Human beings generate garbage. Tons of it, every day.

For years, we’ve dealt with municipal solid waste – garbage – by carting it away to a landfill. But landfills, it has been proven, are not a satisfactory solution. They fill up. They require lots of space. They leach contaminants into the water or into the soil. They release dangerous methane into the atmosphere which is 21 times worse than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. And what’s left just sits there, some of it for centuries.

WastAway is a technology company that looks at municipal solid waste a little differently. We’ve created solutions that take that waste and convert it into a safe, inert, sterile form that can actually be used as a supplemental fuel in the production of electricity, or be used as feed stock in the production of biofuels, or even be used as potting soil. WastAway takes something the world doesn’t want – municipal solid waste – and converts it into something the world can use.

WastAway’s patented process has been used successfully for over ten years to help communities and municipalities solve their solid municipal waste needs. At the heart of the system is the WastAway equipment that processes your waste, sterilizes it, removes any remaining recyclable materials, and converts it into an end product that has multiple uses. The system works, and has been in commercial use for more than a decade.

Every community has a unique set of needs, and WastAway works with the community to develop the appropriate solutions. If you already have a recycling program, WastAway will improve both participation rates and the amount of material recovered. If your community does not have a recycling program, the WastAway system will create one. Either way, the system will process your municipal solid waste and keep it from being taken to a landfill somewhere, where it sits. Our goal is to help you achieve Zero Landfill Growth.

Our History

In 1959, Sonny Bouldin and Avery Lawson combined their expertise to begin manufacturing equipment for the nursery and horticultural industries. Headquartered in Morrison, Tennessee, a small town with an economy that relies heavily on the nursery business, Bouldin and Lawson® were able to build their equipment based on the needs of the nurserymen around them who wanted automation to help increase their productivity.

In 1984, Sonny’s son Floyd purchased the company, and by the mid 1990s had positioned Bouldin & Lawson as a leading producer of nursery equipment. The company also expanded into new markets, including equipment sold to the U.S. Government to use in recycling military ordinance and other difficult-to-handle materials. Floyd Bouldin and his team of engineers worked to produce the first super grinder, called “The Tank,” which was capable of grinding up a 3-bedroom framed house (including the block foundation and plumbing fixtures) in less than four hours.

With the support and encouragement of the U.S. Military, Bouldin & Lawson concentrated its research and development on integrating this super grinder into a garbage recycling system that was ultimately tested by the Army Corps of Engineers at the U.S. Army Base in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Several tons of garbage were effectively converted into Fluff® – and WastAway® was born.

Since 2002, when WastAway was created as a subsidiary of Bouldin Corporation, the technology has been developed, refined and perfected. Battelle became interested in the technology and contributed to its growth. There have been hundreds of studies conducted on everything from the inert nature of Fluff to its ability to act as a coal substitute in a coal-powered generating plant. WastAway systems have been installed and successfully operated, and the research and development continues to improve the process.