Here’s the Dirt

Metro Vancouver devotes a page to helping residents with their composting. Check out the informative PDF brochure as well as tips to successful composting.Many municipalities offer hands-on instruction to help residents learn the ins-and-outs of composting. Contact your municipality for information.

Composting Questions?
Call City Farmer’s Regional Compost Hotline
604-736-2250

City Farmer
UBC’s Community Composter

163+ items to compost

“A young boy and his father were walking along a beach, when suddenly they came upon thousands of starfish left stranded on the sand by the receding tide. The young boy leaned over, picked up a starfish and tossed it, like a Frisbee, back into the ocean. Then he picked up another one, and carried it to the water’s edge. “Son, what are you doing? You can’t possibly save them all.” “I guess not. But these uns’ll make it.” The youngster believed that even when the situation seemed hopeless, he could do his part. Composting is like that, too. organic gardening newsletterEvery year, tons of organic materials are thrown away, needlessly filling up landfills. By composting these materials, you can lengthen the life of your local landfill.”

See 163 things that can be composted here, instead of landing up in landfills. By composting we can eliminate approx. 40% of curbside trash!!

Why composting?

Composting is a waste management solution that has been around for a while now. However, it’s not always the first thing that comes to mind when trying to reduce waste. Many people wonder “why composting”? The real reason lies in the benefits that can be obtained by composting. In order to increase the popularity of composting, it is important to realize how easy it is and how it can help us. With help from the Environmental Protection Agency and their website, we have found the most important benefits to composting. One of the main things that we should remember is the impact that composting has on the overall quality of soil. Compost can suppress plant diseases and pests. Why is this important? It is important because this means that we will rely less on harmful pesticides. What it all adds up to is a higher yield of crops and the fact that we are not damaging our atmosphere by releasing harmful gases. Another important point is that composting will purify existing soil. This is done by enabling metals to bind instead of heading over to water sources (this will help in odor absorption) and it completely decomposes wood preservatives and pesticides (as mentioned before). In keeping with the reduction theme, composting can also reduce pollution. By composting organic materials, we divert them from landfills and thus reduce the amount of harmful methane that is usually emitted from landfills. With such a big issue with where to put our excess waste here in Vancouver, it is important to divert as much waste away from the landfills as possible. Finally, one of the most important issues is the issue of cost. As our statistics suggest, composting is a cost-effective alternative to waste reduction.

source: http://www.epa.gov/waste/conserve/rrr/composting/benefits.htm

Trashbusters’ Next Steps

Over the next two weeks, The Trashbusters will be contacting various people and organizations in order to pilot our solution. Since the scope of our solutions are quite large, The Trashbusters have decided to choose one solution to implement, rather than both solutions.

While implementing reusable dishes would be of great benefit to our social problem, we feel that the market would not be as receptive as we hope to the idea of making such a large shift in operations. When for-profit organizations are involved, there is often a primary focus on the economic bottom line; implementing reusable dishes, while beneficial in the long-term, would have great initial costs, making it less attractive to the chains in the food court.

So in the next few weeks, we will be piloting Part II of our solution: food rescue and composting at SFU. There have been past attempts to try to get composting going at SFU, so we feel that the support is already there. Sustainability is becoming the norm, and we hope that by entering the market at the right time, we will be able to pilot our solution in hopes of it becoming permanent in the future.

Our next efforts will include contacting SFU Facilities, Chartwell’s, Quest Food Exchange, Sustainable SFU, and SFU Food Bank, and various composting companies, in hopes of getting information we need to implement our solution. We will be posting updates on these contacts-be sure to check back to see how The Trashbusters are progressing!

Too Much Pre-Packaged!

As part of our general research on this topic, we interviewed SFU Surrey students on the topic of “waste management” and “over packaging”. One student replied to the question of “what do you do to cut down your waste?” in a very intelligent, creative and yet logical way. He said, that when shopping for groceries he is overly conscious of packaging in foods right down to the cheese! He was sure not to buy precut cheeses because they add the growing problem of waste.

