager is washing in a seriously polluted pond. November 25, 2005

 

 7. Shizuishan Industrial district in Ningxia province (宁夏石嘴山湖滨工业园区), the tall chimneys spitted out smoke and dust. Residents took preventive measure for the falling dust from the sky when going outside. April 22, 2006

 

  8. In the Yellow Sea coastline, countless sewage pipes buried in the beach and even extending into the deep sea. April 28, 2008

 

 9. In Ma’anshan, Anhui province (安徽马鞍山), along the Yangtze River there are many small-scaled Iron selection factories and plastic processing plants. Large amounts of sewage discharged into the Yangtze River June 18, 2009

 

 10. In Inner Mongolia there were 2 “black dragons” from the Lasengmiao Power Plant (内蒙古拉僧庙发电厂) covering the nearby villages. July 26, 2005

 

 11. Jiangsu province Changshu City Fluorine Chemical industry land sewage treatment plant (江苏省常熟市氟化学工业园污水处理厂) was responsible for collection and processing of the industrial sewage. However they did not, the sewage pipe was extended 1500 meters under the Yangtze River and releasing the sewage there. 2009 June 11

 

 12. Soil by Yangtze River, was polluted by Anhui Province Ma’anshan Chemical Industrial District (安徽省马鞍山化工园区). June 26, 2009

 

 13. Large amount of the industrial wastewater flowed to Yellow River from Inner Mongolia Lasengmiao Industrial District (内蒙古拉僧庙工业园区) every day. July 26, 2005

 

 14. A Large amount of the chemical wastewater discharged into Yangtze River from Zhenjiang Titanium mill (镇江市钛粉厂) every day. Less than 1,000 meters away downstream is where the water department of Danyang City gets its water from. June 10, 2009

 

 15. In Haimen city, Jiangsu province Chemical Industrial District sewage treatment Plant (江苏省海门市化工园区污水处理厂) discharged wastewater into Yangtze River. June 5, 2009

 

 16. Hebei Province Shexian Tianjin Iron and steel plant (河北省涉县天津钢铁厂) is a heavily polluting company. Company scale is still growing, seriously affecting the lives of local residents. March 18, 2008

 

 17. Longmen town in Hanchen city, Shaanxi Province (陕西省韩城市龙门镇) has large-scaled industrial development. Environment is very seriously polluted there. April 8, 2008

 

  18. There are over 100 chemical plants in Jiangsu province coastal industry district. (江苏滨海头罾沿海化工园区) Some of them discharge wastewater into the ocean; some heavily contaminated sewage is stored in 5 “Sewage Temporary Pools”. During the 2 high tides in every month, the sewage then gets discharged into the ocean with the tides. June 20, 2008

 

 19. Jiangxi Province Hu Ko County Chemical Industry district (江西省胡口县化工园区) is by the Yangtze River. Chemical factory landfill the Yangtze River bank to expand the scale of the factory without authorization.

 

 20. Anhui Province Cihu Chemical Industry District (安徽省慈湖化工园区) built a underground pipe to discharge wastewater into the Yangtze River. The wastewater sometimes is black, gray, dark red, or yellow, wastewater from different chemical factories has different colors. June 18, 2009

 

 21. Shanxi Province is the most polluted areas of China. It is also the province with the highest rate of birth defects. This loving farmer couple adopted 17 disabled children. April 15, 2009

 “In Some areas of China people’s lives were threatened because of the environmental pollution. Residents suffering from all kinds of obscured diseases, the cancer villages, increase of deformed babies, these were the results of sacrificing environment and blindly seeking economical gain.”

 - Lu Guang

 

 22. Elder shepherd by the Yellow River cannot stand the smell. April 23, 2006

 

 23. 15-year-old boy from Tianshui, Gansu Province (甘肃天水), dropped out of the school after 2^nd grade, followed his parents to Heilonggui (黑龙贵) Industrial District. He earns 16 yuan a day. April 8, 2005

 

 24. Inner Mongolia province Heilonggui (黑龙贵) Industrial District, the couple who worked at the Plaster Kiln and just got home. March 22, 2007

 

 25. Villagers from Kang village in Linfen City, Shanxi Province (山西省临汾市下康村) due to long-term consumption of the polluted water contaminated by industrial waste, there were 50 people who have cancer and cerebral thrombosis. 64-year-old Wang Baosheng got ill since 2003, he has fester all over his body so he cannot go to bed and lying face down on the edge of the bed each day. July 10, 2005

  

