Waste as a commodity

Meet the company on a mission to end the use of the term ‘waste’ within a decade

Home » Waste as a commodity

Published: June 20, 2025
This Article was written by: Katie Hill - My Green Pod
business, carbon, consciousness, home, waste

0 Shares

This article first appeared in our World Environment Day 2025 issue of My Green Pod Magazine. Click here to subscribe to our digital edition and get each issue delivered straight to your inbox

Main image: Joyous Heart, co-CEO, co-exec chair and co-founder of E.D.E.N.,speaking at EarthX 2025, Dallas

The waste epidemic is one of the most essential and systemic crises on Earth.

We introduce over 4.4 trillion pounds of waste to the environment every year and, according to the World Bank, over 37% of annual waste is unaccounted for due to mismanagement through illegal dumping and open burning.

To date, our ‘solutions’ to waste have involved polluting our land, water and air with toxic byproducts and emissions.

Yet there is little interest in change; our existing systems are inefficient and don’t produce the kind of return on investment that leaders in public and private sectors are looking for.

Most would agree that wasteful lifestyles and industrial practices need to change – yet Joyous Heart, co-CEO, co-exec chair and co-founder of E.D.E.N., has a controversial take on the issue; ‘Humanity no longer needs to shift industrial or consumption practices, even though I highly recommend it’, he tells us, ‘because now all waste, in any mixed-batch flow, can be transformed – with an energy efficiency of 94% – into the cleanest fuels, fertilisers and biochar on the planet.’

Ending the idea of waste

With E.D.E.N., Joyous Heart is turning the idea of waste on its head, and repositioning it as a lucrative, regenerative commodity rather than a massive liability.

‘We want to end the idea of waste, which is not a term that nature knows, as it is not longer accurate’, he tells us. ‘We are here to assist in leading the movement to restore balance on Earth between people and place. It is imperative we remember how to thrive on, and with, our planet; it is time to enrich and upgrade the lives of humankind systemically.’

It’s a lofty ambition, and Joyous Heart believes it can be realised with E.D.E.N., a proprietary process that has been $350m in research and development and 28 years in the making.

Inefficient systems

Other than E.D.E.N., Joyous Heart believes there is no viable waste solution that has been proven and verified to be capable of scaling to address the global waste epidemic.

The main issue is that conventional solutions create energy as a byproduct of shifting waste into others forms of equally polluting fuels.

‘While solutions like pyrolysis, which are more suitable for creating speciality chemicals, can create clean fuels, a company would be lucky to achieve a 10% energy efficiency’, Joyous Heart shares. ‘Other solutions, such as incineration, are toxic to people and place; as a result we are finding that incinerator plants are increasingly being shut down in many regions.’

For Joyous Heart, anaerobic digestors aren’t the answer either; ‘They are severely limited in their potential to address myriad types of waste and will not remediate industrial and medical byproducts, mixed plastics or the other most damaging and toxic waste streams’, he says.

‘The environmental and economic costs of the waste epidemic are costing humanity hundreds of billions of dollars in quantifiable damages’, Joyous Heart continues. ‘I posit that the actual cost, when taking into account the full extent of the problems created by the waste epidemic, is in the trillions.’

Copying Earth’s processes

E.D.E.N. has succeeded where many have failed: the team has been able to mimic the way Earth uses heat, pressure, time and water to break down all carbon-based materials and convert them into base molecules and hydrocarbons under the surface of the mantle.

‘Put simply, we have figured out how to do this within 90 minutes within a controlled environment’, Joyous Heart reveals. ‘We were extremely lucky to have discovered how to truly reverse engineer the process Earth uses to break down and transmute all carbon-based matter, under the surface of the mantle, to re-purpose each natural molecule and element. We were privileged enough to have access to the foremost scientific minds and resources in both the civilian and military sectors.’

E.D.E.N.’s eight-stage process has perfected the use of two forms of hydrothermal liquefaction and a specialised hydrothermal crack, as well as other processes, to convert all waste, in mixed and wet streams, into clean burning regenerative fuels that are free of VOCs, PAHs and heavy metals, alongside fertiliser and an amorphous crystalline biochar with piezoelectric properties.

The only waste inputs that E.D.E.N. systems do not process are rocks, metals and glass, though partner technologies are currently leading solutions to handle these waste inputs as well.

‘We are now bringing Gen 3 to market after proving it at commercial scale for 13 years and being validated by the DOD, DOE, MIT, Lehigh University, TUV SUD, Bechtel and other leading agencies and organisations’, Joyous Heart reveals.

Access to clean environments

E.D.E.N. processes waste at a 94% or greater energy efficiency, which is far superior to systems such as pyrolysis, incineration or gasification, which are 50% or less energy efficient.

When creating clean fuels, the energy efficiencies of these systems plummet to 5-20%.

E.D.E.N. systems are self-fuelling and don’t require external energy sources for power; they are only tied to the grid when they’re being optimised to generate a significant portion of the energy requirements for cities, data centres and industrial areas.

