Gaia Organic Waste Dehydrators
Gaia was the Greek Goddess of the Earth.
Un-treated organic waste dumped into landfill sites will rot, producing methane gas (a worse greenhouse gas than CO2) and leachate which pollutes soils and waterways. Many countries are taking steps to stop organic waste entering landfill by reducing the number of sites and / or increasing the charges levied for their use. Already in Australia, companies are segregating their waste into organic and inorganic streams and are seeking solutions for the latter that grant a more environmentally suitable outcome than landfill dumping.
The GAIA concept proposes that all organisms tend to act in a way that sustains their environment. (Except humankind?)
One concept that has already been highly successful in Europe, Japan, Canada and more recently in the USA, involves automatically heating, shredding, desiccating and deodorising organic waste in a sealed chamber on the premises where the waste is generated. The unit should be located under cover as close as possible to the main area of waste generation. The batch-process requires only the input of electrical power, while the outputs comprise only condensed water and a dry bio-mass. The condensed water is safe to drain or it may be saved as grey water for non-potable uses.
The dry bio-mass has between 10% and 20% of the original volume of waste, it is inert in that all bacteria, pathogens and seeds have been neutralised in the processing and it is so dry that it may be stored on site, if necessary, for many days. The options for disposing of the bio-mass include:
- Use as brown waste in a composting process.
- Use as a supplement for animal feed (subject to local regulations).
- Conversion to heat briquettes.
- Dumping as treated waste to landfill, in the knowledge that the volume, cost and “rotting factor” have been greatly reduced.
Product Video
Modular treatment units range from 30 kg to 2000 kg capacity per day. The larger capacity units may require conveyors and other materials-handling solutions to be designed according to site needs. Apart from the environmental benefits there is also an economic balance sheet. The cost of installing the equipment is offset by the reduced costs for skip hire and transportation and it is possible to calculate an ROI based on this.
