Finding Hope in the Midst of Despair: The Story of Eden Energy

With the chill of the cold night air, and the overwhelming scent of garbage and urine, sleep remained an elusive dream. This was the harsh reality for Joe, a 15 year old, who was already a familiar face in the homeless community. In the midst of makeshift shelters and discarded debris that resembled a miniature landfill, Joe found himself navigating another sleepless night. After a long year of what seemed to be the inevitable end of what looked like a hopeless life, it was in fact then that hope was born from the despair that Joe found himself in.

Joe knew that this life of squalor and filth could not be the life that God intended for him or those around him. Amidst the grim reality, Joe held onto the belief that there had to be a way out. There had to be a way better than this. That there must be a better life than this, and with that thought, the idea of restoration sprang forward and a glimmer of hope was found.

Hi, I’m Joe, I'm honored to serve at Eden Energy Solutions as the Chairman of The Board, Founding Partner, and Chief Production Officer. The story I've shared above is just a glimpse into the twists and turns of my life's journey. Its impact has been profound, serving as one of the catalysts that have brought me to where I stand today. Fast forward 35 years from that homeless camp, and through what I can only describe as divine intervention, I crossed paths with Jonathan Appel, the visionary CEO of Eden. That serendipitous encounter marked the birth of Eden Energy Solutions!

Despite our vastly different paths, backgrounds, and journeys to this point, Jonathan and I share a common heartbeat —a shared desire to clean up our planet, uplift humanity, and create positive change. With aligned heart, intentions, and a passion for bettering mankind, Eden embarked on a pioneering journey to revolutionize waste disposal and meet the world's energy demands.

Well, you might be asking yourself, what is Eden and what does Eden do? Good question.

Eden Energy Solutions is a company founded by a group of talented entrepreneurs behind a revolutionary carbon-conversion technology - the Eden Energy Process (EEP), with the goal of helping

mankind by becoming the premier waste management solution company in the world, while also tackling the massive energy demands that we all face. Our mission is to provide the world with the technological systems to convert all carbon-based waste into regenerative energy and life products. Our vision is to see a world where waste is no longer seen as a liability but as a commodity and a valuable fuel source towards a cleaner, greener, and brighter future.

Eden is a waste-to-energy equipment manufacturer that produces a decentralized, containerized, modular, and in some cases, mobile waste-to-energy systems. This revolutionary equipment can process all carbon-based waste, SIMULTANEOUSLY, in a WET, and MIXED stream turning them into clean burning, carbon-neutral fuels (RegenerativeFuel Oil and Regenerative Natural Gas), biochar, and organic fertilizers, with no waste-streams or byproducts, in a highly efficient, effective, and an environmentally positive way! The EEP is truly THE Solution to all forms of carbon waste and Pollution.

Well, again you may now ask, What is Eden doing to help find hope in the midst of despair? Another good question.

With the mounting hazardous waste and waste plastics produced each year, we are surrounded by massive volumes of harmful waste streams that are constantly polluting our environments and ecosystems. These 2 waste streams alone can have lasting and devastating effects on human, animal, and plant life. The United States handles over 35 million tons of hazardous waste each year and 90% of all waste is mismanaged in low income countries. In the U.S. today, there are thought to be over 20,000 known, abandoned, and uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. The pollution from these hazardous sites can cause serious environmental and health hazards for local communities and wildlife. If the hazardous waste was not enough of a concern, we also have all of the plastic waste streams that end up in our rivers, streams, lakes, and oceans. Worldwide there are over 400 million metric tons of waste plastic produced annually - JUST PLASTIC WASTE! And even worse than these troubling statistics, something that no one is really talking about, is the over 15 million people who live in “garbage dump communities”. The average lifespan globally is 70 years of age. In these garbage dump communities, the average lifespan is cut in half to only 35 years of age. This should be an alarming statistic for anyone and this has placed a heavy burden on the hearts of Eden’s founders to find a solution.

The statistics listed above are staggering and I would say that they meet the very definition of hopelessness and despair. So, what is Eden doing to help? Let’s first look at hazardous waste. Eden is committed to working directly alongside and in coordination with hazardous waste haulers and hazardous waste producers in order to eliminate these hazardous streams. The EEP can dissociate the harmful chemicals, and compounds and safely dispose of the hazardous waste streams in an environmentally positive way. The EEP’s foundational technology- the Thermal Conversion Process was the only technology to be issued a permit for 100% pathogen destruction of medical and infectious waste. Not only does the EEP eradicate these harmful compounds, our process actually turns these once harmful materials into products that are a tremendous benefit our environment, plant life, and wildlife, thus having a positive impact on global health. Through the EEP, we produce products such as biochar which can be used as a soil amendment to treat soil that has been contaminated with various toxic chemicals, like pesticides, and other hazardous wastes that may have leached from contaminated materials. The EEP also creates organic fertilizers that can be used to grow strong, healthy crops after the contaminated soil is cleaned up with the biochar. Safely disposing of these currently produced waste streams is not Eden’s only focus. We are also focused on cleaning up all of the abandoned hazardous waste sites. By placing an Eden Energy System (EES) on the site of these abandoned waste dumps, Eden would be able to clean up and safely dispose of the hazardous waste streams without the need to transport these hazardous waste streams which could further endanger our environment and ecosystem.

