Midwest región of the U.S. FUEL FROM GA...

FOR SANE SURVIVAL

Midwest region of the U.S.

FUEL FROM GARBAGE
There is one source of energy which is certainly not in short supply in America - garbage. While we spend billions of dollars searching for new deposits of oil and natural gas, drilling wells and installing pipelines, we're also spending dollars throwing away a valuable fuel source abundant in every city and town. We can use garbage as a source for lighting, heating, cooking, running cars and driving electric generators - all without polluting the environment but actually helping to clean it up.

Manure, vegetable and plant wastes, table scraps and paper, while they may be garbage to most people, are like gold to the organic gardener. When composted, they fertilize and condition the soil. By composting them without air in a tank or drum, a free, non-polluting, efficient natural gas - methane - can be produced.

Methane, known also as swamp gas, is abundant throughout the temperate regions of the world. It is colorless, odorless, and burns clearly without a smoky residue. -Methane and fertilizer are produced in nature by the bacterial decay of vegetation and animal wastes in the absence of air - a process known as anaerobic decomposition. The garbage of an average household - vegetable trimmings, spoiled food, left-overs, grass clippings, weeds, leaves and paper - could be recycled through a methane "digestor unit" to produce rich fertilizing compost and methane gas. It is now possible to install a small prefab digestor unit in a home or apartment as easily as we install a water heater. lts plumbing is no more complicated. This could help cut living expenses, preserve Earth's resources, clean the environment, and make ourselves semi-independent of outside power sources. We can now replace belching incinerators, stinking landfills, and sewage-filled rivers and streams of the present waste disposal system with small, silent units that turn our garbage directly into fertilizer and fuel. Once you build and install a methane digestor unit in your basement or utility room and route all your waste through it, you may be able to heat your house and cook without ever paying a gas, fuel oil or electric bill again.

THE SOLUTION

It is clear that there are abundant sources of energy all about us. Each of these - sun, wind, and garbage - are free, renewable, non-pollutant, decentralized sources of energy which can be utilized and integrated into a whole, self-sufficient system for survival, independent of fossil fuel sources and the power structure which controls them. There are no new technological developments necessary to begin harnessing these energy sources. The only new development would be the integration of all the alternatives into one living unit, with the goal of shifting our dependency for survival from the corporate state to ourselves and nature. Self-reliance, community cooperation and the laws of nature are more dependable than the whims of a centralized and corrupt power structure. This is what we have been trying to achieve, and we now have the tools to do it. Lest we perish with the existing system as it self-destructs, we must build a new means of survival.

The first step must be to change our primary sources of energy, the very foundation of our social/economic/cultural system, to ones that are freely distributed, and cannot be bought or sold. Once we have developed and comprehensively applied alternative technologies on a community scale, we can initiate effective and lasting social change. "Self-reliance, community cooperation and the laws of nature are more dependable than the whims of a centralized and corrupt power structure. "