A Garbage/Septage Cocktail for Fuel

January 30, 2008 – Vol.12 No. 45

A GARBAGE / SEPTAGE COCKTAIL FOR FUEL.

Here’s a frothy brew you wouldn’t want to put a straw into: a not-so-tasty blend of sewage and garbage. As unappealing as it may seem together the two can cut greenhouse gases, help cleanup water supplies and add a new source of green and endlessly renewable fuel, all with the help of a new patented invention by Viridis Waste Control: Septage Bioreactor Landfill (TM) technology.

Left on their own to decay, both waste pumped from septic systems (known as septage) and garbage in solid waste landfills produce methane gas (a powerful greenhouse gas in itself) and carbon dioxide, the most popularized greenhouse gas. But the decaying process, particularly for garbage, is slow. It takes a considerable time for garbage in landfill operations to decompose enough to make significant amounts of gases. (It’s the huge volume - the acreage and depth - of landfill operations that allow them to be tapped for large, usable amounts of methane.)

But blending sewage with garbage accelerates the breakdown of the garbage. The result is steady supply of methane that can be used directly as fuel or mixed with natural gas for pipeline distribution. (Natural gas is mostly methane. The mix is relatively easy.)

There are more significant advantages blending the garbage and septage together and quickly reacting them into fuel:

--- Protect ground and surface water. The practice of spreading septic waste in open fields or pits could halt. Runoff and seepage of pathogenic biological agents from septic tank waste can contaminate ground water, surface water, rivers and streams. Septic tank waste pumped and sent to processing stations using a Septage Bioreactor would be converted to a usable fuel, not supposedly filtered out in the ground.

--- Extend landfill life. Landfills take up considerable acreage and fill up quickly with bulk garbage and trash. Converting that garbage quickly into fuel with the help of septage would eliminate bulk considerably. The less bulk, the longer the landfill will take to fill up.

--- Better use of wastewater treatment facilities. Septic waste could become a valuable commodity since it could be needed to make fuel. If septic waste were channeled away from wastewater treatment facilities those facilities would be left to process only gray water, like dirty dish water.

--- A reduction in direct discharge of sewage onto land and into waterways. Again sewage would become a useful, component of fuel-making thus have value: There would be more incentive to save it, collect it and put it to work than to dispose of it.

--- Make landfill operations profitable. Sewage and garbage reacted together increase the amount of salable methane, or power generated from it, at landfill gas operations. More gas or more energy to sell means greater revenues and profit potential.

Certainly this technology doesn’t sound as sexy as solar or wind power. But it has a significant advantage over either. Those technologies provide intermittent energy. An operation using Septage Bioreactor Landfill technology would operate 24/7, 365 days a year. That’s much needed reliable baseload renewable energy.

Viridis Waste Control, LLC, is based in Dublin, Ohio. The privately held company focuses on methods of landfill operations that reduce the negative impact of waste on the environment.