Now, let’s take a look at plastic waste streams. Through the EEP, Eden can convert these waste plastics back into a cleaner version of their original petroleum form in order to create virgin plastic, so that it can truly be recycled. Typically, only 5-9 % of plastic waste is actually recycled. Eden will partner with local, state, federal agencies, and private businesses who are actively working to clean up our lakes, rivers, streams, and oceans. Eden’s smallest EES, because it is a mobile system, can be deployed almost anywhere around the world and it can process up 1 ton of waste plastic every day. Eden has developed other containerized systems like the Revelation. This system is transportable but not mobile however, it can still be deployed almost anywhere in the world. This system can process up to 3 tons of plastic waste per day. With over 2000 truckloads of waste plastic dumped into the ocean every day, the world needs an EES at the mouth of every river and on the shore of every lake and ocean. That is precisely what Eden intends to do. Eden is committed to manufacturing more and more EESs in order to help rid our communities of the harmful microplastics that are an egregious health risk to all life on our planet. On average each individual consumes about 50,000 microplastic particulates every year. This consumption can lead to serious health risks like obesity, insulin resistance, and pour gut health which by extension leads to a weakened immune system. The health of our planet and our community is Eden’s main focus. We will continue to work tirelessly in order to clean up our planet and help communities around the world achieve true wellness in our environment and our bodies.

Now to address one of the main issues that has been the driving force for me personally. Garbage Dump Communities. As I write this blog and particularly this portion of the blog, I do so with tears in my eyes. It is absolutely unfathomable that we have a term like “Garbage Dump Communities” that is used to describe entire communities of people. I struggle with the fact that we have all of the data on these communities in regard to their health conditions and the number of serious diseases that so many children and adults are facing and dying from. We have all of the data on life expectancy from living in such poor conditions and yet no one has done anything to help these people. It really is hard to imagine that with hundreds of trillions of dollars in free capital that is held by our governing agencies around the world, that we would have people living in what is tremendously worse than any third world country. Imagine that your pillow that you laid your head on at night to go to bed was someone else's discarded bag of garbage. Imagine if you can, the smell. Think about the hopelessness and despair that “living” (I would not call this living) in this squalor and filth must create. As a society we cannot allow this to be a reality for any person on this planet. Eden is dedicated correcting these gross years of societal neglect of these beautiful children of God. The team at Eden through its philanthropic initiatives will deploy as may EESs as needed in order to clean up these garbage dumps. Eden Energy will, at no cost to the community, set out our equipment, process the waste streams, and unlock all of the valuable resources that are locked away in the waste streams. The proceeds from those valuable resources would be used to provide housing, water, food, and infrastructure. Eden is currently working toward this goal of delivering these communities out of these desperate and hopeless conditions. All of this would be done in coordination with the local and community leadership in order that these communities would reap all of the benefits. Eden will continue to use all of our resources to help the most impoverished and overlooked communities. We will use our finances and our profits to level the playing field, pay the best wages, provide the best benefits, to our employees and partners at Eden. Eden will continue to be a pioneer for change by removing corporate greed. Eden will continue to be a beacon of hope in waste reclamation and energy production. Eden will be an innovator for environmental harmony by creating The Eden Initiative, the philanthropic venture whose sole purpose is to revitalize our ecosystems, habitats, and wildlife.

I hope that as you read this blog post, that you might find some hope yourself. I hope that you might be inspired that there is a company like Eden that will always put people over profit. I hope that you will be able to see and trust that the founders of Eden are not doing this to enrich our executives, but to enrich Mother Earth and her inhabitants. I also pray that this blog post might spark something in you that would encourage you to get involved. I want to encourage you to join us here at Eden in our mission to clean up our planet and leave behind a thriving planet for future generations. Together we can make a difference. Together we can help our fellow man. Together we can ensure that the world we will live in will be a world that isn’t contaminated and polluted.

Our goal at Eden is to ensure we live on a planet that will be clean, green, pristine, and powered by waste.

Joseph Shopp

Chairman & Chief Production Officer