In nature, Liss points out, there is no such thing as waste. What dies or is discarded from one part of an ecosystem nourishes another part. Liss says humanity can emulate nature's garbage-free ways, but it will require innovative technology and a big change in attitude. We can get a glimpse of a less profligate future in Kalundborg, Denmark. Within the park, a power company, a pharmaceuticals firm, a wallboard producer and an oil refinery share in the production and use of steam, gas and cooling water.
Excess heat warms nearby homes and agricultural greenhouses.
One company's waste becomes another's resource. The power plant, for example, sells the sulfur dioxide it scrubs from its smokestacks to the wallboard company, which uses the compound as a raw material. Dozens of these eco-industrial parks are being developed all over the world. Scientists at Monsanto and Heartland Fiber are working toward engineering corn plants with the kind of fiber content that paper companies would find attractive. So long as the genetic tinkering poses no ecological threat, that approach could tap into a huge stream of agricultural waste, turning some of it into an industrial ingredient.