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We all create it, even if we usually don’t like to think about it: waste. And the journal Science devotes its new issue to the subject. It delves into the problems—home garbage, plastics, metal, water, even everyone’s favorite, sludge—and discusses research into policy and scientific solutions.
Take biosolids. They encompass industrial waste from food production, to agricultural waste to the stuff that gets flushed. Researchers say organics-filled wastewater takes about 15 gigawatts per year in the U.S., but we could be generating electricity with that stuff. They point to one promising technology, a microbial fuel cell: bacteria use the waste as food and release electrons that are captured by an electrode.
The waste could also be used to produce compounds such as biofuels or other industrial chemicals. For instance, microbes can turn waste into hydrogen peroxide—useful for industrial bleaching. [Bruce E. Logan and Korneel Rabaey, Conversion of Wastes into Bioelectricity and Chemicals by Using Microbial Electrochemical Technologies]
More research is needed to scale up these systems – finding the best microbes, and lowering the cost of the electrodes. But the authors say the promise of both energy and chemical production is a strong incentive to move from bio-waste to bio-use. Because waste is a terrible thing to waste.
—Cynthia Graber
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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3 Comments
Add CommentUseful and easy if the government would get out of the way and allow waste management companies to start mining garbage dumps instead of this ridiculous attempt to try and do it at a residence. Sure in the home or office, it is easy to do it with very large single substance items like paper or a plastic bottle. But to get to every chemical and waste product that could be reused, it will be more efficient to get everyone and every business to send all waste to a facility designed to extract every possible usable substance out of that waste. It is not only safer in general(we dont want the average homeowner melting down circuit boards to extra material) it is also the best way to ensure nearly 100% reuse of substances.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGood point. We don't use waste in a useful way. We pile it up and cover it dirt.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't get this ,'Because waste is a terrible thing to waste'. Could anyone help me to explain this? Thank you!
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