Breaking Down Organic Waste
Ever wonder what happens to all the leftovers from, well everywhere?
Mostly leftovers go into the trash and then to a landfill. Some leftovers are donated to soup kitchens (although health regulations and the issue of an employee from eith party getting the food to the non-profit make this tough to pull off). Progressive organizations have turned to composting.
Now there is a whiz-bang technology that promises, “you can throw anything in the machine that you can digest yourself.”
BioHightech debuted the GOHBio 1001 (not sure how to say that) recently. It is a high volume organic waste decomposition system – an anaerobic digestion chamber – an institutional stomach. It looks like a deep freeze.
The GOHBio 1001’s “active ingredient” are microbes which need periodic replenishment. They truly digest the organic matter and the machine spits out water that qualifies to go down an ordinary drain. The remaining waste is dramatically reduced in volume and gets cleaned out every few months.
Cost savings potential for high volume kitchens and cafeterias and manufacturing is significant.
Polystyrene processing and recycling
You know, I’ve written several posts about recycling polystyrene.
Polysytrene densification is the solution and there are various applications.
Recently I got wind of a seafood processing company that receives frozen fish in polystyrene containers and after processing, ships out fish in other polystyrene containers.
The densifier they bought handles 4,000 pounds of polystyrene weekly, compacting them into 40 pound ingots which are sold to a container company.
Polystyrene densification is a project where the feasibility is driven by sheer volume. I’m glad to see more and more companies tackling it as a part of their sustainability goals!
Update of Gazelle’s Electronic Recycling Service
The day after writing my original post praising Gazelle, I submitted two old cell phones in order to experience their service for myself.
I was disappointed to see that I wasn’t going to get any cash back for my old cell phones – especially since that’s a big part of Gazelle’s schtick. But, I wouldn’t bear any disposal other cash or time disposal costs.
Time is a biggie. I’ve had a camp stove propane tank in my back seat for weeks and just can’t seem to get to the one place in the County where I can recycle it. The site is nowhere hear my usual haunts and the operating hours are not customer-friendly. But I digress….
I was told a Gazelle box would be shipped to me and dutifully printing off the packing slip. Online, all order fulfillment functions were intuitive and worked smoothly.
That said, it’s now two weeks later, and still no box. So the slip and phones are sitting on my desk waiting. We’ll see if Gazelle ever comes good. Anyone have an experience to share?
Foam Densifiers
Polystyrene foam. Fun stuff. Ubiquitous. Most often landfilled.
Foam densification is a fancy term for compacting polystyrene foam into tiny little blocks. Foam by definition is full of air, so smushing it anyway you can saves a lot of space, which reduces waste disposal pick ups and thus, costs.
For example, Dart Container Corp makes a densifier that can compact a foam mound the size of a Prius into the volume of a five-gallon bucket.
Foam densifiers are great fits for distribution center recycling and food service foam is very common too. The equipment isn’t cheap, so sourcing it requires great care. Leasing is a good option, especially if you are selling the densified foam to an organization who uses it as a raw material.
Starbucks and Packaging Recycling
Starbucks wants its cups to be 100% recyclable by 2012. That’s a great goal for a company that uses three billion cups annually.
So Starbucks has begun to gathered stakeholders from every step in their supply chain and beyond to discuss the matter. Cup Summit included suppliers, paperboard companies, municipalities, recyclers, waste haulers, manufacturers, and environmental NGOs.
While cross-channel discussions were reportedly a big eye opener, many are skeptical, which is typical of any ambitious undertaking.
Sourcing 100% recycled paperboard is relatively easy. The key issue is related to the recycling the used cups.
Regulations are the first obstacle. Starbucks must be able to get their cups as old corrugated cardboard (OCC) so they can be recycled in the first place. That’s the basic regulatory hurdle.
Then the next obstacle is that the cups must be recyclable at the local level. The communities must first recycle, and not all do. Understand that recycling has always been a numbers game. That is, is there enough of the used material to sell it in bulk to someone who will use the material as a raw material. So even if there is a market for a material, there may not be a market near enough to make the transaction economically viable. In simple terms, low volume of a material and transportation costs (both economic and for sustainablity-minded companies, carbon footprint) may be deal breakers.
Recycling old corrugated cardboard is widespread, so getting the cups to qualify is important. But keep in mind they are contaminated by the contents. For example, you can’t recycle pizza boxes because of the grease and cheese residue. On disposal, Starbucks’ cups held or still hold, coffee, tea, milk, sugar and other toppings which could preclude recycling.
This segues to the real elephant in the room (pardon my mixing of metaphors throughout), Starbucks’ customers. Most cups leave by the front door or the drive through and how do you control them? Influencing guest actions has been a real bugbear for amusement parks and hotels because even if these organizations provide recycling containers, they aren’t often used properly and often the recyclable material is tossed in the trash receptacle anyway.
So it’s very tough for organizations whose guests operate within their boundaries, but like I said, most Starbucks cups leave the premises and end up far from Starbucks’ control.
From where I sit, the initiative deserves credit. It’s ambitious, it’s worthwhile and to succeed it must be a game changer. Like Gazelle, this is one project I’ll be following going forward.
What do you think? Is the project feasible? What would have to change? Let me know!
