Burning Bio News

Tommy Bass, Department of Animal and Range Science at MSU; Darrin Boss, Northern Agricultural Research Station; and Joel Schumacher, MSU Extension economist are studying the system benefits from composting manure in Montana livestock systems. The group will look at the system interaction effects and also the benefits from entering value-added markests on farm productivity.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors this week overwhelmingly passed what is likely the country’s most comprehensive recycling and composting ordinance. The Board voted 9-2 to require residents and business owners to sort recyclables, food waste and trash for weekly collection, in an effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions and, ultimately, make the city landfill- and incinerator-free by 2020. The ordinance, which will take effect this fall, provides fines for failure to comply with the recycling/composting regulations.

The Zoo in Springfield, MO, will begin taking reservations for ZooDoo, or composted herbivore manure. Most of the manure comes from the zoo’s five adult elephants, who eat about five to six bales of hay a day and a grain mixture. The composting process takes several months and the Zoo sells compost twice a year. ZooDoo is $10 per scoop, and usually 4 scoops fill the bed of a pick up truck.

Dairy Farmer, Dave Kyle, has added value to his dairy manure by composting it with a neighboring Landscape and Design company in Lafayette County, WI. They are able to sell the dairy manure compost through the landscaping operation. They plan to add a bagging plant for retail sales in the future.

Logic suggests that boutique lip balms, hand creams and shampoos that cost double competitors’ brands would be among the first luxuries jettisoned by strapped shoppers these days. But low-tech Burt’s Bees is making money and advertising for more workers here among the North Carolina pines, even in a state with the nation’s fifth-highest jobless rate. Burt’s Bees, which says it uses only natural ingredients, has averaged 25 percent compounded growth each year since its founding 25 years ago, according to Chief Executive John Replogle. He says sales have doubled in the past three years. With 400 employees, the company has hired 30 people this year and intends to hire 30 more by December… …Waste oils are converted to biodiesel, and plant residue is converted to compost at the company’s 100,000-square-foot processing plant in Durham, said manufacturing manager Keith Kochersperger. The plant has energy-efficient lights and waterless urinals. – mj: a nice economic success story that is due in part to reuse.

In the Coachella Valley, CA, Thomas Azwell and Costco have forged a partnership — with the help of several million worms on a worm farm at the Salton Sea — turning green waste from Costco’s Palm Desert and La Quinta stores into high-grade organic fertilizer. Paper, cardboard, food scraps — anything that was alive at one time, Azwell said — are collected at the stores and then sent to California Bio-Mass, a composting facility in Thermal. The next stop is Salton Sea Farms, also in Thermal, where about 100,000 pounds of red wiggler earthworms chomp through the compost, refining and enriching it with beneficial microbes and bacteria. The resulting fertilizer, called Vermigrow, is now sold at 27 Costcos in California and is being used at organic farms.

The Traverse City, MI, plan to compost biosolids and give them away is not working. Persistent high levels of zinc in the solids are interfering with the finished quality of the compost. They are looking into the benefits and costs of creating methane gas. – mj This $8 composting project is making compost. It is the high levels of zinc in the feedstock that are the problem. This problem apparently existed before they started, but adequate testing was not conducted. This is another case where millions of dollars were invested without really understanding the feedstock. Feedstock testing does not cost. It pays.

Ohio University’s new composting unit on the Athens campus is the largest in-vessel composting system at any college or university in the nation, capable of processing up to 28 tons of organic waste at a time. Ohio University expects to divert as much as 25 percent of the Athens campus’ solid waste from the landfill as a result of this project. Currently, the Central Food Facility is the sole contributor to the university’s composter, but the Baker University Center is slated to follow suit in the spring. The dining halls are next in line.

The New Market Elementary School, New Market, MD, kicked off a composting program that librarian Carol Beall hopes will save tons of garbage from going to the landfill while teaching students about the values of ecology. Beall applied for a grant last fall from the Gladhill Endowment Fund for Agricultural Education, asking for $660 for a compost tumbler and buckets to collect compostable food scraps (mainly fruits, vegetables and bread).

The cost of purchasing mulch and compost from Catawba County (Newton, NC) will increase to better reflect the current market price of the materials. Mulch will increase from $8 to $31 for a 3-yard bucket or $24 per ton. The cost of compost will go up to $45.50 from $15 per 3-yard bucket or $35 per ton.

The Oasis Composting Company is operating out of New Brockton, AL. They are using a Mid-West Bio Systems technology.

Clarissa Morawski presents an innovative technique for comparing non-monetary benefits of compost in a carbon-sensitive world. It is refreshing to see composting move to the top of the stack in carbon benefits. Compost is one of our bio-commodities that has always been undervalued monetarily. I need to read through the paper copy a bit more carefully before embracing the technique completely. Morawski goes into significant detail about the methodology, but like Jan Krieders LCA study below, it relies on many absolutely-objective assumptions. Because assumptions as best-guesses, they kind of undermine the certainty. But without them, we would be stuck using decades of historical data to model the future.

Compost is playing an increasing role in functional landscaping and green building certification (LEED). ERTH (Environmental Resource and Technology for Humanity) Products stormwater remediation composting technologies are outlined.

BioCycle magazine reports on the 48 food waste composting projects that are operating or under permitting to operate in the Northeast US. This is a great example of how composting pulls underutilized biomass from landfills, adds value to it and sends it back into the economy as a commodity.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection wants to reduce composting regulations for farmers who make compost from yard waste, manure and vegetative waste, such as unused food from grocery stores on their property.

USDA-Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have found that composting manure from beef cattle could reduce concentrations of antibiotics by more than 99 percent.

Demand for windrow turners has been growing in the agricultural sector as farms look to replace synthetic fertilizer with compost produced from their own residuals. The international marketplace has been strong as well.

A new composting unit has begun operation that will allow Ohio University to divert up to a quarter of its solid waste from the landfill. Capable of processing up to two tons of compostable materials per day, the unit is among the largest in-vessel composting systems at a U.S. university.

An order by the VT Natural Resources Board to close the Karl Hammer’s Vermont Compost Co. had touched off considerable controversy. Advocates argued that the facility played a critical role in diverting compostable wastes from filling up landfills, and provided a source of high-quality compost that has become essential to area farms and growers. The State was attempting to implement a new law and did not know what to do with the composting facilitiy, so they decided it was out of compliance, and began to shut it down. Now they have reached an agreement.

The San Antonio Water System (SAWS) approved a new contract for New Earth, LLC to handle an additional 65,000 tons of treated biosolids. The SAWS will pay $11.75 per ton to the composter rather than $16.94 per ton to the landfill. With the New Earth contract and an existing agreement with Garden-ville, 135,000 tons (90%) of SAWS biosolids will be composted.