Packedup wrote:
I've wondered for a long time why something isn't done with the vast amounts of waste humans create, glad to hear some scientists are actually trying to do something productive there!
Lafarge Cement (used to be Blue Circle Cement) is a local company to me.
I had an invite for a tour of the factory with the Retired Engineers Society (I was a civil servant but got invited to join due to freinds being members and my interest) unfortunatley there were too many steps to climb (duff leg syndrome !) so I had to decline.
I was told the process plant is interesting and after the base materials are mixed they are then heated in a rotary kiln. The kiln is powered by burning various items including old tyres and dried HUMAN SEWERAGE
Welung666 wrote:
Slightly off topic I know but I remember about 8 years ago taking nearly 20 ton of custom made pipework to a landfill just outside Edinburgh. They were concrete capping a landfill and piping off the methane created to generate electricity. Now thats recycling!
A mate is a lorry driver and took me to a landfill site near Crewe Ches.
There are pipes all over that are slowly covered with old house bricks encased in steel mesh.
On the way out my mate showed me what the pipes were for.
Seems they have two ex submarine diesel engines still linked to massive generators that are powered by the methane and electricity sent back to the grid.
The engines run on normal diesel to generate the ignition but are also fed on the methane which then raised the revs.
That is a good example but I can also quote a bad one
My council is Staffordshire Moorlands and their main tip / refuse disposal site is at Fowlchurch, Leek. This used to be a landfill but has been greened over to look like any other field with waste going into skips for transportation to recycling and incinerator.
The methane from the old landfill, however, is just burn off !
If you go at this time of year just before closing you can see the huge, almost invisible, flames almost like the old films of oil rigs.
What is discusting is the council built a new swimming baths a few hundred yards away and it was propesed that the methane be used towards the heating yet was deemed not viable !
In my opinion the methane is a resource and need recycling into power etc just the same as all other waste.
Even if they used it to power a small generator to provide lighting on the site I'd find that acceptable but just burning it is terrible.
Paul Humphries.
Just caught the hose from the pump to the carby in time 
. Many cars went up in flames - they got the mix wrong!
