Once, when I was little, I saw David Copperfield make an entire train disappear on T.V. He didn't even use any fancy digital tricks. It was pretty crazy.
Like the disappearing train, the disposal of garbage has always seemed like magic to me. I mean, I throw away an endless stream of napkins and broken stuff, put it at the end of the driveway on Thursdays and.... kazaam! It disappears that day. Gone, into the magic land of Puff the Dragon. I mean, yeah, I heard about areas like landfills and whatever in elementary school - but who has actually ever seen a landfill?? That's what I thought.
In my ripe old age of 25, rational has begun challenging my belief in "magic," and the land of Puff the Dragon. So I decided to look up what exactly, happens to my garbage. Thanks to the City of Minneapolis website, I learned that our garbage doesn't actually go into a landfill. Apparently Hennepin County garbage goes to the Hennepin Energy Resource Facility. Description as follows:
Located in downtown Minneapolis, the HERC facility uses mass burn technology to convert 365,000 tons of garbage a year into electricity that is sold to Xcel Energy, Inc.
Hmmm... interesting. Magic is real after all!!! Well, besides the toxic gases released by this burning. Perhaps the repercussions are more positive than those of a landfill however. Plus, Minneapolis does not have a cloud of fog that continues to linger over the city like Phoenix. Yuck.
You know what's definitely not magic though, electronics recycling. Most of the electronic waste we "recycle" magically disappears from the U.S. and magically reappears in a mysterious land called "Asia." There, poor citizens make a living off of the valuable parts of the waste, and the rest... ends up seriously polluting the land and sickening the people. More good news on Wired Magazine's blog.
Ok, well that is enough on the magic of garbage for now. There are many other magic things in our world that I will discuss at a later time. Perhaps the most magical among this list is the Internet. Oh oh that's magic.
3 comments:
You read wired?
Yeah. Every week!!
No. I don't. I just needed a site to describe what I learned in class and.... voila, Wired came through
Fun fact: The "HERC facility uses mass burn technology to convert 365,000 tons of garbage a year into electricity" is currently located next to the site of the new Twins ballpark. Hopefully no one will mind the trash burning happening just behind third plate while enjoying a game :)
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