What to do about the tons of trash?

[cascadiance]

One question I've not be hearing asked, that won't be dealt with immediately just yet, but ultimately will have to be answered, is what are we going to do with all of the debris that's lying around. How much of it is going to be recycleable or "fixable", and how much of it will need to be disposed in some fashion. Will there be some "huge" new landfill garbage dump created someplace? Where? Can it be used constructively to build some place up to raise land above sea level? What kind of materials could be used in that fashion? I hope someone at some point is planning for this, and isn't going to continually be "reacting" towards these sorts of problems like we've seen so far.

[Wickerman]

1. Interesting

this would be a great time to create a large waste to energy incinerator. THose are used by many municipalities with + results.

[ewagner]

4. Madison WI and Duluth MN

have RDF plants (RDF= Refuse Derived Fuel)

I've toured those plants and they're on the cutting edge of the environmental movement.....recycles almost everything and reduces landfilling by UP TO 90%.

[Wickerman]

5. Rochester, too

though perhaps on a smaller scale, from my understanding that facility only heats the cluster of govt buildings in a few mile radius.

Its good stuff.

[cascadiance]

7. I think we need to push that this gets looked at NOW!

These sorts of plants that have been built elsewhere sound like they could be really useful if they were down there now.

Surely there are many companies and organizations that aren't involved in the direct and emergency aid efforts going on now that could be constructive in starting planning building such infrastructure down there NOW! I don't want to see the pattern of this administration's avoidance persist here and wait until it's too late for a more constructive solution to be brought forward, and instead just dump a whole bunch of trash and make some big land area a wasteland.

As others have noted, since this president and his gubmint aren't doing anything proactively, we're going to have to be the ones to ensure that things get done proactively.

[phantom power]

2. I saw a lot of lumber that could be recycled.

One problem will be identifying what trash has been contaminated with toxins. New Orleans will be the worst, since everything has been soaking in water. The rest of the coastline may have more recyclable debris.

Last year, I recall people turning all the downed trees into mulch. Hopefully they can do that again.

[madrchsod]

3. there will be nothing to recycle

there will be a huge landfills the will contain everything. the wood will be eaten by the formosa termite and the rest will be to contaminated to use for fill to build on

[Kablooie]

6. Send it to the White House

Bush wallows in it everyday anyway.