As folks gather for warmth and company around a cozy campfire or fireplace during the winter, the demand for firewood can often exceed the supply, but you can make a campfire patty out of stuff you probably throw away!
You will need :
two 5 gallon buckets, a drill, a disc of wood for a press, customized drill bit, water and some otherwise presumptively useless biomass such as The Standard newspaper or the Kingman Miner, junk mail, leaves, paper towel rolls, paper plates, napkins, beer boxes, cardboard egg cartons, etc. (nothing plastic coated).
About 2 inches down from the lip of one bucket, drill a lot of small holes all around and on the bottom. Place the bucket with holes inside the other bucket. Start putting your biomass in it. fill with water. The buckets of water can be left outside the door, so that you can keep adding trash.
You will need to customize a drill bit,to act like the blade in a blender. (An old table saw blade welded to a shaft of steel.) Puree the wet trash to create a pulpy mess.
Pull out the bucket with holes and let it drain. If you save the water you can reuse it.
To make a press place a bucket on some wood as a template, trace around the base and cut out the disc of wood. Place the press inside the bucket on top of the pulp. Place something heavy on top of the press, like the other bucket full of used water.
Once most of the water is pressed out, take the bucket out to a sunny place. Turn the bucket over and tap on the bottom until the campfire patty falls out. Let dry completely. This is the desert so it shouldn’t take too long. If you want it to dry faster, cut the campfire patty into several smaller sections like a pizza.
These campfire patties are supposed to burn a good long time and best of all they’re made with stuff that would otherwise go in the landfill.