[WileyC]

Ingenious. I've thought for YEARS (around 25, but who's counting?) that waste products could be reduced by better methods than composting or incineration (although incineration is much better for the environment than landfilling or recycling).

It reminds me of a major chemical company I visited in Japan. When they were starting out, they were actually a mining company that produced enormous amounts of waste acid as part of their mining operation. One clever fellow decided that there must be some use for the stuff and began marketing it rather than throwing it in the ocean. It was so profitable that today they do a lot of chemistry and no mining at all.

Following the same pattern, there have been waste brokers (at least in the US) that sniff around for what one company throws away in case some other company would be willing to pay for it. It's a niche field, to be sure, but worth quite a bit of money if you can hook up with the right businesses.

I had theorized that some very high tech method would eventually be employed for organic wastes (y'know, genetically engineered organisms and nano-scale catalysts). Who would've thought that just cooking the stuff was all that was needed?

[Space Wrangler]

TN Chemical Company in Copper Hill, TN does the exact same thing. For years they literally raped the environment mining copper in the TN mtns, until someone discovered that the by-products they were ruining the land with was actually worth more than the copper they were mining. The area is just now starting to make a comeback. This area was so degraded by the mining, that the lack of vegetation could literally be seen from space. A big red-mud colored splotch showed up pretty good in the otehrwise lush TN Valley. Now only enough copper is mined to get the desired amount of chemicals that they need.