by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
What do you do with your yard waste, your garden waste, that is to say, grass and grass clippings, weeds, small branches, leaves and plant clippings? Do you compost? Do you bag it for curbside pickup? Rentech, a company out of Realto, California will take your organic waste and put it to good use – productive renewable energy use. Rentech plans to work with green waste hauling contractors to collect this woody green organic waste and manufacture it into a new fuel “which burns cleanly in engines that use diesel fuel.”
There is also a partnership in Naperville, Illinois, between City of Naperville, Packer Engineering, Argonne National Laboratory and the College of DuPage that is working on collecting yard clippings to produce renewable energy. A “green depot” will be set up to manufacture the organic waste into a useful renewable fuel.
Naperville City Councilman, Robert Fiesler explains, “At first, the depot would be used mostly to generate electricity to fuel plug-in hybrid vehicles or supplement the city’s municipal electric system.”
Both these ideas, it must be said, seem brilliant and maybe, just maybe, we have the answer as to what fuel hauliers can use when the cheap oil has gone, as it will be soon, with regards to the fuel produced by Rentech Inc. from yard- and other green waste.
If you compost, on the other hand, use all bar weeds, in your composter. You may also, unless you have a chipper/shredder, want to leave branches of any size out of the compost-making process. It just takes too long for the wood material to break down. Leaves are fine as are most other things, such a bedding from chickens, vegetable peelings, stalks and everything else of the plants that you have grown. Just ensure the seeds don't get involved unless you – like me – like volunteer plants.
Waste not, want not, as they say and compost is a rather expensive commodity when you have to buy it by the bag.
© 2010
