The disposal of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is a serious problem.

MSW generation rates have increased over 50 percent since 1980. Currently all waste is handled or processed either in landfills or by incineration; neither solution is cost effective or good for the environment. TBE's solution provides an energy producing technology which resolves the problem of waste disposal while significantly reducing impacts on the environment.

Over 75% of existing waste ends up in landfills.

In highly populated areas, landfills are filling up and are closing at a high rate. New landfills in these areas are getting harder to permit due to environmental concerns. As a result, tipping fees are increasing rapidly because fewer places accept waste and transporting millions of tons of waste to distant landfills is expensive. This disposal strategy also adds tons of pollutants to the air each year from truck and rail transportation.Landfills themselves emit large quantities of greenhouse gases, including methane, as the organic material contained in wastes decays anaerobically. According to the “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” report, methane has a global warming potential (GWP) 23 times that of carbon dioxide, the major component in greenhouse gases. Over 75% of the methane emissions in the environment originate from MSW decomposition in landfills. Furrther, if landfills are not carefully managed, seepage from decaying waste can contaminate the aquifers that supply us with drinking water.

About 10% of waste ends up in 'mass burn' incineration plants.

A portion of incineration facilities recover energy in the form of heat or electric power and they do mitigate the need for landfilling, but the process creates many serious enviromental problems. Incineration technologies typically produce substantial emissions of pollutants such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), particulates, and volatile organics (VOC's). Sulphur oxide SOx) may also be formed, depending on the feedstock materials. All of these chemicals have damagaing environmental effects. Other more hazardous materials such as dioxins may also be produced from feedstock materials containing chlorine.