 26. Breathing in large amount of dust into the lungs, people gets sick after working there for 1-2 years. Most of these migrant workers come from area of poverty. April 10, 2005

 

 27. Zhangqiao village by the Hong River in Wugang City, Henan Province (河南省舞钢市洪河边的张桥村), a 45-year-old woman Sun Xiaojun (孙晓军) could not move her feet and hands since 4 years ago. The numerous hospital treatments were not effective. April 7, 2009

 

 28. Zhaozhuang village by the Hong River in Wugang City, Henan province (河南省舞钢市洪河边的赵庄村), 66-year-old Zhao Bingkun suffering from esophageal cancer since 2004, after the second surgery, treatment cost already have reached over 200,000 yuan. His condition is in late stage, he is having fever everyday, waiting for death. April 7, 2009

 

 29. Zhaozhuang village by the Hong River in Wugang City, Henan province (洪河边的河南省西平县张于庄村), Gao Wanshun’s (高万顺) wife died of cancer. Now he lives in poverty. April 3, 2009

 

 30. Linfen City in Shanxi province (山西临汾市) is seriously polluted area. Farmers after working in the cotton fields for 2 hours are filled with coal ashes. September 24 2007

 

 31. Salt factory worker in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province (江苏连云港) said angrily, “when the wind blowing towards our side, the foul smell from the chemical factories is unbearable. There is even more poison gas at night.” July 19, 2008

 

 32. People form Fanjiazhuang (范家庄) are ready to submit a complain filled with their fingerprints, to seek compensation for pollution damages. March 19, 2008

 

 33. In Shanxi Province there are a lot of charitable nursing homes, to help disabled infants abandoned by their parents. April 14, 2009

 

 34. Liujiawan village by the Hong River in Wugang City, Henan province (河南省舞钢市洪河边的刘家湾村), 13 year old Yang Xiao in November 2008 was ill with obscure disease.  She was saved by the donation of the villagers. When the grandmother saw the old village chief came to visit his granddaughter, she kneeled on the ground holding granddaughter’s hand. April 19, 2009

 

 35. The oldest is 9, not going to school. The youngest is less than 2 years old. They lived in severely polluted area. They hands and faces were always dirty. April 10, 2005

 

 36. Mazhuang village by the Hong River in Wugang City, Henan province, (河南省舞钢市洪河边的马庄村) 58-year-old Ma Haipeng (马海朋) was suffering from stomach cancer since 2006 and could not work in the field. He must take medicine every day, otherwise it is too painful. April 6, 2009

 

 37. Every year, a lot of deficiency babies in Shanxi Province were abandoned. Kong Zhenlan (孔贞兰) in Qi town (祁县) who was making a living by recycling trash adopted 25 abandoned children. April 14, 2009

 

 38. Xuanwei (宣威) in Yunnan province is a cancer village. Every year there are more than 20 people die of cancer. 11-year-old student Xu Li (徐丽) is suffering from bone cancer. May 8, 2007

 

 39. In Shexian Village, Hebei Province, (河北省涉县固新村) the existing cancer patients are more than 50 people and more than 20 cancer patients die each year. March 18, 2008

 

 40.  Zhangyuzhuan village by the Hong River in Xiping county, Henan province, (河南省西平县洪河边的张于庄村) 22-year-old Zhu Xiaoyan (朱小燕) had a tumor in her stomach in 2007. She died after number of hospital treatments on July 2008. 4-year-old girl with her grandfather came to mother’s tomb. April 2009 2

  

Source:  Fengniao, China Hush & WIH Resource Group

If you have any questions about this news or general questions about our diversified services, please contact Bob Wallace, Principal & VP of Client Solutions at WIH Resource Group and Waste Savings, Inc. at admin@wihrg.com

Feel free to visit our websites for additional information on our services at: http://www.wihrg.com & http://www.wastesavings.net and our daily blog at http://wihresourcegroup.wordpress.com

WIH Resource Group on Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/wihresourcegroup Follow Bob Wallace and WIH Resource Group on Twitter: http://twitter.com/wihresource

Sohbet  by Sheikh Abdul Kerim al-Kibrisi on the occassion of the Urs of Haji Fuat ar-Rabbani – 1430

*If the video does not load, click here: http://www.vimeo.com/7299146

Want to increase recycling and decrease the amount of trash reaching our landfills?  Innovative companies are incentivizing recycling through the use of RFID (radio frequency identification) technology to track and reward – individual recycling efforts.

