Composting Food and Yard Waste: A Guide for Individuals, Non-Profits, and the City of Buffalo

In 2010, the United States added 68 million tons of food and yard waste to landfills, accounting for roughly 34% of all municipal solid waste. Lowering the amount of this waste in a city’s garbage saves the taxpayers money and protects the environment. Composting is an easy and inexpensive solution. Instead of throwing out food and yard waste, homeowners, not-for-profits, businesses and local government can reuse it to create compost, a useful product that can be incorporated back into the soil

Household behavior and attitudes regarding diversion of organic material from the municipal solid waste stream : a case study of Knox County, Tennessee

Management of municipal solid waste (MSW) has become increasingly important in recent decades. Solid waste officials are often forced to take progressive steps in the areas of waste diversion and source reduction in order to offset the increasing amount of MSW currently being generated. While much research has focused on recycling programs, composting programs have the potential to increase diversion rates drastically. Composting has long been underutilized as a relatively cost effective strategy for diverting organic wastes. Estimates show that up to 60 percent of the residential waste stream is potentially compostable. Aggressive composting programs can thus divert a substantial fraction of MSW from landfills. Yard waste alone has been estimated to account for 17.6 percent of the weight of municipal solid waste nationally (Franklin Associates, 1990). The overall objective of this research project was to analyze the current situation in Knox County, Tennessee with respect to solid waste management in general, and diversion of organic matter in particular. Specific objectives were: (1) to identify and describe the current behavior and attitudes of households living in single-family residences in Knox County with respect to generation, diversion, and disposal of waste materials, especially organic matter (2) to measure attitudes toward, familiarity with, and expected behavioral responses to the following policy options for increasing the diversion of organic matter: (a) educational programs (e.g., to encourage backyard composting) (b) regulatory actions (e.g., landfill ban of yard wastes) (c) incentive strategies (e.g., unit-pricing systems of solid waste disposal) (3) to identify factors associated with residents\u27 backyard composting behavior The information used in this study was gained through a telephone survey of Knox County residents living in single-family detached dwellings. The total sample size was 865, including 400 City of Knoxville households and 465 households residing outside the city limits. Valuable information was gained about Knox County residents\u27 solid waste disposal patterns, as well as their attitudes and perceptions toward solid waste issues. A conceptual model was developed in an attempt to identify factors influencing the probability that residents participate in composting behavior. A logit regression procedure was used to estimate the models for composting tree and shrub trimmings, grass, food, leaves, and composting in general

Solid waste management by considering composting potential in Malaysia toward a green country

Solid waste disposal has become a serious issue for country and municipal governments throughout the nation. As available landfill space decreases and the cost of siting and building new landfill increases, local authorities are struggling to develop alternative means of meeting the waste disposal challenge. Landfilling is the most widely used method for solid waste disposal in countries with tropical settlement. Landfills have created various environmental problems such as emissions and leachate. The public has become more aware concerning landfill issues such as increasing concern on the groundwater contamination, potential release of toxic gases and odor. A big part of these problems come from organic waste into the solid waste. Municipal solid waste in Malaysia has a large percent of food waste (around 50-60 percent) that makes a lot of problems in disposal methods. It has emerged as a potentially viable means by which local governments can reduce the volume of waste entering landfills by diverting the organic fraction. Composting is a biological process, in which the organic matter is biodegraded by microorganisms under controlled conditions of temperature, moisture content, oxygen, PH and the retention time that can be initiated by mixing biodegradable organic matter with bulking agents to enhance the porosity of the mixture. In this study, a composting plant in Malaysia is considered that uses organic waste from the market (market waste). Five tons organic waste per day is received in the plant, and it is treated by the wind raw composting method. After calculating costs and benefits of this method result shows that total quantitative benefit of this plant is not much higher than a total quantitative cost but this result is just for quantitative parameter. This method has a lot of qualitative benefits such as: reducing the amount of municipal solid waste, transportation cost of carrying municipal solid waste to land fill, emissions and leachate of landfill, increasing life span of landfill and reducing land use. Composting organic materials that have been diverted from landfills ultimately avoids the production of methane and leachate formulation in the landfills regarding to 50 percent of organic waste in municipal solid waste of Malaysia. With removing this amount of waste from MSW with using composting method, not only the environmental problems of land filling can be reduced but also the costs of transportation and other costs of disposal can be reduced by 50%. Because of one of the most important problems in tropical settlement is to find proper methods to dispose of municipal solid waste toward decreasing pollution, producing compost can be a suitable way but expanding of this treatment method in Malaysia closely related to economic governmental support

