Waste_Inbo

Garbage to Gas: Waste Management Inc. received some nice coverage from ABCNews.com the other day with this story about its plant in Livermore, Calif., that makes liquefied natural gas from methane produced at its Altamont landfill to fuel its trash trucks:

"Almost 500 Waste Management Inc. garbage and recycling trucks run on this new source of environmentally friendly fuel instead of dirty diesel. In a state that has passed the most stringent greenhouse gas reduction goals in the United States, the climate change benefits of this plant are twofold -- methane from the trash heap is captured before entering the environment and use of the fuel produces less carbon dioxide than conventional gasoline.

"Altamont is one of two California landfills making LNG; the other is a smaller facility about 40 miles south of Los Angeles. Other natural gas facilities are being planned by Waste Management at some of the 270 active landfills nationwide, and the number could grow quickly as communities seek to reduce greenhouse gas pollution."

Coming Up Roses: An awful lot of waste goes to waste after the Rose Bowl parade in Pasadena, Calif., each year. City officials have long struggled with recycling the mountains of trash left behind at the event because it takes place New Year´s Day, a holiday, which means all the recycling centers in the area are closed, and the city doesn´t have any facilities to store the waste. So virtually all of the stuff goes to landfills.

But, as the Pasadena Star-News reports, that situation improved somewhat this year, thanks to a local nonprofit, LifeStraw, that jumped into the fray and made "a small dent" in the amount of trash from the parade being sent to landfills by collecting bottles and cans.

Also, there were noticeably fewer deserted sofas left behind this time around, as the city banned sofas from the parade beginning this year.

Pete Fehrenbach is managing editor of Waste & Recycling News. Past installments of this column are collected in the Inbox archive.

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