The systems include large-scale fixed-state bio-refineries that are capable of being scaled to process thousands of tonnes of waste per day, as well as containerised two and 10 tonne per day (TPD) units which are transportable and even mobile.

The idea is to be able to transform waste into energy wherever it’s needed, reinforcing the principle that clean energy and a healthy environment isn’t just a privilege for some, but a fundamental right for all.

‘These systems are stackable to iteratively build localised waste remediation and clean energy microgrid requirements’, Joyous Heart tells us. ‘The E.D.E.N. systems are deployable virtually anywhere on Earth that is – or could potentially be – inhabited by human populations. There are no known downsides to the way E.D.E.N. systems process waste.’

The carbon confusion

For Joyous Heart, the general consensus that we need to cut carbon isn’t quite correct; ‘We are a carbon-based planet and species’, he tells us. ‘In fact, carbon is the fourth-most abundant element in the universe by mass after hydrogen, helium and oxygen. We literally can’t reduce carbon.’

What we can do is molecularly restore carbon molecules to their pure nature, free of the bonded elements which are the toxic result of covalent bonds created through industry for creating various products and chemicals.

‘E.D.E.N. is carbon neutral as we repurpose the carbon already extracted and sitting on the surface in the form of discarded consumable products, electronics and speciality chemicals’, Joyous Heart says. ‘We create clean regenerative fuels, fertilisers and biochar. When processing only heavy hydrocarbon waste products such as tyres, without processing fillers like MSW, we produce a graphic-rich pure carbon black. We are also a net water producer as E.D.E.N. systems liberate the water trapped in waste inputs.’

Joyous Heart believes it’s essential that humanity scales clean, regenerative energy infrastructure on a planetary scale and that our biosphere, while not doomed like many believe, desperately requires rejuvenation and restoration.

‘The planet will be fine’, he tells us; ‘the question is, will humanity – and most of the species on Earth – still be here in 100 years? We unequivocally believe the answer is yes and that we will actually be experiencing a paradigm of ecosystemic thrivability. Our solution can be used anywhere on Earth – from an urban metropolis to a remote rural or island environment.’

Bringing clean power H.O.M.E.

E.D.E.N. – along with H.O.M.E., its partner organisation – is determined to lead in the race towards a net-positive future.

H.O.M.E., the world’s premier regenerative development platform, offers the most comprehensive resources and marketplace platform designed to facilitate sustainable built environment at any scale of deployment.

It has a goal to build 12 regenerative mini-cities in key regions around the world over the next 15 years.

H.O.M.E. is building a Web5 platform that will offer the leading templates and resources for regenerative real estate development and green building, alongside modular and equitable governance, legal, medical and educational templates to empower community builders, real estate developers and regenerative capital partners to fulfil visions for the built environment that equally enrich people and place.

Going global

While E.D.E.N. offers a radical, standalone solution to waste, Joyous Heart has created alliances in order to offer complementary solutions that can be integrated with E.D.E.N. systems for fit-for-purpose projects.

E.D.E.N. is partnering with aligned public and private organisations on each continent in order to scale globally.

‘We require bold pioneering leaders, in the governmental, corporate and military spheres, who are prepared to assist with pushing forward policies, establishing new infrastructure and making sure that, within the next decade, humanity is no longer using the word ‘waste’’, Joyous Heart explains.

‘Governments have not yet had the ability to address the waste epidemic in an effective way’, he continues. ‘Now, by partnering with E.D.E.N., municipalities are able to achieve circular economic and zero waste goals. At the same time, governments are now able to power a significant portion of their core infrastructure using the clean energy generated by E.D.E.N. systems. They will also now be able to effectively remediate soil and water with the biochar and clean liquid fertilisers produced by their local E.D.E.N. systems.’

E.D.E.N. plans to joint venture with, and serve, all existing waste management companies, leading consumer brands, industrial centres and municipalities.

It has partnered with Peace Through Trade (PTT), the world’s most compliant layer one (L1) blockchain designed to assist in legally and securely onboarding governments, institutions, organisations and individuals into the Web3 and Web5 economy.

E.D.E.N. will use PTT for global transactions – including banking, trade finance and merchant processing – to ensure 100% security, zero financial censorship and the ability to instantaneously shift between any reputable leading fiat currency, digital currency and asset and precious metals.

E.D.E.N., H.O.M.E. and PTT-ZDK, along with strategic partners in private and public spheres, have embarked on a global showcase tour that will feature at a number of iconic events over the next nine months, including EarthX, Milkin Institute, NATURE Summit, UN International Climate Week, UN World Oceans Day, Cannes Lions, the P.E.A. Awards, Volcano Summit, Nexus, Earth Day, Nexus, New York Climate Week, COP30 and Davos.

‘We invite aligned leaders, enterprises and NGOs to connect with us to explore partnership’, Joyous Heart says. ‘We want to share the message with humanity that we are OK: we are stepping into a paradigm of ecosystemic thrivability.’