 

If you have any questions about this news or general questions about our diversified services, please contact Bob Wallace, Principal & VP of Client Solutions at WIH Resource Group and Waste Savings, Inc. at admin@wihrg.com

Feel free to visit our websites for additional information on our services at: http://www.wihrg.com & http://www.wastesavings.net and our daily blog at http://wihresourcegroup.wordpress.com

WIH Resource Group on Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/wihresourcegroup Follow Bob Wallace and WIH Resource Group on Twitter: http://twitter.com/wihresource

“Since we’ve completed the project, virtually the only thing going to the landfill is ash.”  “The thing about WTE is that it is primarily a method of waste disposal,” said Don Castro, P.E., HDR Engineering, and project manager on the Lee County project. Its main purpose in life is to make provisions for safe and sustainable waste disposal practices. “The energy that comes along with it is secondary,” he said.

Source:  Renewable Energy & WIH Resource Group, Power Engineering

If you have any questions about this news or general questions about our diversified services, please contact Bob Wallace, Principal & VP of Client Solutions at WIH Resource Group and Waste Savings, Inc. at admin@wihrg.com

Feel free to visit our websites for additional information on our services at: http://www.wihrg.com  & http://www.wastesavings.net and our daily blog at http://wihresourcegroup.wordpress.com

WIH Resource Group on Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/wihresourcegroup

Follow Bob Wallace and WIH Resource Group on Twitter: http://twitter.com/wihresource

It’s a tall order:  Over the next few decades, the world will need to wean itself from dependence on fossil fuels and drastically reduce greenhouse gases. Current technology will take us only so far; major breakthroughs are required.  What might those breakthroughs be?  Here’s a look at five technologies that, if successful, could radically change the world energy picture.

They present enormous opportunities. The ability to tap power from space, for instance, could jump-start whole new industries. Technology that can trap and store carbon dioxide from coal-fired plants would rejuvenate older ones.  Success isn’t assured, of course. The technologies present difficult engineering challenges, and some require big scientific leaps in lab-created materials or genetically modified plants. And innovations have to be delivered at a cost that doesn’t make energy much more expensive. If all of that can be done, any one of these technologies could be a game-changer.

SPACE-BASED SOLAR POWER

For more than three decades, visionaries have imagined tapping solar power where the sun always shines—in space. If we could place giant solar panels in orbit around the Earth, and beam even a fraction of the available energy back to Earth, they could deliver nonstop electricity to any place on the planet.

Source: New ScientistSunlight is reflected off giant orbiting mirrors to an array of photovoltaic cells; the light is converted to electricity and then changed into microwaves, which are beamed to earth. Ground-based antennas capture the microwave energy and convert it back to electricity, which is sent to the grid.

The technology may sound like science fiction, but it’s simple: Solar panels in orbit about 22,000 miles up beam energy in the form of microwaves to earth, where it’s turned into electricity and plugged into the grid. (The low-powered beams are considered safe.) A ground receiving station a mile in diameter could deliver about 1,000 megawatts—enough to power on average about 1,000 U.S. homes.

The cost of sending solar collectors into space is the biggest obstacle, so it’s necessary to design a system lightweight enough to require only a few launches. A handful of countries and companies aim to deliver space-based power as early as a decade from now.

ADVANCED CAR BATTERIES

Electrifying vehicles could slash petroleum use and help clean the air (if electric power shifts to low-carbon fuels like wind or nuclear). But it’s going to take better batteries.

Source: EDSRCIn a lithium-air battery, oxygen flows through a porous carbon cathode and combines with lithium ions from a lithium-metal anode in the presence of an electrolyte, producing an electric charge. The reaction is aided by a catalyst, such as manganese oxide, to improve capacity.

Lithium-ion batteries, common in laptops, are favored for next-generation plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles. They’re more powerful than other auto batteries, but they’re expensive and still don’t go far on a charge; the Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid coming next year, can run about 40 miles on batteries alone. Ideally, electric cars will get closer to 400 miles on a charge. While improvements are possible, lithium-ion’s potential is limited.

One alternative, lithium-air, promises 10 times the performance of lithium-ion batteries and could deliver about the same amount of energy, pound for pound, as gasoline. A lithium-air battery pulls oxygen from the air for its charge, so the device can be smaller and more lightweight. A handful of labs are working on the technology, but scientists think that without a breakthrough they could be a decade away from commercialization.

UTILITY STORAGE

Everybody’s rooting for wind and solar power. How could you not? But wind and solar are use-it-or-lose-it resources. To make any kind of difference, they need better storage.

