Culture
Philadelphia Goes All In on Garbage Disposals
A trashy plan to create good gas.
Between an in-sink garbage disposal and heaping food scraps into the trash, which is environmentally cleaner? The answer isn’t simple. Though disposals divert waste from methane-seeping landfills, they can also cause harmful organic matter to sneak into local waterways.
Done right, however, the pulverizing devices have one major ecological benefit: They can ensure food waste gets efficiently processed into biogas, a renewable energy that can be used for heat, electricity, and fuel.