And now, about the TRASH.
Newton's trash is transported to the Millbury Wheelabrator waste-to-energy plant. The trash is mass burned and the resulting ash is landfilled in Shrewsbury. The conversion comes out to be 1 ton of ash for every 10 tons of trash burned. Any metals found in the trash stream are pulled out and recycled at the plant. With Newton's curbside recycling program, and appliance recycling it's not a problem. There is also a scrap metal container located at the Recycling Depot at Rumford Ave. Most metal is separated out before it ever reaches Wheelabrator.
So, our trash is collected and mass burned, THEN landfilled. In conventional landfills, food waste breaks down anaerobically and the resulting compost just... sits there. Because it breaks down without oxygen, methane gas is produced-- which contributes to global warming! Contrary to what was previously hypothesized, more organic matter in landfills does not help the real trash to break down. So that diaper? Yeah, the one that your parents used? Or maybe your grandparents? They are all still there, somewhere. And that's just diapers. Think about all the food containers we use, all the styrofoam we don't recycle. All the greasy paper we throw out. All of that is just... sitting somewhere in a landfill, in some way, shape or form.
And now the real question: how much of that doesn't need to be there? How much of it could have been recycled? How much of it could have been composted? According to wastage.com (part of Strategic Materials, the company that bought CRA), food waste is the largest component of discarded waste by weight. Yes, I know, lots of that can't be composted, like dairy and meat scraps, but how much of it could be? All the grapefruit rinds and apple peels and leafy greens and mushrooms we don't get to? And all of that other good stuff that the worms love... Have some love for your worms-- compost it! More on that coming up, when I really get the experiment part of my project started :)
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