news-record.com

Believe it or not, but second lives do exist for the goopy, dirty, dusty and smelly remains of our everyday personal and industrial activities. And the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources is doing what it can to encourage more people to trade their wastes instead of sending them to the landfill.

Available to the public is the N.C. BiomassTrader, an online listing of organic waste products for trade. A glitchy version of the site existed for a few years but only started getting much interest about a month ago, said Brian Rosa, who works for the Division of Pollution Prevention and Environmental Assistance.

Examples of products that can be listed in N.C. BiomassTrader include:

* Sawdust, wood chips and shavings
* Industrial pallets and crates
* Waste vegetable oil and grease (i.e. biofuels production)
* Old corrugated cardboard containers and paper waste
* Surplus and discarded food items (i.e. composting)
* Glycerin and other biodiesel production byproducts (i.e. soap production)

N.C. BiomassTrader aims to help develop biomass markets in North Carolina and increase job creation in the state’s biomass economy. The Web site is a spin-off of the free commodity trading site, N.C. WasteTrader, a 6-year-old site that steadily grew with numerous entries from users listing all kinds of commodities.