By now you've read the media reports of a "Chinese company" that wants $50,000 in start-up costs from the City of Greensboro to ship leaves to Japan to be resold for mulch. A company that didn't exist a year ago, whose owner is having a hard time getting a visa to travel to the USA and so far has provided no references that we know of.
With that same $50,000 the City of Greensboro could buy a pellet making machine to convert said leaves to pellets to fuel to be burned in high efficiency, clean burning carbon neutral stoves and putting people to work at the same time.
And pellets have a much higher value than mulch. The machine in this video is a small home model but it shows the process of making pellets from any sort of bio-mass quite well.
Even cheaper and easier, making logs from leaves. The glue he's using is only necessary because his machine doesn't make high enough pressures to allow the natural glues in the leaves to work.
This is what they did in Birmingham, England. This is what they're doing around the world.
By the way, leaves can also be converted into briquettes to be used for cooking.
And remember, we've got landfill gas to power the entire process.
Check out Part 1 and read the entire series or continue on to Part 8.
