[Tailback]

I'm no engineer or other "genious" but what pops into my mind is "mining" old landfills for biomass to convert into oil. Also I haven't seen anyone make the logical leap into talking about the waste from dairies. Currently many dairies spray their manure onto fields as fertilizer but the resulting product is only good for animal feed. Imagine being able to extract both oil and fertilizers. Even if the technology is a revenue neutral endeavor it would be worthwhile to cut down on garbage ending up in landfills or local watersheds.

[Tailback]

I also forgot to mention the fact that I used to be a garbage man. Once a week my route was to pick up "yard debris" (grass clippings, trimmed hedges, etc...) and all that stuff could possibly be used in this process. I got anywhere from 10-20 cubic yards of highly compacted debris every week from approximately 650 homes.

[Dark Knight]

I think it is even further than that. What would happen to the world if we started to think of what we currently call garbage as a resource?

Almost all of it is organics, plastics, animal, vegetable etc. Only the mineral stuff would be out of the loop as a source. And this process would take the mineral stuff out of what was there.

The water that comes out is critter free. Virusii (sp) bacteria, and other multicell creatures are processed, just like everthing else. You could put the nastiest HIV laden, Hepatitis C laden waste in, and have non nasty waste come out (but I would want strict testing on this stuff).

I'm sounding like a commercial again.

Better stop.

DK