Document 3Jm00E4ZV8gV4GQMnx5BaqxZJ

JZB Sun. March li. 1970ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH Trash Becomes Gas Through New Process Bv ASA E. BRYAN Of the Post-Dispatch Staff A subsidiarv cf Monsanto Co. is testing a plan to reduce trash to a harm!*5*?, odorless gas. Offlc i!s of the St. Louis Coun tv Health Department are wa*crig ts progress closely. The subsidiary. Envirc-Chem Systems. Lie., with offices at Monsanto's w^rld headquarters here, has erected a plant near the Westlake Quarry m Bridge ton. ; Aa garbag*. old shoes, frozen Ifood wrappers and ^tiier litter is brought by private hauling companies m the land fill oper ated by the quarry, nvin> Chem uses part of it to test its approach to burning solid wastes without polluting the a;r. Pyrolysis Process Solid wastes ire first placed in a giant shredder. Metals are removed, and the remaining composition is sent through a process called pyrolysis. Pyrolysis is the burning of a substance :n the absence of oxy gen. Company officers liken what happens during the process to the disintegration of a pice* of food if left in an ovn too long. The final step if t r*burai*ff| produced during pyrolysis. All that is left after the burn ing of the trash, spokesmen for Enviro-Chem say, is dirt, rocks or glass that were present in the original composition. These by-products can be used, they say, for land fill. Enviro-Chem is exploring the possibility of using the hot gas es emitted as a source of pow er. Company officers say that their process is capabe o' handlir.2 waste materials nude of plastic. Many;<^vtntlonai in cinerators, tfcy. pqipt out, can not bum pHMfAcJiu* they vp-ir. if mnrjvue, th* vniumo w;if c"va\ Betw-e- 1*120 and 1965. the d-adv average of refuse generated by -an Amer- can crew from 2.75 to 4.5 pounds. The United S' 'ts Public Hearth Serves es--i-ues that by pio da-iy re'use r-oduction pc oerso'1 w ;| b K 5 rounds. Tf'-h haid^rs i -t. Louis Cour.'v sav that vh many C'HiT.crt:3,: T.cirera'.ors having ben ::-ased down n compliance v.h a-: poi!ut:on control nrd;nances. >t w 11 be difficult to find places to dispose of trtah in the future. ' D. L. CllJMKrdirectof of the solid pollution control de partment of Enviro-Cheni. sa'd that a decision would be made th-.s year as to whether to try to market the company's pro cess. We're encouraged by what we've seen so far," he said. The capacity of the experi mental plant is 500 to 1000 tons of refuse a day. Chnn-nan said, however, that much larger piants could be built. H. Clifford Mitchell, assistant commissioner for environment for the St. Louis County Health Department, is also pleased. 'It looks very good from the limited m/ormat'cn we' have at this time." he sa.d. St. Louis County residents ap proved a $5,900,000 bond issue in 1965 for the construction of two incinerators. Citizen oppo sition to the sites selected by the county, however, has staged construction. Trash today ls disposed of in land fills. An estimated 600.000 tons of trash is generated by house holds :n St. Louis County each DSW 552105 i STLCOPCB4090522