Remember Doc Brown? That crazy, white haired caricature of a scientist from the 1980s blockbuster scifi comedy Back to the Future? He’s the inventor of a spectacular (and – sadly – fictitious) device called the flux capacitor that is running first on plutonium, later on ordinary household garbage to power a time machine. Here’s what it looks like when Doc Brown is searching for fuel:

Scientists in Denmark have now hit upon a novel way to do just that: producing energy from household waste. While not quite matching Doc Browns achievement when it comes to the amount of energy harvested (let alone building a time machine) the scientists’ feat is impressive enough:  Feeding  biomass (comprising anything from sewage, compost, household garbage or waste from meat and dairy production) into what is essentially a 400 °C hot pressure cooker they managed to create something very close to fossil crude oil. What’s more, the production process used is more energy efficient than any other way of getting energy out of biomass.

We figure, if the Danish research team is still unhappy with the energy yield of their trash, they only have to wait another two years for expert help: In Back to the Future – Part II we learn that Doc Brown is going to visit us in 2015.

„Taste the Waste“ — Der Trailer from tastethewaste.com on Vimeo.

German director Valerie Thurn has come out with a new documentary called ”Taste the Waste” that highlights the effect of wasting food on the environment. It’s an eye-opening glimpse into the way food is produced and consumed around the world, and how much we end up throwing away. Did you know that 50% of all groceries end up in the trash? It’s not just at home, either – bakeries, supermarkets and convenience stores all end up tossing a big percentage of their products that aren’t sold.

Agriculture is one of the biggest culprits when it comes to greenhouse gases, and when half of it ends up in the garbage, it’s even worse: rotting food releases methane into the air, contributing to global warming. The US Department of Agriculture and CleanMetrics Corp. did this study to show how different foods produce greenhouse gases:

In the U.S. alone, people waste 55 million tons of food a year – about 40 percent of the food supply. So what can be done? Go check out the movie if you can, the director has some interesting solutions to the waste problem…