Nick Seferos

April 10, 2021

Golden Waste

I have been thinking a lot about waste these last few days, like how to profit from it.

In every process water is created - a tremendous amount. Anytime something is created, multiple more things come from it. Byproducts of manufacturing (or creating in general), old parts and equipment that has worn out, you name it. Smart companies make money of this waste - efficiency sometimes, pure profit others.

Take Waste Management, they charge to take your trash and put it in a recycle or land fill as their primary method of business. All that trash produces methane - a byproduct of waste (is waste’s waste) and rather than waste it, it’s captured and converted into clean electricity. It’sa whole new business from a previously wasted byproduct.

Ships do this too. Ships engines produce an immense amount of heat, a boiler sits on top of the engine and steam is created. The steam powers a generator which powers the ship with electricity. Waste heat recovery is very efficient.

How can we harness waste for efficiency and profit?

I think there’sa lot of wasted data generated.