About Us
The elevator pitch
- Problem: methane is a greenhouse gas (GHG) that is 80 times as potent as CO2 in trapping heat in the earth’s atmosphere. About 17% of all US methane emissions come from landfills and 4 tons of wastepaper (solid) will produce 1 ton of methane (gas), per California Air Resources Board
- Solution: divert and process organic materials (paper, cardboard) that decompose into methane from landfills into negative embodied carbon building insulation materials
- Problem: about 40% of all US CO2 emissions come from buildings
- Solution: insulate buildings
- Problem: most insulation sold in the US is fossil fuel-derived (high embodied carbon)
- Solution: produce and install negative embodied carbon building insulation from landfill diverted organic wastes
- The soluttion is the collection and mixing of landfill-diverted organic materials (paper, cardboard, wood wastes) with a cementious binder (Portland cement, mortar, clay) and pressing the mix into blocks to create insulative building materials. Those materials are then used to retrofit buildings with insulation to a) reduce heating and cooling costs and b) reduce CO2 emissions thereof.
Machines that will do this will be inexpensive (the price of a pickup truck), simple (can be made in any well-equipped fabrication shop), small (easily transported by pickup truck or van) and convenient to use (operated by a crew of 2 to 3 people). This enables a rapid, viral uptake of the innovation, hastening the diversion of organic materials from landfills and the subsequent diminishment of landfill methane generation.
MARKET OPPORTUNITIES
- 6 million commercial buildings (40% of CO2 emissions) in the US need more insulation
- Most insulation is fossil-fuel derived, use of it drives out the neutral figure for a building years into the future
- 300 million tons of wastepaper and cardboard go to landfills in the US every year, source of Landfill Gas
- Landfill Gas is 50% methane and 50% CO2
- Landfills are source of 20% of methane in the US
- Process wastepaper, cardboard into insulation
- Stop methane and CO2 generation in landfills
- Insulate CO2 generating buildings with landfill-diverted wastes
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