Yard Waste

everything should go in the compost because it helps the enviorment and then if they figure out a way to use the gas, change your ways.

I use the fallen pine needles and leaves in my flower beds and everything else goes into the compost heap

This is a good but complicated question that leads to other questions. In the first place yard waste (grass, limbs, leaves, etc.) should not go to the landfill per se. Landfills because they are not designed as bio-digestors do create methane but they are leaky systems and therefore a major source of greenhouse gasses (methane is a worse greenhouse gas than CO2). What we need to examine are integrated waste/energy systems that could be located at existing landfills and perform the following functions:

1. Cogeneration or waste conversion.
2. Resource mining both in terms of recyable materials and those that could be used as energy sources either through continued bio-digestion or used in the systems described in #1 above.
3. Commercial scale composting.
4. Process and decontamination sites for toxic or dangerous chemicals.

The challenge in a lot of this is that many of these sites have become toxic soups because for decades this was where we dumped all that was bad and poisonous in our lives. Under this model dumps become processes plants for the disassembly, reuse and repurposing of our waste into raw materials and energy. Waste becomes treasured resource and chemicals become de-engineered. Hopefully, this will come to pass.

Bob Ferris
Executive Director
Yestermorrow Design/Build School

What is yard waste. I might be acting like a dumb blonde, which i'm not, but is that like cut grass or lik dead bugs or something?