As we discuss more about alternatives on going green, I surely hope you’ll never get tired of finding out more ways on how to help the planet Earth. Truth be said, I find it more and more interesting on what people are doing to help alleviate the environmental problems we’re currently facing. And with this, I found out that our even our waste is now being converted to useable energy…amazing, isn’t it!
This process is what we call biomass. I am sure you have heard of biofuel, right? Biomass comes from wastes products like manure, wood, landfill gases and alcohol fuels. The whole process can be quite overwhelming to explain, so we’ll focus on how these are gathered and converted to energy.
No matter how much we want to avoid it, we do create a lot of waste as each day passes by. Wastes are a renewable and replenishable energy source.
During harvest time, the farmers only get the main product out of their crops like corn in a cornfield and rice in a rice field. But neither corn nor rice will just simply grown from the ground without a plant to support them. And after harvesting and selling off these crops, the farmers are left with the useless plant with all its leaves and roots. This is one form of waste matter, which we will never run out of as long as we’re growing food.
Another form of waste matter is the landfill. As we continue to live in this world, we’ll always accumulate trash. Americans alone can contribute tons upon tons of trash to our landfill. Landfills, due to the heat that is continually being created by the CO2 from compacted trash, are producing methane gases that when harnessed, it can provide electricity (although we’re not encouraging you to disregard recycling!).
Wood chips are also a form of waste matter. Whenever carpenters build furniture or repair a house, wood chips are always included in the things they throw in the trash. These wood chips can be easily used as a raw material in providing energy.
These are just some of the waste matters that are currently being collected and converted into usable energies. Waste matters are renewable and replenishable. Isn’t it amazing how nature is able to take care of itself if we’ll give it a chance? Every single thing that we get from these alternative ways of getting energy comes from nature…the sun, the wind, the waves, the waste matter…all these have been provided by nature for us to use. It may have taken us thousands of years before we’re able to take full use of these things, but at least we are using them now. And I truly believe that with man’s ability to create, we’ll be creating more machinery to be able to properly harness these renewable energies!