New Ideas

New ideas are popping out of landfills all over the country. South of Oklahoma City a skilled tinker has built a machine that makes petroleum out of old tires, a disposal problem nationwide.

Harold Barrington has a Rube Goldberg oven made of scrap iron, 60 feet long and 18 feet high. He’s produced as much as 1,800 gallons of crude oil in five hours. He distilled some into gasoline to run his machines and sold the rest to a refinery, as though he had an oil well there.

In California the Evergreen Oil Company recycles oil itself. Nearly a tenth of all lubricating oil now sold in the state has already seen duty in a vehicle engine.

“We gather it from filling stations and industrial sites,” said Evergreen’s chief executive, David Camp, at the company refinery in Newark, near San Francisco Bay. “Oil re-refined by distillation and hydro-treatment is indistinguishable from virgin oils. And since only 3 to 8 percent of crude oil is suitable for lubricating oil, we’re saving a valuable resource.”

The new ideas at the recycling center of San Rafael, California, are as old as animal husbandry. President Joe Garbarino employs 400 goats as “digesters.” They scamper over dumped yard clippings, nibbling leaves off branches, making the wood drier fuel for a local power plant. In a nearby pen, hogs oink for food waste from supermarkets and wholesalers. Feeding the pigs instead of the landfill, the center then recycles the pigs as well, selling 300 last year for pork.

N ew ideas

O klahoma …

C alifornia

Newark

w ood drier fuel, pork

Exercise 9. Choose one of the following topics for discussion using the questions given below and information from the texts given above:

You may start your dialogue in the following way

A. – Excuse me, may I ask you a few questions?

B. – Yes, sure.

1. Is that the truth that recycling is a big business today?

2. What is the first stage of waste recycling?

3. Could you describe the process of paper recycling?

4. How many tons of paper is recovered?

5. And how many tons of paper is discarded?

6. Is it possible to increase paper recycling production?

A. Aluminum B. Plastic C. Glass

1 million tons recovered 0.4 million tons recovered 2.6 million tons recovered

1.7 million tons discarded 15.8 million tons discarded 10.6 million tons discarded

D. Paper E. Steel

20.9 million tons recovered 1.9 million tons recovered

52. 4 million tons discarded 10.4 million tons discarded