The Future of Trash is Fuel
The world’s population creates an estimated 2.6 trillion pounds of garbage every year. The United States alone produced 251 million tons in 2012, making it the largest trash producer that year. Where does all that garbage go? From the trash can in your kitchen to the end of its lifecycle, garbage ultimately ends up in a number of different places, including landfills, incinerators, recycling centers or as pollution in our oceans and communities. Recycling has helped to reduce landfill capacity levels, but what if there was a way to further reduce the amount of trash that’s left behind? Abengoa’s newest technology, waste to biofuels (W2B), will alter the garbage lifecycle as we know it. It’s a simple concept: turning waste into biofuels—but the process is pretty sophisticated. Based on first-…