From Gigaom.com:

On Monday Abengoa said it plans to build a $110 million factory in Glendale that will turn city garbage into electricity. Chicago-based power company Vieste Energy will own the planned factory, and Abengoa will build it and run it for 30 years. Construction will take 20 months, and create 50 jobs, says Abengoa. When fully built, the factory is supposed to be able to gasify 180,000 tons of garbage per year, produce 350 tons of gas per day, and create 15 MW of electricity.

This type of factory planned for Glendale gasifies many types of waste, not just organic waste, but also plastics. In contrast, other biogas plants built sporadically around the U.S. — most commonly at landfills and water treatment facilities — put organic waste into bioreactors, which captures the gas that is produced as the organic materials decompose.

In our on going search for renewable energy we often forget about the one renewable resource that will never go away: garbage. We often equate burning garbage with the nasty noxious smogs that haunted the streets of 19th Century industrialized cities. But garbage burned for energy today meets strict emissions standards so garbage into energy may be a piece of our future’s renewable energy puzzle.

Until then Green Clean Junk Removal Services provides trash removal and garbage pick up in Los Angeles and New York.

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When it comes to reducing our trash we should all think small. In my case, I looked in the bathroom and then looked in the mirror. I found one small thing I could change that would reduce my yearly expenses and cut my yearly trash output out drastically. Razors.

Yup.

I said, razors.

Like everyone else I know I shaved with those super-expensive disposable razor blades. I’d go through about four to five a month. I’d also burn through a can of shaving cream every five weeks. Think about the amount of trash that generates per year. Then think about how much trash that generates over ten or twenty years. Plastic housings, dull metal, and dozens of aerosol cans. And all of it completely unnecessary. 

Men have been shaving for thousands of years (unless those busts of the Emperors were wrong, they weren’t a lot of scruffy Romans running around) and up until fifty years ago we shaved in a way that didn’t generate 100s of plastic cartridges in the garbage every year. Turns out all you need for a good shave is a sharp blade, a nice brush, and lathering soap. 

This desire to stop consuming convenience and instead return to traditional ways made me seek out the art of the wet shave. I dumped my disposable razor and took up a safety razor instead. I said goodbye to my aerosol propelled shaving gels in favor of a badger brush and a lathering shave soap.

You know how much garbage my shaving repertoire generates now? One blade every couple of weeks. And that blade is biodegradable. Oh, and I get a better shave than I ever got from disposable razors.

So if you want to reduce your garbage and trash output think small. Look at the things you do every day and say, Is there a way I could do this differently? Chances are the answer is Yes, and that way of doing something may also have the benefit of being a better way of doing something.

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But in Oslo, Norway the city is faced with the complete opposite problem. Too little trash.

From New York Times: 

Oslo, a recycling-friendly place where roughly half the city and most of its schools are heated by burning garbage — household trash, industrial waste, even toxic and dangerous waste from hospitals and drug arrests — has a problem: it has literally run out of garbage to burn.

The problem is not unique to Oslo, a city of 1.4 million people. Across Northern Europe, where the practice of burning garbage to generate heat and electricity has exploded in recent decades, demand for trash far outstrips supply. “Northern Europe has a huge generating capacity,” said Mr. Mikkelsen, 50, a mechanical engineer who for the last year has been the managing director of Oslo’s waste-to-energy agency.

Burning garbage for energy hasn’t caught on in the United States, and with the rise of solar and wind power, probably won’t ever catch on as a viable alternate energy source, but the United States may soon be providing Northern Europe’s energy in the form of burnable garbage.

Green Clean Junk Removal Services provides garbage removal and trash removal services to the Los Angeles and New York Areas. 

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Think these risks are overhyped? This story comes from WPXI in Pittsburgh:

PITTSBURGH — 

Firefighters battled smoke and flames at an abandoned store front late Thursday night in Homewood.

The fire was reported at a building on Frankstown Avenue about 11:30 p.m.

Assistant Fire Chief Thomas Cook said garbage and other junk inside the building made it difficult for crews to extinguish the flames.

“It looked like hoarding conditions, therefore we kept all the firefighters out and attacked the fire from the outside,” Cook said.

If you know someone who is hoarding, try to get them help as soon as possible. Green Clean Junk Removal Services provides hoarders junk removal.

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The average person generates about 4.4 pounds of garbage per day, 29 pounds total per week, and 1,600 pounds of trash per year. That sounds like a shocking amount but if you think about the amount of trash you take out every week it makes sense.

Now imagine reducing your yearly trash footprint to something that could fit inside a quart-sized jar. Sound impossible? Well one California family did it.

From Forbes.com:

Five years ago Bea Johnson and her husband and two sons were looking for a home closer to the restaurants, shops and school in their coastal California town.

During the year they spent house hunting, the family of four moved into a small apartment, took only the possessions that were absolutely necessary and left the rest in storage.

“After living with just the necessities, we realized that we had much more time to spend with our family when we weren’t spending it caring for a large house and lots of belongings,” says Johnson.

Then, when they did decide on a house, they chose one half the size of their previous home and simplified by selling most of their old stuff.

Around that time, Johnson and her husband began investigating environmental issues. “We read books, watched documentaries, and what we learned worried us and made us sad for our kids’ futures,” she says. “So we decided to do something about it. My husband quit his job to start a sustainability consulting company, and I tackled greening our house.”

It was then that Johnson devised a system to reduce the family’s garbage—she calls it the Zero Waste Home. She started by swapping everything disposable in their home (paper towels, water bottles, grocery bags) for reusables.

Today, she says, her family’s yearly waste can fit in a quart-size jar.

Simplifying and decluttering your life is the mantra Green Clean Junk Removal Services lives by. You don’t need as much stuff as you think you need. And frankly you are better off without a lot of the things you think you need. While most of us won’t be able to reduce our trash footprint to zero, by decluttering and simplifying our lives, we can all lead happier lives and protect the Earth for the next generation.

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From a story on LAist.com:  

A bill for a statewide ban on single-use plastic shopping bags is up for consideration, backed by Los Angeles-based state senator Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima).

SB 405 “would phase out single-use plastic bags in California grocery stores, convenience stores, liquor stores, and pharmacies,” according to Padilla.

“SB 405 will help protect our environment by phasing out single-use plastic bags in California. Single-use plastic bags fill our landfills, clog inland waterways, litter our coastline, and kill thousands of fish, marine mammals and seabirds,” said Senator Alex Padilla in a release posted to his site.

If passed, the ban would take effect January 1, 2015 at grocery stores and pharmacies. In July 2016, convenience stores and liquor stores would be required to meet the same standard. SB 405 would not pre-empt local ordinances already in place governing limitations on single-use plastic bags.

The proposed legislation made progress Wednesday, when the Senate Environmental Quality Committee today approved the bill. The bill remains pending in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

I’ve long been a big proponent of using reusable grocery bags to limit trash and clutter. Using reusable grocery bag also help protect our natural resources and limit our oil consumption. So if you haven’t invested in reusable grocery bags yet, time to do so. 

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