1. What are the benefits of WastAway’s unique recycling program?

By recycling household garbage into useful products, the benefits of our recycling program include:

• The consumer is not required to separate recyclable materials from other household waste.
• Convenient Implementation: Household waste is still picked up in the same roll-out or bag containers and collected by the usual refuse collection vehicles.
• Recycling Initiatives: WastAways’s process helps local governments exceed mandates for recycling their waste stream.
• Obtain 100% participation in your community's recycling program.
• Useful raw material: household garbage is no longer stored in landfills as waste. Instead, recycled household garbage is reintroduced into commerce in the form of a safe raw material with multiple uses.
• Lower Visibility: household waste is transferred to a WastAway facility, where it is recycled inside a building instead of being dumped or stored outside.
• Reduce a household's greenhouse gas emissions by more than 5 tons per year. This can reduce the average carbon footprint by 26%!
• Landfill Reduction: WastAway’s recycling process does not eliminate landfills, but it reduces our dependence on landfills.
• Help America move toward energy independence.

2. What changes are made in the way household garbage is handled from pickup to delivery?
Changes are consumer-friendly in that sorting household garbage for recycling is no longer necessary. Rather, consumers can continue to place unsorted household waste at their curbside for pickup. Collection trucks then collect the garbage as usual and deliver it to a WastAway facility for recycling.

3. What is done to household garbage once it has been delivered to a WastAway facility?
Once household garbage has been delivered to a WastAway facility, the household waste is recycled by WastAway’s proprietary system of grinders shredders and pressurized heat. Twenty-minutes later, the household waste is transformed into a clean, stable raw material called Fluff®.

4. How does WastAway ensure the safety of Fluff?
Prior to becoming Fluff®, household garbage undergoes a hydrothermal process to reduce pathogens to undetectable levels. The recycled household waste can then be processed to produce environmentally-safe, useful products.

5. What are the recycling rates that can be achieved with the WastAway process?
Faced with mandated recycling objectives, state and municipal governments can now recycle their household waste with WastAway’s system. All but the ferrous and nonferrous metals are recycled into Fluff®. The metals are extracted from the waste stream during the WastAway process. A city or community can divert all or a portion of their household garbage to the WastAway process, to achieve their specific recycling goals. The WastAway recycling system will also work well with existing recycling programs to recycle the remaining waste after separation.

6. Where is WastAway currently being used as a reduction/recycling program?
Prototype system tests were conducted at two military installations, in 2001 at Fort Campbell, Kentucky and again in 2002 at Fort Benning, Georgia. In 2003, WastAway obtained its first recycling contract from Warren County in Tennessee. In July 2009, WastAway opened its first international facility near Oranjestad, Aruba.  WastAway is working with other governments and companies to provide solutions to their waste challenges.

7. Is the WastAway process a cost efficient method of recycling?
Landfill tipping fees and recycling costs vary greatly across the United States and around the world. However, the WastAway process is cost efficient as not only a waste disposal alternative, but also as a producer of safe and useful raw material. A community can also increase its overall recycling rate by diverting a portion or their entire household waste stream to the WastAway system. A variety of recycled products produced from Fluff are already being sold with very positive feedback from users. Many other products are currently in research and development.

8. Is Fluff simply a solid waste compost?
No. According to the EPA, composting is the controlled decomposition of organic materials, such as leaves, grass, and food scraps, by microorganisms. During WastAway's patented process, ground and shredded garbage is subjected to high temperatures and pressure which eliminates these microorganisms, bacteria, and other pathogens to undetectable levels. Tests have shown that this process also neutralizes the dangers of household chemicals and pesticides that may be in the waste stream.

9. What are the byproducts of the process?
Unsorted household garbage is transformed into Fluff at WastAway. During the process ferrous and nonferrous metals are removed. These metals are used by metal recyclers. The primary byproduct is water vapor from the pressurized heat process mentioned above. Independent laboratory testing has measured the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) produced by WastAway at well below acceptable levels.

10. What types of products are manufactured from recycled household garbage?
While continuing to explore other product manufacturing opportunities, Composite Products of America LLC is researching methods of extruding Fluff® to make building materials. Fluff® has also proven to serve as a highly effective growing medium for the nursery, horticultural and agricultural industries, as well as for soil reclamation and erosion control.

11. Are Fluff and products made from Fluff safe to use?
The safety of our products is very important to us. We know that the future of recycling relies on the purchase and use of recycled products. Therefore WastAway takes several steps to assure the safety of Fluff and Fluff products. Daily in-house lab test and numerous independent laboratory tests confirm that Fluff made through the WastAway process is safe for commercial and consumer use.

12. Where is WastAway currently delivering its products?
WastAway is currently selling processed Fluff® to nurseries in several states for use as a growing medium. WastAway is also using Fluff as a fuel for gasification. WastAway continues development of extruded construction and building materials products such as decking, parking bumpers and landscaping timbers.

13. Is it safe for employees to work around garbage and Fluff?
WastAway facilities comply with all environmental regulations and satisfy OSHA workplace safety regulations ensuring a safe work environment for all employees. Two factors contribute to the promotion of employee safety:

First, WastAway’s system does not require presorting of household garbage.

Second, WastAway’s recycling system was designed to handle, process, and recycle household garbage automatically, minimizing the need for workers to handle the waste.

Clean fluff is now ready for transport to a Composite Products of America facility, or used by commercial nurseries as a growing medium for plants, or gasified to create electricity. What was common household garbage just minutes ago, is now a useful raw material ready for a variety of environmentally-friendly uses.