Hauling Secrets

In our first week of Hauling Secets there’s been a lot of non-worksafe content and commenting, or what Bill Hicks would call “dick jokes” (or insert some pun about “trash talk” or “garbage mouth” here). Lest our readers think that’s all we’re good for, I thought I’d change the mood a bit with some cold, hard facts.

From Elizabeth Royte’s excellent book Garbageland:

Nationwide, landfills are the largest anthropogenic source of methane emissions, accounting for approximately 32 percent of total methane emissions in 2002.

But what accounts for another 22 percent of US methane emissions and about 19 percent globally? Enteric fermentation, or the process of digestion of carbohydrates in the forestomach of ruminants. Or, as Garbageland has it: “methane from oral and anal sphincters of cattle and other domestic ruminants.”

Or, to put it even more plainly: cow farts.