Essentially, it needs to get down to this…the smallest things are filling out landfills: straws, bottle caps, and cheese packaging! Too much garbage is produced in food courts, from take out containers, utensils, cups, etc.

The US population tosses out enough paper and plastic cups, forks and spoons every year to circle the equator 300 times. Trashbusters asks you to think twice before using a straw, grabbing an extra napkin, or eating out.

Love Food Hate Waste

Around a third of all the food we buy ends up being thrown away and most of this could have been eaten – it’s not just peelings, cores and bones.  90% of us just don’t realise how much good food we throw out, yet we throw away 6.7 million tonnes of food each year. It’s not just an issue of good food going to waste, or that this costs us as consumers a significant amount of money, but that there are serious environmental implications. The amount of food we throw away is a major contributor to the production of greenhouse gases. It is also a waste of resources. Just think about all the energy, water and packaging used in food production, transportation and storage. This all goes to waste when we throw away perfectly good food.

Cheese is a good example – feeding and milking the cows, cooling and transporting the milk, processing it into cheese, packing it, getting it to the shops, keeping it at the right temperature all the time. If it then gets thrown away it will most likely end up in a landfill site, where, rather than harmlessly decomposing as many people think, it rots and actually releases methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. If we stopped wasting food which could have been eaten, it would have the same impact on carbon emissions as taking 1 in 5 cars off the roads.

A recently launched campaign in the UK aims to raise awareness of the need to reduce the amount of food that we throw away, and how doing this will benefit us as consumers and the environment. For more information, check out their website: Love Food Hate Waste

Part II: SFU= Sustaining Food Usefully

This post outlines the details of our second solution, which is to implement at food rescue and composting program.

Food Rescue and Composting Program

While composting is an ideal way to divert food waste from the landfills, Trashbusters’ research has led to the conclusion that this process is complex and vulnerable to contamination, making it less desirable to the market to participate. However, this is beginning to change, as we see more efforts of composting being incorporated into the region. Delta, for example, is one of the municipalities taking part in a pilot program that encourages people to save their yard trimming and food waste. In doing so, yard waste pick up is increasing to a weekly process during peak hours, and now includes the collection of food waste as well.

The Trashbusters want to take this awareness one step further. We want to spread the word about food rescue, and get more people on board with helping various causes with one act. By getting more organizations to contribute to these organizations, Vancouver could increase the 1% figure of food being rescued. We see this as a long term goal, as the transformation of food rescue will take time in order to get the majority on board. In doing so, we will look into applying our solutions at a place where the market is already accepting the idea of sustainability: SFU. The Trashbusters plan to get in touch with the restaurants in operation there (such as Chartwells and those located at the Cornerstone) in order to find out what they do with their food waste at the end of the day. Implementation of food rescue will work as follows:

a)  A designated group would be responsible for collection- they would go to these stores in operation and collect any extra produce, sandwiches, pasta salads, or expired food and bring them to a designated area for sorting. Volunteers for research and action would be sought from SFPIRG’s Action Research Exchange.

b)  The volunteers would sort the food into the appropriate categories. Food that can be preserved will be preserved, and perishable food can be donated can be donated to the SFU’s Food Bank.

 c) With help from SFU’s Sustainable Community Development, food that is expired or non-salvageable would be used for compost. The rich soil developed from the compost can be used for areas around campus.

Concerns: 

How would we find the space for sorting and operations? Are there issues of contamination with the composting? Would the stores in operation be willing to participate? Would our proposed alliances be on board?

In order to successfully implement this program we would have to seek support from various SFU groups and authorities. Because the cost of composting is high, we would have to make sure the stakeholders see the benefits of the program- to make SFU a more sustainbale community. And because SFU already has volunteers that are dedicated to making this, we hope to be able to get many on board to help make rescuing food a reality.

Part I: Eating In =Take-IN containers

The topic of waste management is large and complex. In order to keep our solution both manageable and feasible for the city of Vancouver, we have significantly narrowed the scope of our issue. Informing ourselves on issues from energy waste, to water waste, Trashbusters have decided to become experts in the area of packaging and food waste reduction.

