Urbanization and modernization causes major issues with waste mitigation. Since humans have departed our nomadic lifestyle, we have developed ways to deal with the waste in our daily lives, one of the most effective ways being burying it in the ground. Prior to the industrial revolution nearly everything we disposed of could naturally decay, and humanity did not live in constant excess, so the waste was a fraction of what it is now. In the past century, however, we have begun to face many environmental issues from our excessive waste disposal. The sky, land, earth, and water on and around our planet is becoming sensitive to our actions and society has been slowly learning that how we have been mitigating waste, alongside the volume of our waste, is not sustainable.
Critics of landfills share the same concerns as the video posted below: landfills harm our land, water, and sky. Many of the issues addressed can be attributed to wet landfills: problems such as attracting rodents, foul smells, excessive GHG emissions, and leaching.
Various technologies can be used to reduce, if not eliminate, the moisture content of waste materials, therefore turning a wet landfill into a dry one. Anaerobic digestion and composting have been well accepted and wildly practiced methods. Diverting dry organics from the landfill and putting it through a process called pyrolysis can both reduce the volume of waste by up to 90% and prevent the further acceleration of global warming by keeping carbon out of the air.
The Ulysses is a pioneer in innovative pyrolysis technology. By being scalable it can be tailored to accommodate various throughput volumes. The by-product of the Ulysses is biochar, which prevents the release of carbon into the air by locking it into its origin: the earth. The porous nature of biochar makes it a great Alternate Daily Cover (ADC), which further retains harmful methane emissions from landfills. Integrating a Ulysses machine in an operating landfill can prolong the life by reducing content, and increase the health by reducing emissions and assisting in absorbing leaching.