The Way Out 2: Turn Waste into a Resource

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Bob Ewing - One of the first steps towards building sustainable, local economies is to change how we view garbage. Instead of seeing waste or something that needs to be thrown away, we need to accept that there is no such place as away and what we call garbage could well be a resource. Food is a prime example.

Last week we talked about diverting edible food from the garbage to the table. This week we will take a close look at compost.

What food items can we compost? Place the following in your compost bin:

• All vegetable and fruit wastes, (including rinds and cores) even if they are moldy and ugly
• Old bread, donuts, cookies, crackers, pizza crust, noodles: anything made out of flour!
• Grains (cooked or uncooked): rice, barley, you name it
• Coffee grounds, tea bags, filters
• Fruit or vegetable pulp from juicing
• Old spices
• Outdated boxed foods from the pantry
• Egg shells (crush well)
• Corn cobs and husks (cobs breakdown very slowly)

When you compost food waste, you not only divert items from the waste stream, but you actualize the true potential of those items; in the case of composting, you turn food scrapes into food for your garden. Composting produces a rich, organic feed for your soil and well fed soil will grow strong and healthy plants.

For home gardeners, whether they grow in containers or raised beds, compost will help the garden grow. Those heritage seeds you bough will flourish in the well fed bed. Lets take a look at composting on a large scale.

Rutgers University serves over 3.3 million meals and caters more than 5,000 events each year. The University is well known for its food recovery system which was started in the 1960s.

Rutgers had a food waste problem, one they solved by diverting food scraps to a local farm for use as animal feed.

The leftover food is put into a trough which delivers it as well as used napkins to a pulper. Excess water is removed and the food scrapes are pulverized. The result is deposited into barrels and is stored in a refrigerator until a local farmer hauls them to his farm.

Water from the system is recycled to transport more scraps to the pulper.

The farm is less than 15 miles away. The farm uses the pulverized food scraps, averaging 1.125 tons per day, to feed hogs and cattle.

The farmer charges $30 per ton, as opposed to the approximately $60 that Rutgers pays to haul a ton of trash to the landfill.

The school saves money and the farmer gets a valuable commodity for his operation.

On a local or community scale, thin about a cooperative that offers gardening services to the public and sells its own brand of compost. The compost comes from the food scrapes generated by the cooperative members and perhaps from a local restaurant or two.

A little imagination applied to this scenario could create a business opportunity all because we looked at waste as a resource rather than something to be cast aside.

Rainwater: Save it; don't waste it

Water, without it, plants do not grow; without it people will only last two or three days. Why then do we waste it so?

After every rainfall, you can see the rain running down the asphalt driveways, roads and the concrete sidewalks. It has not opportunity to do what it is meant to do; return to the earth.

Perhaps, we waste water so casually because for still too many of us, it is readily available, not expensive but only a tap turn away.

Where water is scarce, it is often rationed and there are laws and bylaws to protect it. These ought not to be necessary given it value but it seems without them some people will water their lawn or worse wash a driveway, even in a dry spell.

There are simple techniques that enable the homeowner to save water for that dry day. One is do not wash your driveway or try and grow plants that demand daily or regular watering if you live in an area that gets little rain; unless you have set up a water harvesting system.

The rain barrel is a basic way to save rain water. You may not want to drink it but it will make the garden grow.

Whenever it rains, I watch the streams of water roll down the street and into the sewers; water that could be used to look after fruit trees, vegetables, herbs and more. Sure the rain was giving them a drink now but what about two days from now?

Rain barrels are simple enough to make or you can buy one. They cost a few bucks but they are a sound investment in a valuable resource, one that may be becoming scarcer than we know.

If you must grow tomatoes or other high water demand plants, in addition to a rain barrel, give some thought to a soaker hose. This way the water goes to the roots where it is needed and the plants will thrive. Only water if there has been no rain and the rain barrel is empty.

Soaker hoses and rain barrels are the beginning of an effective water conservation system; one that takes advantage of the precious resource that falls freely from the sky but one that we cannot live long without.

If you are fund raising for a school or a not-for-profit organization, rain barrels could make a great fundraising project. Make some money for a good cause and help conserve our dwindling water supply, all at the same time.

The rain barrel is the entry level rain water harvesting system. There are larger systems that will collect and hold much more than water for the cabbages.