Quest to Compost

by Elizabeth Lowell

As a kid growing up in a single-family home with a yard and a father who gardened, I was used to putting food scraps in the compost bin. Fruit and vegetable peelings, coffee grounds and egg shells always went into a bucket under the sink, right next to the trash can. The only thing that went into that other can, food-wise anyway, was meat, which couldn’t go in the backyard composter.  For as long as I can remember, the five members of my household filled our kitchen garbage can, a six-gallon, white plastic bin to be exact, up once a week with kitchen waste.

But, as it does for most young people, the day came when I found myself living in a cramped apartment in a multi-family building with a roommate. There was no “garbage day”, so we brought our garbage down to the building’s dumpsters whenever the bins were full. From the vantage point of the 5th floor, I began to notice just how often that was. Instead of filling our kitchen garbage can up once a week, we were filling it up every four or five days, and there were only two of us instead of my family of five! Needless to say, I was appalled, especially given the fact that I had to go up and down five flights of stairs every time I took out the trash.  We were still recycling all the same products, so what had turned my roommate and me into garbage-producing machines overnight? Food waste!

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, how much can two people really eat? But ask yourself this: If you take out food waste, (all those plate scrapings, fruit peels, and vegetable trimmings, not to mention that container of who-knows-what with the green tinge to it in the back of the fridge), AND you recycle everything your town allows, what’s left in the trash?

At about the same time I was completing my metamorphosis from average, American 20-something into full-fledged evil garbage monster, the city I was living in began to allow residents to place food scraps, including meat and dairy products, in their yard waste bins if they lived in single-family homes.

Recognizing my last chance at salvation, save starvation that is, I immediately went out and found a nice, 3-gallon bucket with a lid and a handle and started filling it with all our food scraps. I emptied it at my friends’ and family’s homes, in their yard waste bins, so the scraps would be taken to a composter instead of the landfill. Admittedly, they thought I was little nuts, but it worked. Almost immediately, I was no longer making my bi-weekly journey to the dumpsters at our apartment unit. Instead, I found myself making that familiar trip maybe every two weeks because, at some point, you just have to empty that can, even if it’s not full, right?

But not every city offers collection of food scraps to its residents. Recently, I made the move to a new city, albeit to an all-too-familiar cramped apartment in a multi-family building. I can’t unload my food scraps in friends’ yard waste bins because the city doesn’t collect food scraps with yard trimmings (for a number of reasons), and I don’t have the option of setting up my own home composter. I have watched in despair as the volume of waste my roommate and I generate has shot back up due to the food scraps that have nowhere else to go but the garbage. What has made it all the more painful is that working for Harvest has taught me so much about the benefits of composting those food scraps.

Millions of apartment-dwellers like me find themselves in the same situation. They want to reduce the amount of waste that goes to the landfill, but they have no options.
Or do they?

A few months ago, I decided I had had enough. I started a little research project and discovered that my local health food/organics store allows customers to bring in their food scraps and dump them in collection carts specifically for organic waste. The store then pays for a hauler to collect the organic waste and transport it to a nearby industrial composter. I’ve been at it for a few months and have, not surprisingly, seen my trips to my apartment’s dumpsters (along with my trips up and down four flights of stairs carrying a garbage bag) decline dramatically. And the local health food/organics store is on the way to my roommate’s job, so we’re not going out of our way to recycle our food scraps.

Until we can get collection of organics in multi-family units across the country, I encourage you to do a little research. Check your local health food and organics stores, and your city’s Public Works Department webpage for an organic waste depot. There may an option. And trust me, it beats the stairs.

Anaerobic Digestion, What’s That?

By Lisa Bartoli

Lately, conversations with my friends and family go something like this: Them: “How’s your new job?” Me: “Great! The company is in hot pursuit of many great opportunities.  Everyone’s excited and motivated.”  Them:  “That’s good! I’m happy for you.  So, what does the company do again?”  Then, I try my best to explain again how Harvest Power captures the biogas generated from organic waste to turn it into energy, and then produces high quality compost material.  Occasionally I’ll toss in an industry term like anaerobic digestion just to make it interesting.

It’s not surprising to me that these questions repeat themselves.  No one I know socially is connected to green jobs, let alone exposed to the technology needed to harness energy from food scraps. My blue collar upbringing created a social circle of retail, construction, and manufacturing jobs, with a few medical professionals thrown in for good measure.  Of course we all agree that recycling and reducing our energy consumption is important.  But when the rubber hits the road, I am considered the radical of my group when I consider purchasing a compost bin from the local home improvement store.

Now that we’ve become aware of the organic-waste-to-energy-and-compost process, my friends and I comment to each other frequently about how we hear and read about composting efforts throughout the area and across the country.

Articles in our local papers report how towns are considering composting options to reduce the costs associated with trash removal.  Cities like Boston are making plans to build facilities that will turn their compost piles into energy for their neighborhoods.  Local schools have installed compost bins and are using them as a teaching tool for their students. (My son cheerfully reports to me each time he is selected to jump in the compost bin at his middle school to remove the trash that uninformed passersby have deposited in the compost bin.)

So when I stop to think about it, my company and its mission is really nothing new to my friends and me.  We’ve slowly become accustomed to recycling, thinking green and trying to reduce our footprint.  Renewable energy from organic waste is just a new frontier in our growing knowledge and awareness of organic waste.

Maybe at the next BBQ, when my sister-in-law again asks me what Harvest Power does, I can explain source separated organics.

Scotland Takes Action: Waste No More for Anaerobic Digestion Output

From SEPA (Scottish Environmental Protection Agency)

Scotland’s environment watchdog has confirmed that anaerobic digestion output that is certified under the new PAS110 quality assurance scheme and that satisfies prescribed production and usage criteria will not be subject to waste regulatory controls. Anaerobic digestion is becoming an increasingly popular treatment method for biowastes, including food waste. It produces a biogas, which can be used to produce renewable heat or power, and digestate, which can be used to return organic matter to soils.

Kenny Boag, SEPA head of Waste Policy, said:

“There is significant and growing interest in the use of anaerobic digestion technology in Scotland. It is a technology that can help maximize the recovery of value and resource from source segregated biodegradable wastes, principally through the recovery of biogas and high quality soil improvers.

“SEPA is aware that sometimes regulation can be perceived as involving requirements that are not commensurate with the environmental risk attached to the particular operation. By adopting this regulatory position on PAS 110 certified digestates SEPA is satisfied that we may secure the necessary level of protection of the environment and human health in a way that will encourage development and investment in anaerobic digestion technology as a means of dealing with source segregated wastes.”

Iain Gulland, Director of Zero Waste Scotland, said:

“Anaerobic digestion has a major role to play in delivering a Zero Waste Scotland.

“Returning nutrients from food and other organic materials to the soil, so they can improve soil quality and support food production, is the kind of closed-loop approach we need.

“We welcome SEPA’s decision to take this regulatory position for PAS110-certified digestate. It will help to provide a vote of confidence in an important and burgeoning industry, and we will continue to work with producers to further build confidence in digestate.”

Next Page »