The smoke coming from the refuse burn barrel into the rocket is gray to black with a noxious chemical odor similar to the smell of road construction crews applying hot asphalt. The exhaust on the flue end of the rocket is clear, an intense heat shimmer with no visible smoke - which is not to say there are no gases, but no discernable exhaust. The 10-gallon barrel rocket uses an inverted T-burn tube. Small wood burns cleanly in the main fuel/air intake of the T. When the rocket is hot, the burn barrel is ignited and the exhaust chimneyed into the 2nd air/fuel port of the rocket. There is usually 3 to 5 seconds of gray smoke turning to white smoke and then clear exhaust. As the smoke from the burn barrel flows into the hot rocket burn tube, the wood fueling the rocket can be reduced but a minimal wood fire must be maintained to combust the exhaust from the burn barrel.
After incineration, there is a crust of almost weightless charcoalish residue in the burn barrel. (Similar to the charcoal produced when burning dried manure.) That is crushed and mixed with gravel on lesser used walkways. There is no concern about impacting local air quality - we are a few thousand people in many thousands of remote acres in East Africa where most people still believe in burning crop residue instead of composting. Our concern is for doing the right/best thing by the earth and minimizing our own carbon footprint. We do not burn food grade plastics; they have their uses. Most of the burnables are plasticized paper on the outside with a thin foil interior, such as juice carton and long-life milk cartons, and other commercial packaging combining paper and clear plastic. Even the juice/milk cartons have their uses, such as quilted into a thermal blanket barrier between ceiling and roof and as solar reflectors, but eventually we run out of places to use them.
I am wondering if would be better to bale and bury them? Biodegrading is very very slow and baling would make it even slower but keep them in one small area.