Source: AEPBattery packs located close to customers can store electricity from renewable wind or solar sources and supply power when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. Energy is collected in the storage units and can be sent as needed directly to homes or businesses or out to the grid.

Scientists are attacking the problem from a host of angles—all of which are still problematic. One, for instance, uses power produced when the wind is blowing to compress air in underground chambers; the air is fed into gas-fired turbines to make them run more efficiently. One of the obstacles: finding big, usable, underground caverns.

Similarly, giant batteries can absorb wind energy for later use, but some existing technologies are expensive, and others aren’t very efficient. While researchers are looking at new materials to improve performance, giant technical leaps aren’t likely.

Lithium-ion technology may hold the greatest promise for grid storage, where it doesn’t have as many limitations as for autos. As performance improves and prices come down, utilities could distribute small, powerful lithium-ion batteries around the edge of the grid, closer to customers. There, they could store excess power from renewables and help smooth small fluctuations in power, making the grid more efficient and reducing the need for backup fossil-fuel plants. And utilities can piggy-back on research efforts for vehicle batteries.

CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE

Keeping coal as an abundant source of power means slashing the amount of carbon dioxide it produces. That could mean new, more efficient power plants. But trapping C02 from existing plants—about two billion tons a year—would be the real game-changer.

Source: VattenfallCarbon dioxide is removed from smokestack gases and compressed. It’s then pumped deep underground and stored in porous rock formations.

Techniques for modest-scale CO2 capture exist, but applying them to big power plants would reduce the plants’ output by a third and double the cost of producing power. So scientists are looking into experimental technologies that could cut emissions by 90% while limiting cost increases.

Nearly all are in the early stages, and it’s too early to tell which method will win out. One promising technique burns coal and purified oxygen in the form of a metal oxide, rather than air; this produces an easier-to-capture concentrated stream of CO2 with little loss of plant efficiency. The technology has been demonstrated in small-scale pilots, and will be tried in a one-megawatt test plant next year. But it might not be ready for commercial use until 2020.

NEXT-GENERATION BIOFUELS

One way to wean ourselves from oil is to come up with renewable sources of transportation fuel. That means a new generation of biofuels made from nonfood crops.   Researchers are devising ways to turn lumber and crop wastes, garbage and inedible perennials like switchgrass into competitively priced fuels. But the most promising next-generation biofuel comes from algae.

Source: SaferenviromentAlgae grow by taking in CO2, solar energy and other nutrients. They produce an oil that can be extracted and added into existing refining plants to make diesel, gasoline substitutes and other products.

Algae grow fast, consume carbon dioxide and can generate more than 5,000 gallons a year per acre of biofuel, compared with 350 gallons a year for corn-based ethanol. Algae-based fuel can be added directly into existing refining and distribution systems; in theory, the U.S. could produce enough of it to meet all of the nation’s transportation needs.

But it’s early. Dozens of companies have begun pilot projects and small-scale production. But producing algae biofuels in quantity means finding reliable sources of inexpensive nutrients and water, managing pathogens that could reduce yield, and developing and cultivating the most productive algae strains.

Corrections & Amplifications

One thousand megawatts are enough to power on average about one million U.S. homes.  This article on space-based solar power incorrectly said 1,000 megawatts could power about 1,000 homes.

Source:  Wall Street Journal & WIH Resource Group

If you have any questions about this news or general questions about our diversified services, please contact Bob Wallace, Principal & VP of Client Solutions at WIH Resource Group and Waste Savings, Inc. at admin@wihrg.com

Feel free to visit our websites for additional information on our services at: http://www.wihrg.com  & http://www.wastesavings.net and our daily blog at http://wihresourcegroup.wordpress.com

WIH Resource Group on Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/wihresourcegroup

Follow Bob Wallace and WIH Resource Group on Twitter: http://twitter.com/wihresource

Gender: Feminine
Origin: Latin
Meaning: “little she-bear; she-cub; little female bear.”
Eng (ERS-uh-LAH)

The name is of Latin origin but is suggested that is may be a latinization of the old Germanic female name Yrsa meaning “bear” and was popularized by a medieval Christian saint said to be martyred in Cologne. Not much is known about the saint, other that she was martyred under Huns along with 11,000 other virgins, which is now believed to be a misprint from the written source of the legend. What is known for sure is that there was a basilica built in honour of a virgin Christian martyr in Cologne and from this arose several different legends referring to a St. Ursula and St. Cordula. According to the legend, St. Ursula was a British princess who was sent by her father to Germany to marry a prince, along with her, were sent 11,000 maidens, however,  her ship was taken off course due to a storm and instead ended up in France where she then decided to do a pan-European Christian pilgramage before meeting her future husband. She made a pilgramage to Rome where she tried to pursuade the pope to do a pilgramage with her and her 11,ooo companions. When she reached cologne she and her companions were massacred by the Huns.

