Let's Talk Trash

Turning Waste into Power How does it work?   There is a waste to power plant here in Indianapolis where I live.  It acts as supplemental energy for the city.  I have delivered garbage there in the past and seeing how it works is amazing to say the least, but how does it actually work?  As you can see above, the way it works is fairly straightforward like any other power station.   

Garbage in Our Oceans How did it All End Up There? It is not news that our oceans are filled with garbage and most of that is plastic which takes a long time to decay and it has affected wildlife and even our own lives.  The question is, how did it all get there?  There are many causes to this problem and I will go through those here.   Poor Waste Management Poor waste management is a big contributor to this issue.  Many countries that are poor have few ways of dealing with garbage effectively like we do in the United States.  They simply do not have the infrastructure to deal with all this garbage.  The countries that contribute the most pollution in our oceans are The Philippines, India, Malaysia, and China.  According to viborc.com, this is how much each country contributes to pollution in our oceans in metric tons!     Littering Littering is another big contributor to the large amount of pollution in our oceans.  This is not just som...

Recycling Buildings Deconstruction Back to Construction   I first heard about this method on NPR.  I always assumed that recycling was nearly impossible for buildings unless you are talking about metals or certain plastics.  I never thought about other materials such as shingles, the foundation, walls, and flooring.  In this blog, I will discuss how these materials can be recycled and the process it takes.  I will not go through every single part of the building.  That would take too long.

Food Waste What Can be Done? When I hauled garbage, I would notice a lot of what I had in my trailer was wasted food.  Many of the food came from restaurants since that transfer station dealt with mainly those facilities rather than residential houses.  Why wasn't that food transported to food banks or homeless shelters?  For starters, many food pantries and homeless shelters accept mainly non-perishable items. That was why I saw perishable food in my trailer rather than packaged foods.  Many food banks and homeless shelters lack the means to keep perishable foods fresh.  So, what can be done?  I am going to ignore companies for now and focus on us.  What can we do? Composting This is something we can also do in our homes.  There are many municipal composting sites in many areas.  However, there are downsides to composting such as it can cause allergic reactions and it takes a lot of time to turn food into compost.  This can cause backlo...

What is a Transfer Station?  When I hauled trash, I would get loaded at a transfer station.  I would drive my truck into a tunnel with a hole in the ceiling.  Trash would be dumped in by either a bulldozer, excavator, or both.  Loading could take minutes, depending on the volume of trash.  A transfer station is more commonly called a Material Recycling Facility or MRF.  There is a lot more to transfer stations than just garbage.  A lot of their operations also pertain to recycling.  They are banded together into bales and loaded onto trucks to go to recycling facilities. What are the Benefits to Transfer Stations? The benefits of using a Material Recycling Facility are: Reduction of transportation costs Reduction in greenhouse gases like vehicle exhaust Reduce landfill waste Remove hazardous waste

What's Wrong with Recycling? The System is Broken In 2018 as I was working as a transfer driver, I asked the dispatcher at the transfer station about why we were taking tons of recyclable materials to the landfill a few miles away.  He told me it was because while it was sitting outside for many months getting rained, snowed, and having bird droppings plastered all about it, the recyclables molded and became impossible to recycle.  I then asked how much was there.  He replied, " 37,000 tons "!   To put that into perspective, an eighteen wheeler can legally only weigh 80,000 pounds.  That is 40 tons.  That weighs as much as 925 fully loaded trucks.  It took a couple weeks to get rid of all that garbage and let's not forget the tons of waste already coming in.  Let me reiterate, the system is broken. Why is it broken? You saw in the video above that China used to take a lot of the world's recyclable waste.  Now that has changed.  Bec...

Fashionable Trash Why the Fashion Industry is so Wasteful In case you missed it, 10 million tons of unused clothing is sent to the landfill in 2015 alone.  In 2023, according to an Earth.org article titled, "10 Concerning Fast Fashion Waste Statistics", that number has risen to 11.3 million tons.  Today, that is 16 million tons!  Why is so much clothing being thrown away instead of being recycled, donated, or upcycled?  We will explore that in this blog post. How Much is Wasted, How Much is Donated? https://pirg.org/california/articles/the-fashion-industry-waste-is-drastically-contributing-to-climate-change/ I have witnessed this firsthand when I worked as a transfer driver.  I rolled into the transfer station seeing a mountain of trash inside the facility.  I was notified by the dispatcher that the load was going to be dropped into my trailer was ADIDAS and I needed special paperwork so the customer knows it was destroyed at the landfill.  I wondered ...

How Does Recycling Work Exactly? Turning Trash into Things We Use I understand the video above is quite silly, however it does point out an important part of the supply chain of waste management.  Not all trash must end up rotting away in landfills.  Many things can be recycled and used once again.  Products like:

Who are the Garbage Men?  The Men and Women who Pick Up our Trash The men and women who pick up our garbage are some of the most hard working and dedicated people.  From the two men above, to those who drive roll offs, transfer trucks, or whatever, this job is far from easy.   According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of work fatalities of a garbage collector was 41.4 per 100,000 in 2023.  In comparison, truck drivers had a 26.8 fatalities per 100,000.      Despite those numbers, many men and women dedicate their lives to keeping America clean.  As I stated in a pervious blog, I hauled trash for four years and the people that I worked with were some of the most amazing people.  They were hard working and took pride in their job.  

  How Landfills Work Mountains of Garbage You may have seen them.  You see a random mountain in the middle of the countryside.  You may see trucks climbing these monolithic heaps and you could have seen a similar video above.  What you are seeing is a hydraulic tipping machine that lifts the trailer into the air an allows gravity to push the trash out of the back.  This is just one way trash is placed into the landfill.   Other ways are: Residential Trucks Photo from: routereadytrucks.com/ Roll Off Trucks   Photo from: www.dumpsters.com Dump Trucks Photo from: www.instagram.com/heritagetruckequipment There are other ways trash is transported to landfills, but the four above are the main ways.  For instance, trains bring in trash to certain landfills, but these are the most common ways trash is brought to the landfills. How Landfills are Started Photo from: www.theleafchronicle.com/ First, the land is purchased by a company or the land is owne...

  Let's Talk Trash Introductory Post Greetings and Happy New Year.  I hope this new year brings happiness and change  in your lives.   I am starting this blog because I have worked in the trash business for  about four years.  Although, I am no longer hauling trash to landfills, I still feel a  strong feeling about the industry and the impact it has on our lives today.