Money in the Trash Part II

Melanie A. Lasoff

Last month, Waste Age reported that Germany was turning its old currency into compost. This month, we find that residents of York County, Penn., are throwing thousands of dollars in coins into their garbage.

The recycling company that processes the county's trash salvaged $43,000 worth of coins during the past year, which turned up among the ash when the trash was burned to make electricity. The company sends the coins it finds to the United States Mint in Washington, D.C., where they are melted down and recast. For its efforts, the company gets face value for the coins.

It makes you wonder how much of that ash is paper money.

Source: Associated Press

35,000 Uses for Rice An ingredient in chicken soup can be a substitute for standard materials for burning fossil fuels for energy.

Rice - or the inedible hull surrounding the rice kernel that is removed during the milling process - is being spared of disposal and used to generate electricity at co-generation plants instead. In Sacramento, Calif., these hulls are burned to create electricity for 35,000 homes. They also are used as mulch and bedding material on farms, and as an absorption product for cleaning chemical, petroleum and food manufacturing spills.

Source: USA Rice Federation