The legend is based off of a 4th century inscription written in the Basilica which was built in the saint’s honour. It is believed that the 11,ooo handmaidens was confused with a female martyr named Undecimilia, Undecimila or Xemilia and that the abbreviation XI.M.V was misread as a number. The same saint has also been referred to under the names Pinnosa or Vinnosa. The name was quite prevalent in Great Britain before the Reformation and went out of usage afterwards. The name is also borne by Swiss actress Ursula Andress (b. 1936). It has also appeared in popular culture as the name of the evil sea-witch in Disney’s the Little Mermaid and as the name of the wife of Nigellus Phineas Black in the Harry Potter Series.

In Poland, the name is associated with a great piece of Polish Literature written by Jan Kochanowski. Known as Laments (Treny) 1580, they are a series of 19 elegies which talk about the author’s grief after the death of his two and half year old daughter Orszola (Urzula) which he refers to as the Slavic Sappho.

Other forms of the name are (divided alphabetically by nationality):

• Orsula (Corsican)
• Uršula (Croatian/Czech/Slovakian/Slovenian)
• Yrsa (Danish/Faroese/Icelandic/Norwegian/Swedish)
• Orsel (Dutch)
• Ursule/Ursuline (French)
• Ursula/Ursel (German/Dutch/Estonian/Finnish/Spanish: German diminutive forms are Ulla, Uli and Uschi)
• Orsolya (Hungarian: or-SHOH-lah was the 56th most popular female name in Hungary in 2006)
• Úrsúla (Icelandic)
• Orsina/Orsola/Orsolina (Italian)
• Ursa (Latin)
• Urzula (Latvian)
• Uršulė (Lithuanian)
• Urszula/Orszola/Warszula (Polish: Latter two forms are older forms and are rarely used. Diminutive form is Ula and Urszulka. Older diminutive forms are Ulicha and Ulita)
• Úrsula (Portuguese)
• Ursetta/Ursina/Urschla (Romansch)
• Urška (Slovenian: originally a diminutive now used as an independent given name, it was the 51st most popular female name in Slovenia in 2005)
• Orscheli (Swiss-German: ORSH-lee)

There are a few male equivalents which include:

• Orso/Orsino/Ursio/Ursino (Italian)
• Urs (German)
• Ursinus/Ursus (Latin)
• Ursyn/Ursycjusz (Polish: very rare)
• Ursin/Urosin (Romansch)

 

At Yellowstone National Park, the clear soda cups and white utensils are not your typical cafe-counter garbage. Made of plant-based plastics, they dissolve magically when heated for more than a few minutes.

 

Zero Waste

Brimming Landfills

At Ecco, a popular restaurant in Atlanta, waiters no longer scrape food scraps into the trash bin. Uneaten morsels are dumped into five-gallon pails and taken to a compost heap out back.

And at eight of its North American plants, Honda is recycling so diligently that the factories have gotten rid of their trash Dumpsters altogether.

Across the nation, an antigarbage strategy known as “zero waste” is moving from the fringes to the mainstream, taking hold in school cafeterias, national parks, restaurants, stadiums and corporations.

The movement is simple in concept if not always in execution: Produce less waste. Shun polystyrene foam containers or any other packaging that is not biodegradable. Recycle or compost whatever you can.

Though born of idealism, the zero-waste philosophy is now propelled by sobering realities, like the growing difficulty of securing permits for new landfills and an awareness that organic decay in landfills releases methane that helps warm the earth’s atmosphere.

“Nobody wants a landfill sited anywhere near them, including in rural areas,” said Jon D. Johnston, a materials management branch chief for the Environmental Protection Agency who is helping to lead the zero-waste movement in the Southeast. “We’ve come to this realization that landfill is valuable and we can’t bury things that don’t need to be buried.”

Americans are still the undisputed champions of trash, dumping 4.6 pounds per person per day, according to the E.P.A.’s most recent figures. More than half of that ends up in landfills or is incinerated.

But places like the island resort community of Nantucket offer a glimpse of the future. Running out of landfill space and worried about the cost of shipping trash 30 miles to the mainland, it moved to a strict trash policy more than a decade ago, said Jeffrey Willett, director of public works on the island.

