Trash – July 21

July 21, 2008

Click on the headline (link) for the full text.

Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage


Dumpster diving with the freegans: Why pay for food?

AUTHOR, PUB
htJames Hall is amazed at all the goodies on offer as he joins anti-consumerist activists in ‘dumpster diving’

Sleep is cheap for Dave Hamilton. That’s because the Bristolian paid almost nothing for his king-sized wooden bed. Mr Hamilton salvaged the bed frame from a skip.

The mattress came from Freecycle.org, a free online exchange site. All he paid for were the screws to put it together. “The entire bed cost me less than £3,” he boasts…

Existing freegans say that people are joining their ranks by the week. But these are not dippy hippies or trampy hobos. They are educated people who have decided to seek an alternative way of life outside the economic norms…

…Freeganism is a way of living and its proponents practice it in different ways. Dave Hamilton, who describes himself as an “aspiring freegan”, explains: “It is about doing what you can. It is about having the smallest impact and living as cheaply as possible, whether you live on a council house or on acres of land. I have met a lot more freegans over the last few months.”…
(21 July 2008)


City to get 50 MW power from garbage

Economic Times (India)
HYDERABAD: Garbage may be one good source to overcome power shortage that the city as been witnessing in recent times.

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation hopes to get 50 MW power through power generation from garbage from next year.

With the additional power that will be generated, it will be possible to reduce at least half an hour of the scheduled power cuts in the city and meet the power requirements to light all the street lamps.

Twenty two firms have shown interest in generating power from garbage in the city after the GHMC called for expression of interest from the national and international firms last month. The last date for submitting tenders was July 9, 2008.
(20 July 2008)


Rubbish idea that could make driving cheaper

Catherine Boyle, The Times
A British company may have the answer to soaring petrol prices after it claimed yesterday to have become the first to have found a way to make fuel from rubbish.

The company claims that it can produce about 400 litres (90 gallons) of ethanol from one tonne of dry waste. The new process works by heating the waste to produce gases, then feeding the gases to bacteria, which produce ethanol that can be purified into a fuel.
(21 July 2008)


Tags: Consumption & Demand, Food, Technology, Transportation, Waste