 An initial solution focused on a newspaper sharing program for public transportation, but, after much research, we have decided to shift to something more scalable:  a non-disposable dishware program in food courts, and the eventual implementation of a compost and food rescue program. We have divided this solution into two parts, and for the purpose of easy readership, this post will include the details of the first:

 

1. NON-DISPOSABLE DISHWARE PROGRAM:

The Trashbusters have always been bothered to see the amount of unnecessary paper, plastic, and Styrofoam waste that is generated at meal time; “take out” containers are used even when people are not actually leaving the food court to eat. An initiative that removes these containers from the equation can reduce waste by 50%. As such, part one of our solution works as such:

 a) Order your meal at your desired vendor/restaurant.

b) Your meal is then served in a ceramic bowl/plate with non-disposable utensils, marked with the advertising of your desired vendor (this advertising serves both to promote the restaurant, and to inform the food court attendants where it is to be returned).

c) When you are finished eating, a food court attendant will put your used dishes through an eco-friendly dish-washing machine.

d) Should you wish to leave the food court with your leftovers, you may pay an additional fee for take-out containers/utensils.

 Concerns: 

Who is paying the mall workers for their extra duties, in washing and returning plates to the vendors?                               Are the initial start up costs too high for the food vendors? Who foots  the bill?

Ultimately, there must be an agreement between the mall authority and the individual food vendors, who would need to be on board with the waste reduction program. While the initial costs are high, Trashbusters discovered that plastic take out containers and cutlery are “significant expenses” to the food court restaurants; as such, switching to a long-lasting alternative, such as ceramic plates and bowls, could save thousands of dollars in the long run. If it is too costly for malls to support the added fee of food court attendants, Trashbusters feels it is realistic to have volunteers, specifically those passionate about sustainability, operate the washing and return of the dishware.

Quest Food Exchange

While I’m sure restaurants and stores try their hardest to incorporate just-in-time inventory, there are many who are always faced with food that they can not sell. This includes general products that have passed its expiry date, produce that is not an acceptable size or that has small bruises, and perishable goods whose packaging was damaged during transport (such as dented cans.) Food that is not acceptable for sale often gets thrown into the trash, resulting in perfectly good food ending up in the landfills. Quest Food Exchange is an organization that aims to rescue food and reduce hunger. With support from various food donors (click here for a list of some of their donors), Quest goes to the participating stores and picks up any food that can be rescued. The food is then taken to the 575 square meter warehouse (which is filled and emptied each day) and sorted by the volunteers. Food that gets brought into the process is:

• canned if it is preservable
• made into hampers
• used to make hot meals
• reclaimed for animal feed and composting
• brought to their low-cost grocery store (recently opened in Surrey, in April 2008)

Quest ensures that everything is put into good use and at the same time helps out various social service and outreach agencies. It’s amazing to see just how much good food gets thrown away. The only downside? As great as the efforts are, Quest is still only capturing 1% of the food being wasted in the region.

(source: www.questoutreach.com)

Saving the World- One Plate at a Time!

The food court in Oakville Place, in downtown Toronto, has taken on a great initiative, called The Plate Program, which is estimated to reduce the food court garbage by 50% in the coming year.

The new, eco-friendly initiative enhances the experience of eating in a Food Court and contributes to waste management and reduction at the same time. Customers of the Oakville Place food court, “have the option to select their own restaurant quality plate and have their meal served without generating the waste from a disposable plate.”

“At Oakville Place, we want to treat our customers to a more sophisticated shopping experience, and the first step in the Food Court is to enjoy a meal on real dishes. Once customers are finished their meal, we will remove their plates and tray – and we do the dishes!” says Jenny Jovanovic, Marketing Coordinator for Oakville Place.

The Trashbusters have contacted Jenny and hope to learn more about this fantastic initiative!

For further information visit www.oakvilleplace.com.