The town, with the blessing of residents concerned about tax increases, mandates the recycling not only of commonly reprocessed items like aluminum, glass and paper but also of tires, batteries and household appliances.

Jim Lentowski, executive director of the nonprofit Nantucket Conservation Foundation and a year-round resident since 1971, said that sorting trash and delivering it to the local recycling and disposal complex had become a matter of course for most residents.

The complex also has a garagelike structure where residents can drop off books and clothing and other reusable items for others to take home.

The 100-car parking lot at the landfill is a lively meeting place for locals, Mr. Lentowski added. “Saturday morning during election season, politicians hang out there and hand out campaign buttons,” he said. “If you want to get a pulse on the community, that is a great spot to go.”

Mr. Willett said that while the amount of trash that island residents carted to the dump had remained steady, the proportion going into the landfill had plummeted to 8 percent.

By contrast, Massachusetts residents as a whole send an average of 66 percent of their trash to a landfill or incinerator. Although Mr. Willett has lectured about the Nantucket model around the country, most communities still lack the infrastructure to set a zero-waste target.

Aside from the difficulty of persuading residents and businesses to divide their trash, many towns and municipalities have been unwilling to make the significant capital investments in machines like composters that can process food and yard waste. Yet attitudes are shifting, and cities like San Francisco and Seattle are at the forefront of the changeover. Both of those cities have adopted plans for a shift to zero-waste practices and are collecting organic waste curbside in residential areas for composting.

Food waste, which the E.P.A. says accounts for about 13 percent of total trash nationally — and much more when recyclables are factored out of the total — is viewed as the next big frontier.

When apple cores, stale bread and last week’s leftovers go to landfills, they do not return the nutrients they pulled from the soil while growing. What is more, when sealed in landfills without oxygen, organic materials release methane, a potent heat-trapping gas, as they decompose. If composted, however, the food can be broken down and returned to the earth as a nonchemical fertilizer with no methane by-product.

Green Foodservice Alliance, a division of the Georgia Restaurant Association, has been adding restaurants throughout Atlanta and its suburbs to its so-called zero-waste zones. And companies are springing up to meet the growth in demand from restaurants for recycling and compost haulers.

Steve Simon, a partner in Fifth Group, a company that owns Ecco and four other restaurants in the Atlanta area, said that the hardest part of participating in the alliance’s zero-waste-zone program was not training his staff but finding reliable haulers.

“There are now two in town, and neither is a year old, so it is a very tentative situation,” Mr. Simon said.

Still, he said he had little doubt that the hauling sector would grow and that all five of the restaurants would eventually be waste-free.

Packaging is also quickly evolving as part of the zero-waste movement. Bioplastics like the forks at Yellowstone, made from plant materials like cornstarch that mimic plastic, are used to manufacture a growing number of items that are compostable.

Steve Mojo, executive director of the Biodegradable Products Institute, a nonprofit organization that certifies such products, said that the number of companies making compostable products for food service providers had doubled since 2006 and that many had moved on to items like shopping bags and food packaging.

The transition to zero waste, however, has its pitfalls.

Josephine Miller, an environmental official for the city of Santa Monica, Calif., which bans the use of polystyrene foam containers, said that some citizens had unwittingly put the plant-based alternatives into cans for recycling, where they had melted and had gummed up the works. Yellowstone and some institutions have asked manufacturers to mark some biodegradable items with a brown or green stripe.

Yet even with these clearer design cues, customers will have to be taught to think about the destination of every throwaway if the zero-waste philosophy is to prevail, environmental officials say.

“Technology exists, but a lot of education still needs to be done,” said Mr. Johnston of the E.P.A.

He expects private companies and businesses to move faster than private citizens because momentum can be driven by one person at the top.

“It will take a lot longer to get average Americans to compost,” Mr. Johnston said. “Reaching down to my household and yours is the greatest challenge.”

Source:  The New York Times & WIH Resource Group

If you have any questions about this news or general questions about our diversified services, please contact Bob Wallace, Principal & VP of Client Solutions at WIH Resource Group and Waste Savings, Inc. at admin@wihrg.com

Feel free to visit our websites for additional information on our services at: http://www.wihrg.com  & http://www.wastesavings.net and our daily blog at http://wihresourcegroup.wordpress.com

WIH Resource Group on Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/wihresourcegroup

Follow Bob Wallace and WIH Resource Group on Twitter: http://twitter.com/wihresource

Waste Management of Seattle has begun construction on a new compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling station and unveiled a fleet of CNG-fueled solid waste collection trucks. The Seattle project is part of a larger national effort to cut the company’s CO2 emissions by 15% by 2020.

