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March 31, 2004

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While reading up on landfills and "How they Work", I quickly came to the realization that they "Do Not" work. The theory is, that you throw all the garbage in the ground, cover it up, and let nature do the rest. So how can nature decompose things that are not natural?

I recall when I was a child, and my father taking me to a landfill to dump our garbage. At first I was thrilled and amazed at the mountains of garbage. Being a creative kid, and looking across the waste, I could see parts of bicycles and toys and all kinds of other things I could surely use. But after a while the magnitude of it all started to sink in. The seemingly endless mountains of human waste. How do we, as humans, create such a vast amount of trash?

Americans generate trash at about four pounds per day, per person. This equates to an average of 600,000 tons per day, and 210 million tons per year. This is an overwhelming figure. 

 We all need to look into alternate means of waste disposal. It has been proven that landfills don't work. Toxins still remain after more than 18 years later and newspapers can still be read more than 50 years later. After a landfill is covered is conceals everything. Erosion does not allow for the natural decay of some materials, while other materials may not decay or decompose for hundreds or even thousands of years. This is an ever-growing problem that is only going to get worse if we do not react.

This is something that I have begun to be even more and more passionate about over the years and is actually what my new occupation is going to encompass. I will soon be moving to Arizona and will be working on a project that will, if all goes well, convert garbage to fuel. I will provide more details later, but I have affectionately started referring to the endeavor as project "Mr. Fusion". I will be an integral part of the engineering, planning and building of the new prototype facilities. First in Arizona, then Texas, and hopefully spreading all over the country.

For now, please do what you can to recycle as much as possible. Then please be sure to separate the metals from the rest of the waste, as this part of the process is going to be a booger for me to work around.

If you would like more information about the project and follow its progress, and how you can help, please keep an eye on my web site as I will soon be posting information on there.

Till then, wish me luck, and think the next time you throw those old socks away. They just may pass in front of me on some conveyor belt somewhere, as I cringe from the odor.