The Consultant - Q1 2009 - (Page 68) Food Waste Management – Emerging Trends Reuse: Human reuse is not viable with post-consumer waste. Animal reuse may be possible depending on the jurisdiction, regulations and how the waste will be pre-processed by the agricultural user. Pre- and post- consumer food waste Composting (“recycling”): If waste cannot be minimized at the source or reused, composting offers a very compelling opportunity to divert waste from landfill. Composting produces a useful soil amendment that returns nutrients to the earth. It also has a much better carbon footprint than landfills because the organic matter breaks down aerobically during the composting process and produces mostly carbon dioxide instead of the more-potent methane that comes from landfill anaerobic digestion. The first step for an operator or consultant considering composting is to review local infrastructure options. Some communities have excellent composting and hauling resources and others have few alternatives. The website www.findacomposter.com can help locate local resources. Off-site commercial composting facilities offer advantages because they have scale, expertise, and channels to market their compost product that most operators do not. Composting costs vary greatly by region but may be less costly than garbage hauling in some communities. If no off-site solution exists, the operator may consider on-site composting options. Several firms offer in-vessel composting equipment that processes product locally. There are also anaerobic digesters which breakdown food waste in-vessel within a matter of hours, saving hauling costs. These technologies are new, intriguing and require exploration, particularly around biogas recapture. An anaerobic process will typically produce methane and, if not recaptured, this may or may not offset the environmental benefits from avoiding hauling the waste to a landfill. There is also an on-site waste dehydrator offered by Somat which dries product efficiently, reducing its volume and rendering a soil amendment, without digesting the organic matter. Wind- By wasting less food to begin with, they [food service operators] have the opportunity to significantly reduce purchasing, inventories, utilities and labor costs associated with overproduction. row composting on-site is another alternative but very few operators have sufficient land to compost this way, this may be an option for colleges or corporate campuses with space and labor to manage a local effort. Finally, some facilities have experimented with local vermiculture composting, using worm populations to digest food waste. Suffice it to say there are several new options for on-site composting/ transformation of waste and time will show the pros, cons, and operational realities of each. Most of these solutions require extra space on loading docks or in temperature controlled interior spaces. Pre-consumer food waste is the easiest waste stream to target initially for composting. The operator controls this waste therefore the risk of contamination is low and the ease of collection quite easy. An operator must be careful to educate kitchen staff to continue source reduction of kitchen waste – because many will think that just because they compost, they can dispose at will. This still costs money in purchasing, labor and utilities. Post-consumer composting becomes more complex because there is significant risk of contamination, with guests throwing noncompostable items in the compost bin. One solution is to have properly trained staff clear trays and scrap plates correctly. If guests must deposit the items, it’s critical to offer educational signage with pictures next to each clearly-marked compost bin. In addition to food waste, compostable disposables can be included with the postconsumer compost. However, guest education on disposal procedures is important, for example guests could easily mistake a corn compostable cup for its plastic, non-compostable cousin so it’s important to look for compostable ware that is easily-identifiable by the guest and post proper signage. Operators should also remember that using compostable disposables without having a collection method to get those items back to a commercial composting facility is an incomplete solution. Those disposables, which come at higher cost in most cases, will be replacing petroleumbased products such as polystyrene, but if they 68 theconsultant http://www.findacomposter.com
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