Waste Management is investing $29 million in 106 new vehicles and an additional $7.5 million to build a compressed natural gas fueling station in Seattle. When complete, the station will open to the public and within five years all 180 collection trucks in the Seattle fleet will be fueled by CNG.

Nationally, Waste Management already has 265 CNG and has 418 LNG (liquified natural gas) vehicles; and by the end of 2009, the company expects to have 500 LNG vehicles and 299 CNG vehicles in service.

As part of a broader national effort to convert trucks to CNG, the plan would seem to dovetail nicely with what has been proposed by T. Boone Pickens. In addition to advocating for more wind energy to power our light cars and trucks, Pickens supports converting the nation’s truck-fueling infrastructure to natural gas.

“The replacement of diesel to CNG trucks greatly reduces exposure to fine particulate emissions from diesel engines in both residential and commercial area trucks,” said Jennifer Andrews, Waste Management’s communications director in the West, in an email.

An independent review conducted by an environmental consulting firm, determined Waste Management’s equipment upgrade in Seattle will reduce smog-causing NOx by 97 percent, toxic diesel particulate matter by 94% and greenhouse gas by 20%.

And considering natural gas prices are less than half of what gasoline prices are in some parts of the country, the conversion to the cleaner-burning domestic fuel also makes good business sense.

As a member of the Chicago Climate Exchange, the country’s first voluntary carbon market, Waste Management has committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by six percent from its 1998-2001 baseline emissions by 2010. As part of that commitment, the company has begun an extensive greenhouse gas accounting program and will begin reporting that data after the end of this calendar year.

Not to blow too much smoke here, but any move towards practices that lessen the environmental impact of a company that serves 25 million residential customers and handles 128 million tons of waste annually, is a step forward in the confines of an unavoidably dirty industry.

Source:  Waste Management, City of Seattle & WIH Resource Group

If you have any questions about this news or general questions about our diversified services, please contact Bob Wallace, Principal & VP of Client Solutions at WIH Resource Group and Waste Savings, Inc. at admin@wihrg.com

Feel free to visit our websites for additional information on our services at: http://www.wihrg.com &  http://www.wastesavings.net and our daily blog at http://wihresourcegroup.wordpress.com

WIH Resource Group on Linked In:http://www.linkedin.com/in/wihresourcegroup 

Follow Bob Wallace and WIH Resource Group on Twitter: http://twitter.com/wihresource

GreenPeace is serious about climate change. And they know that one of the best—or maybe easiest—ways to bring attention to a cause is to put naked people on it. Naked people + social cause = media attention. Seriously, would I even be blogging about this if GreenPeace had put out some pastoral pictures of wineries in the south of France with the headline “Save Our Vintners”? (The answer is no.)

713 hardy French men and women stripped down to send a message about climate change. They posed nude in French vineyards to warn the world about the impact of global warming on the French wine industry.

In Burgundy, the heart of the French vineyards, on a sunny day ( luckily), Spencer Tunick posed the happy participants in 4 different poses; one with women alone, one with men alone and two more in different vineyards. Organised with Greenpeace, it’s all part of the campaign to urge political leaders to take action in the lead up to the U.N.’s Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December.

Tunick has been organising these mass nude art pieces for more than 15 years and all over the world. In 2007 he worked with Greenpeace to do one in -10 degree weather, with six hundred dedicated Swiss posing nude on a melting glacier (the Aletsch) in Switzerland. This was done to draw attention to global warming and the shrinking glaciers, which are predicted to disappear by 2080.

Source:  Chelsea Green & WIH Resource Group

If you have any questions about this news or general questions about our diversified services, please contact Bob Wallace, Principal & VP of Client Solutions at WIH Resource Group and Waste Savings, Inc. at admin@wihrg.com

Feel free to visit our websites for additional information on our services at: http://www.wihrg.com &  http://www.wastesavings.net and our daily blog at http://wihresourcegroup.wordpress.com

WIH Resource Group on Linked In:http://www.linkedin.com/in/wihresourcegroup 

Follow Bob Wallace and WIH Resource Group on Twitter: http://twitter.com/wihresource

BioFuelBox Inc., a leader in waste-to-fuel solutions, announces the world’s first fully scaled refinery for converting waste fat, oil and grease (FOG) from wastewater into a clean-burning renewable fuel. The company’s first plant, located in Idaho, is processing waste FOG from trap grease and is producing a premium, low sulfur, ASTM compliant biodiesel for on-road use.

