Field Trip: Town Dump

For my Environmental Biology class, our lab went to the Columbia landfill. It was awesome. Here are some things I learned:

• the cellulose cases that are used for hotdogs (the part that makes the meat stay together, not the packaging) can be made out of recycled material. I am ambivalent about this. Reason #453 to not eat hot dogs.
  
• The stuff we put in the clear blue recycle bags in Columbia is hand sorted, mostly by temp workers who get no benefits.
  
• There's something called an Eddy Current Separator that acts as a reverse magnet and repels aluminum. cool!
• the recycling center sells ground up glass as sand for $5/ton. prank idea?
• 20-25% of Columbia recycles. sad.
• Columbia has the only Bioreactor landfill in Missouri. Here's how it works: you add water to the waste and methane gas comes off. You funnel the methane into energy, and it supplies electricity to 1,300 homes. Awesome.
  

I love field trips.