Green Dream: Shrink-Wrapped Trash - TransLoad America is building a new garbage disposal system that wraps refuse in plastic and moves it by rail. The ultimate goal? Turning landfills into fuel cells.

At first blush, compressing, wrapping, and stacking trash into piles seems a bit labor intensive, and somehow wrong. However, the modern landfill is just that- a heap of semi-compressed garbage sitting stop layers of plastic and covered by a shield of earth, crushed glass or rubber.

Bioreactors are mentioned in the article- with good reason. Bioreactor Landfills are quickly demonstrating a host of benefits over traditional dry-tomb landfills. Primarily, Bioreator Landfills accomplish what dry tomb facilities cannot- a high rate of decomposition.

This new process is a blend of both- by storing the waste in a compressed anaerobic environment it can be safely stored. Then, when needed it can be easily and efficiently transported to a processing facility that harnesses biogas for energy production. By eliminating loose, underground storage and inefficient transportation, potential sources of waste and contamination are removed- definite pluses.