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This digital document is an article from Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, published by Air and Waste Management Association on February 1, 2004. The length of the article is 5882 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Performance of an innovative two-stage process converting food waste to hydrogen and methane.: An article from: Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association

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San Francisco is probably America’s most eco-friendly city. It currently recycles an amazing 72% of its waste and has a successful public transport system.

Now, the city hopes to increase that recycling rate to 90% with the introduction of mandatory composting.

The San Francisco Board Of Supervisors voted 9-2 to require residents and businesses to sort recyclables, general rubbish and recyclables for weekly collection. Those failing to comply with the new ordinances, which take effect in the autumn, will be hit with fines.

The Board hopes that San Francisco will dramatically cut its greenhouse gas emissions and stop using incinerators and landfill by 2020.

When food waste, plant waste and other organic matter are sent to landfill, air cannot get to the organic waste. As the waste decomposes, it forms methane, a harmful greenhouse gas, which damages the Earth’s atmosphere.

According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, methane is 72 times more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide.

When this same waste is composted aboveground at home, oxygen helps the waste to decompose aerobically. This means no methane is produced, reducing global warming.

San Francisco sends its food waste and other compostable material daily to the Jepson-Prairie composting facility in Vacaville, CA. The facility’s output is sold as soil improvers to vineyards, retail soil bagging operations, landscapers and the erosion control industry.

San Francisco has the best recycling and composting programs in the nation,” Mayor Gavin Newsom said. “We can build on our success.”

Hopefully, San Francisco’s example will be followed in other big cities around the world.

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Methane and methane emissions are, in fact, 20x times more dangerous than CO2 – traditionally painted black by environmentalists.

Where is Methane Hidden and What IS It?

Fortunately, or unfortunately, methane and its emissions are not as commonly or as openly found as carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is found in abundance all over the planet, especially in heavily populated cities. It is a known enemy and we have now been able to combat it in many different ways.

The true green devil, methane is ‘trapped’ and is almost hidden from human sight. It works its damage as covertly as terrorists do – and is probably almost as lethal as they are.

Methane is found primarily in the sub-zero temperatures of the Tundra region. You will see large areas of the northern hemisphere half frozen and covered in slush. That is where methane lurks and wields its dangerous weapons. It is found in good measure right at the bottom of the deep blue seas.

And it could possibly be like the sea monsters of yore – only this monster is real and its danger is imminent.

Why is Methane Suddenly an Ecological Threat Now?

Methane is like a volcano that was silent and ‘dead’ all these years. Methane emissions remained covered in ice and frozen coverings. Now, the sad news is that global warming has melted away our only protection against methane and its emissions – frozen ice.
The result? Gases like methane that were, so far, lying harmlessly ‘dormant’ under layers of ice and snow, might suddenly be released in the atmosphere.

Imagine, a belch, a burp, or a fart releasing noxious smells from the innards of your being …well, this might be something akin to Mother Nature’s burp. It might not smell as bad but it sure can be dangerous.

5 Ways to Combat Methane and its Emissions

1.Use less non- renewable sources of energy and reduce your consumption of fossil fuels.

2.Use hydro-fuels instead of petro based ones.

3.Reduce global warming any which way that you can.

4.Become ‘carbon neutral’ and reduce your carbon footprint.

5.Hope that scientists can figure out a way in which they can trap the carbon particles floating around us and re-use it constructively.

Above all, don’t become complacent. The first warnings have already been issued –

Lake Nyos, almost 25 years ago, emitted or belched gases. It killed almost 2000 people in one fell sweep in the Cameroons.

A couple of years ago, Lake Monoun also burped a rather small belch and wiped off almost 40 people.

Scientists believe that methane and its emissions might even have wiped off many species of animals, flora, and fauna before the dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

Methane and its emissions were also the villain, eons ago, when large changes in the Earth’s eco-system lead to mass scale destruction of a rich variety of species. Do you want the green devil, methane and its emissions, to strike again?

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