Category Archives: landfills

The Ultimate Frontier – Composting at work

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Yesterday I posted about corporate recycling and how they have to have plastic containers with labels on them to actually do it. Well here is a thought. Take a felt tipped marker and cross out paper and write organics. That way you are composting at work. If you have no organics other than food scraps you may have to mix in some shredded paper or go out side and collect some leaves. You will need a a tight lid and you may need to store it outside, but everything is possible.

http://bubbler.wordpress.com/2007/08/20/composting-at-work/

 

 

Composting at Work

I’ve started a composting process of the food waste at my workplace using a bin that is passively aerated. It’s kind of a prototype, as I am figuring out what kind of mix of inputs will work, how much moisture it needs, etc. During the summer, our kitchen produces a huge amount of food scraps which gets bagged up, thrown into a room, then later heaved up by staff onto our dump truck, driven into town, dumped at the refuse center, where it is then sorted and transported out of the county to a landfill 70 miles away. It’s a ridiculously inefficient process of dealing with waste that generates yet more waste.

The small bin I have currently set up will fill up within a week, so obviously it isn’t anywhere near cutting much waste out. However, once I’ve demonstrated that it works and have figured out the proper mix and all that, I’m hoping that we can expand the operation to cut out a more significant chunk of waste.

The whole science and art of composting consists of a proper ratio of carbon to nitrogen, which ideally should be around 30:1. We have a vast amount of cardboard and newspaper on-hand which I will shred to serve as bulk carbon (further reducing the transport of those materials into the recycling center in town), as well as sawdust and, every now and then, pine needles. The food waste supplies the nitrogen, as well as moisture. I will also pick up horse manure from stables down the road and mix that in there as well to provide essential microbes. It remains to be seen what kind of compost such a mixture will produce—it may be somewhat deficient on nutrients as my main sources of carbon are bland.

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More tomorrow.

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Corporate Recycling In The Workplace – You know they gotta have special containers

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Corporate America was slow to come to recycling because they know a shift to a steady state economy means their demise. Still they come kicking and screaming because they can not withstand the the force of history. It would be nice if they recycled real things like electronics and building materials. Sooner or later it will happen. For now:

http://www.recycleaway.com/office_recycling_containers.html?gclid=CILF7Ljj0asCFcsBQAod9jSETw

Office Recycling Bins

We offer unbeatable prices and the best selection of office recycling bins and office recycling containers. From recycling signs and deskside recycling containers, to space efficient and attractive recycling receptacles, Recycle Away has everything you need to expand your office recycling program.

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Recycling Bins for Lobbies and Meeting Rooms
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Plastic Recycling Bins
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Fiberglass Recycling Bins
The Kaleidoscope Collection

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More tomorrow.

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Wasted Food Is Wasted Energy – And we waste alot

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Remember when your mom used to say, “Clean your plate. There are children in the world who are starving.”? Well now it is save the world kind of stuff. Wasting food wastes huge amounts of energy. This brief article below sums it up nicely. Please click on the authors name to see more of this authors work.

http://boingboing.net/2010/08/03/theres-more-energy-i.html

There’s more energy in wasted food than there is in the Gulf of Mexico

Maggie Koerth-Baker at 8:42 PM Tuesday, Aug 3, 2010

Recently, while doing some research on the carbon footprint of food, I ran across some studies that reported Americans ate, on average, 3774 calories of food each day.

Something about that smelled funny to me.

Sure, Americans eat a lot. But 3774 calories a day? I have family members who subsist almost solely off fried meat and various sorts of potatoes and I’m not convinced that even they hit that number on a regular basis. When I took my questions to the researchers, I found out that my hunch was correct. Americans aren’t, technically, eating an average of 3774 calories per day. This figure is calculated by looking at food produced, divided by the number of Americans. It assumes we’re eating all that, but, in reality, according to environmental scientist Gidon Eshel we really only eat about 2800 calories per day. That whopping 3774 includes both what we eat—and what we waste.

And what we waste—not just at home, but from the farm field, to the grocery store, to our Tupperware containers full of moldy leftovers—is a big deal.

We use a lot of energy producing, transporting, processing, storing and cooking food we don’t eat. About 2150 trillion kilojoules worth a year, according to a recent study. That’s more kilojoules than the United States could produce in biofuels. And it’s more than we already produce in all the oil and gas extracted annually from the Gulf of Mexico.

Reducing that waste requires both changes in the way we eat at home, and systematic changes that address waste at every part of the food cycle. Right now, I’ve talked to a lot of researchers who can identify the problem, but don’t have a lot of suggestions for concrete solutions. I’m sure they’re out there, though, and I’ll report back as I track them down.

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More tomorrow.

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Gas Flares At Garbage Dumps – Humans just throw resources away

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In 1000s of landfills across the nation natural gas (primarily methane) is being allowed to drift into the atmosphere or worse yet “flared”. They should be at least using this to generate electricity. Like this landfill in Brevard County.

http://www.brevardcounty.us/swr/landfilltour.cfm

Your Guide to the Central Disposal Facility

click for larger image

The Central Disposal Facility (CDF) is located on Adamson Road in Cocoa. The property was first used for solid waste disposal in the 1960’s. Since then the County has continued to make improvements operationally and environmentally. For example, the 192-acre permitted landfill area is lined by a clay slurry wall, groundwater monitoring wells have been installed, and a methane gas collection and flare system is in place.

The site originally consisted of 285 acres. CDF now totals 957 acres. Portions of the landfill have been closed by capping it with a liner, two feet of cover dirt, and sod. It is estimated Brevard County will have enough landfill capacity to handle the disposal needs for the county until 2014.

In addition to the landfill area itself, there are many other areas within the landfill which emphasize waste reduction and environmental protection.

Yard waste is banned from Florida landfills but is used for daily cover material in the landfill after it’s mulched.

Tens of thousands of pounds of mulch is sent to a facility in Auburndale to be converted to Green Energy.

The mulch is available FREE to all Brevard County residents,
call (321) 633-1888 for more information.

 Mulching
click for larger image
Landfill Gas Conversion to Green Energy
click for larger image 		The gas produced by the Landfill (methane) is extracted through a vacuum system run by LES (Brevard Energy LLC) which in turn is connected to a power grid at the FP&L Facility
(Oleander Plant) and converted to Green Energy.
Anaerobic bacteria break down the garbage in the landfill which produces methane gas. These Flares were burning off the methane to reduce build-up in the landfill.

Now that the Landfill Gas Plant is up and running the Flare Station will be utilized only when necessary.

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Seems like we waste energy even when we throw it away. More tomorrow.

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