"The entire thing takes up about as much space as a two-car garage, surprisingly compact for a machine that can consume nearly any type of waste—from dirty diapers to chemical weapons—by annihilating toxic materials in a process as old as the universe itself. Called plasma gasification, it works a little like the big bang, only backward (you get nothing from something)."

"The only by-products are an obsidian-like glass used as a raw material for numerous applications, and a synthesis gas that can be converted into a variety of marketable fuels."