“The US discards more than 4 billion gallons of grease through wastewater treatment systems every year that could be transformed into fuel,” stated Steven Perricone, BioFuelBox’s CEO. “Our patented NovoStream™ process provides the most environmentally friendly solution for remediating watery waste greases like trap grease, wastewater scum, industrial food processing DAF, and other wastewater FOG sources.”

Local governments spend more than $25 billion a year maintaining sewer systems, in large part due to grease clogs that cause sanitary sewer overflows. This sewer-fat crisis is causing municipalities across the country to establish and toughen wastewater FOG ordinances. State and federal laws are also becoming stricter making it more costly for industrial and municipal wastewater treatment facilities to dispose of grease removed from wastewater streams as typical disposal methods such as land application, land filling and incineration are huge contributors to the world’s greenhouse gas (GHG) problem. The NovoStream process was designed to help reduce these problems and eliminate a significant source of GHG. Moreover, BioFuelBox’s biodiesel is clean-burning with an 85% reduction in GHG emissions compared to petroleum-based diesel.

Concurrently, BioFuelBox was awarded top honors by AlwaysOn in the Resource Recovery and Waste Management Category. Every year, AlwaysOn selects the most promising cleantech companies in several categories. BioFuelBox was recognized for its turnkey system, which generates energy from waste by processing and extracting value from wastewater streams.

Source: BioFuelBox, Solidwaste.com & WIH Resource Group

If you have any questions about this news or general questions about our diversified services, please contact Bob Wallace, Principal & VP of Client Solutions at WIH Resource Group and Waste Savings, Inc. at admin@wihrg.com

Feel free to visit our websites for additional information on our services at: http://www.wihrg.com &  http://www.wastesavings.net and our daily blog at http://wihresourcegroup.wordpress.com

WIH Resource Group on Linked In:http://www.linkedin.com/in/wihresourcegroup 

Follow Bob Wallace and WIH Resource Group on Twitter: http://twitter.com/wihresource

Dragii mei, vă spun cinstit, zise ursul din pădure

Mie –mi este rău,   pe bune, nu mai am nici fragi, nici mure

Miere nu se mai găseşte,  nici măcar la magazine

De ocolesc pădurea toată, poftă mare cănd îmi vine

Unde pui că plictisită, vulpea nu mai prinde peşte

Nu te mai lipeşti de dânsa, în permanenţă vorbeşte.

Vă propun, acum îndată să facem o adunare

Să votăm cin să  conducă treburi guvernamentale

Ca să nu mai fie criză în padure, de de toate

S-aibă  orişicare în casă, pe masă multe bucate.

-Eu  propun să ne conducă spre bunastare acum

Cel ce ştie să rezolve cum se asfaltează-un drum

Să construiască-n padure, fântâni chiar arteziene

Să dispară de pe aicea  gama asta  de dughene

Dacă cineva mai ştie, vreun animal mai deştept

La prezidiu rog să vie, eu pe toţi aici aştept.

Iepuraşul mai fricos, în labă cu-n morcov mare

Se iveşte la prezidiu, să ţină o cuvîntare

-Dragii mei, pădurea noastră, nu e ca alte păduri

Unii trăiesc foarte bine, alţii,  doar  cu frimituri

Să luăm vă rog  acuma,   o măsură radicală

Să eradicăm cu totul din padure această boală.

-Bun, zise dintre tufişuri, un arici cu ţepi pe frunte

Vă propun peste pădure, noi să arcuim o punte

In cinci ani, mergi pe deasupra şi priveşti de sus pe toţi

Şi-o rămâne  moştenire   la copii şi  la nepoţi

Propunerea ta-i colosală,  ciripi o păsărică

Ce stătea cam  îngheţată , într-un colţ pe-o rămurică.

Un mistreţ ce sta într-o dungă, priveşte la adunare

Băi, nu ştiţi că este criză, ce vorbiţi de bunăstare

Strîngeţi toţi cureaua frate şi salariul tot mai mic

Dacă nu, iată poteca, de aici nu luaţi  nimic

Mai vorbiră vreo câţiva,  fără prea multă substanţă

Se iscă o gălagie, care e mai tare-n clanţă

Îi lăsai să certe frate, cum, pe cine, ce să aleagă

Că dură sedinţa asta aprope o noapte întregă

Şi la fel ca în poveste şi în viaţă,  pricopseala

Fără muncă, nu sporeşte nimănui agoniseala

Ca să ne obţină votul,  ne mint toţi şi-o fac uşor

După ce-şi fac interesul, dau promisiunea-n zbor.