By Kenzo Kawasaki
 |
| Image courtesy Waste Expo |
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Or so the story goes. But what happens in Vegas when hundreds of
waste management contractors and suppliers get together for their annual convention
isn’t likely to stay within the confines of the world-famous gambling
town. That’s because what happens at the
Waste Expo directly affects every American.
Garbage
In, Garbage Out?
When it comes to managing the nation’s garbage,
technology plays a part. Everything from
big trucks to big data is used nowadays to keep the country’s landfills from
turning into mountains of trash. For the
past 50-years, the Waste Expo has been a place where trash haulers, recyclers, composters,
heavy equipment manufacturers, contractors and inventors have come to network
with their peers. This year’s Expo,
which took place from May 6-9, saw some 609 exhibitors and more than 14,000
attendees interfacing with one another to see the latest and greatest
innovations in the industry.
When it came to learning more about advances in
machinery, automation or emerging technologies designed to reduce the footprint
of waste, expo attendees could kick the tires and see live demonstrations of
hardware and software designed to make waste management more efficient and
economical. Then there were a variety of
keynote speakers, breakout sessions and seminars presented by industry leaders
that showed not only how far the solid waste industry has come in the past few
years, but where it is headed in the future.
The Waste Expo
is No Waste of Time
Whether attendees gathered at the Expo to learn about
industry innovation to or share ideas and experiences from the field, they got
their money’s worth when you consider the breadth and scope of industries that
were represented:
- Waste
Services Companies
(Private or Publicly Traded Refuse Firms, Landfill Owners/
Operators, Independent Contractors) - Government
Officials
(Municipalities, County Agencies, Regional Authorities,
Special Districts, State and Federal Governments and Public Landfill, Composting, and Anaerobic Digestion Sites) - Equipment
Manufacturers
- Distributors
& Dealers
- Consulting
Engineering Firms (Consultants, Architects, R&D
Organizations)
- Recycling
Firms (Secondary
Materials Processors, Contractors and Recyclers)
- Composting
& Organics Recycling Professionals
- Waste
Generators (Businesses
and Organizations that Create Waste in Manufacturing, Retailing and/or
Providing Services)
- Food
Waste Recovery Experts
- Legal,
Insurance & Financial Firms
- Healthcare
Waste/Medical Waste Professionals
- Software
Companies
- General
Contractors
- Transportation (Trucking
Professionals, Suppliers, Fleet Owners, Operators, Maintenance
Professionals)
- To
see more, go to https://www.wasteexpo.com/en/home.html
Far from being a garbage in, garbage out proposition,
several vendors showed not only how trash could be minimized and/or recycled,
but even how to convert trash and its byproducts into energy. Seen as a viable
and abundant form of renewable energy, everything from the heat and methane
produced by landfills to capturing CO2 and converting municipal waste to fuel
via anaerobic digestion can literally turn trash into cash for any city. Who knows, maybe in the not-too-distant
future, landfills will be looked upon quite differently by the populace when
their homes are powered by refuse. http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/waste-renewable-energy-source/
Alternatives
to the Throw-Away Society
As technology has evolved, so has alternative uses for
trash. Where in the past millions of
trees were cut to supply the needs of the nation for paper, recent trends have
shown that up to 82% of paper used by business is now supplied via
recycling. While non-recyclable plastics
have proven to be something of a political football, new technologies are being
developed and introduced to make the problems of plastic pollution a thing of
the past. Even many products can now be
recycled and repackaged to reduce waste.
Now that this year’s expo is over and done with, that
doesn’t mean there aren’t still opportunities to check out the many blogs and
videos that were produced at last week’s event.
(See the list below.) Just
because you couldn’t make it to Las Vegas doesn’t mean that you can’t learn
about what you missed online. Because to
do otherwise would really be a waste.
Kenzo Kawasaki
is president of BC Hydraulic Services, a commercial trash compactor service
company based in Jacksonville, Florida.
Who knew that trash could be so trendy?
ReplyDeleteWaste has its own Expo? Didn't know - How cool is that.
ReplyDelete