Earth, Trash and Fire

On Wednesday we had a jam packed day full of technical visits to different solid waste management facilities just outside of Cagliari. Our first stop was Papiro Sarda, the paper recycling facility. Here we saw old paper and cardboard go through the process to become new recycled paper and cardboard led by our tour guide, Andrea Barsanti (masterfully translated by Annalisa)

After the paper plant, we broke for lunch and were briefly distracted by some playground equipment before half the group got sandwiches at a cafe and walked on the beach while the other half spent the entire two hour break getting pizza at a nearby pizza place. 

The next stop was the composting plant, where we smelled many new smells that we had never smelled before, Mike almost kidnapped an adorable dog, we watched the most dramatic movie any of us had ever seen about solid waste and saw the process of transforming organic waste into usable compost.

Our final stop was to the CACIP Waste to Energy plant, which incinerates both hazardous and municipal waste. Here we smelled some more new smells, saw a control room that looked like it belonged in a spy movie, saw where they filmed the end of Toy Story 3 and learned how to transform solid waste into energy. 

It was an exhausting day but we all learned a lot.