Factors Associated with Backyard Composting Behavior at the Household Level

Communities in most states are under pressure to reduce the amount of solid waste going into landfills. Many are making efforts to encourage their citizens to practice backyard composting. A logit regression analysis was conducted to identify factors associated with backyard composting of yard and food wastes in a case study area. Sample data were obtained through a September 1997 telephone survey of 865 households residing in single-family dwellings in Knox County, Tennessee. Findings indicate that a number of variables reflecting complementary behavior, attitudes, knowledge, and peer influence were significantly related to composting behavior. Policy implications of these findings are outlined.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Human faeces as a resource in agriculture

Human excreta are a valuable source of nutrients. Their use should be promoted in order to replace some of artificial fertilisers used in agriculture. For the time being, there are many unanswered questions which need to be researched before human excreta can be widely used in plant production

A Roadmap to Reduce U.S. Food Waste by 20 Percent

The magnitude of the food waste problem is difficult to comprehend. The U.S. spends $218 billion a year -- 1.3% of GDP -- growing, processing, transporting, and disposing of food that is never eaten. The causes of food waste are diverse, ranging from crops that never get harvested, to food left on overfilled plates, to near-expired milk and stale bread. ReFED is a coalition of over 30 business, nonprofit, foundation, and government leaders committed to building a different future, where food waste prevention, recovery, and recycling are recognized as an untapped opportunity to create jobs, alleviate hunger, and protect the environment -- all while stimulating a new multi-billion dollar market opportunity. ReFED developed A Roadmap to Reduce U.S. Food Waste as a data-driven guide to collectively take action to reduce food waste at scale nationwide.This Roadmap report is a guide and a call to action for us to work together to solve this problem. Businesses can save money for themselves and their customers. Policymakers can unleash a new wave of local job creation. Foundations can take a major step in addressing environmental issues and hunger. And innovators across all sectors can launch new products, services, and business models. There will be no losers, only winners, as food finds its way to its highest and best use

Identify and Report Water Pollution: An Interpretive Guide to Surface Water Conditions of the New Hampshire Coastal Watershed, 2nd edition

This gude was designed to help people who work or recreate outdoors to interpret surface water conditions so that they would recognize a pollution incident and know how to report it. The guide also suggests actions that communities can take to prevent water pollution and protect vital water resources. Finally, the guide includes helpful, relevant resources that will further explain particular surface water conditions

EVALUATION OF DIFFERENT BIOLOGICAL WASTE TREATMENT STRATEGIES

Biological treatment of organic waste by aerobic composting and anaerobic digestion (biogas production) was compared with respect to a number of environmental effects and sustainability criterias including energy balance, nutrient recycling, global warming mitigation potential, emission of xenobiotic compounds and economy. The parameters were assessed based on case studies in the literature as well as our own research. Assessment of energy balance, nutrient recycling and global warming came out in favour of biogas production, but especially the results regarding estimation of global warming mitigation differ according to the assumptions made. Our calculations showed that a fugitive loss of approx. 14% of the biogas produced by anaerobic digestion will turn the scale in favour of composting regarding global warming mitigation. In Europe actual biogas losses from 3.5 to 8.4% are reported but this may be exceeded in developing countries. Regarding emission of xenobiotic compounds composting is much in favour, as recent experiments show that a number of organic micro-pollutants are rapidly degraded during composting as opposed to anaerobic treatment. In most cases, composting is more cost-effective compared to biogas production but estimations of actual costs differ considerably. Published results of Life Cycle Assessment of organic waste management using the ORWARE model generally showed biogas production to have less environmental impact than composting, but it was demonstrated that changes in, e.g. system boundaries or functional units can result in substantial differences on the conclusions as well. In conclusion, the optimum waste planning strategy may be the implementation of an integrated waste treatment system operating with different scales of composting and anaerobic treatment, depending on local conditions

Identify and Report Water Pollution: An Interpretive Guide to Surface Water Conditions of the New Hampshire Coastal Watershed

This guide was designed to help people who work or recreate outdoors to interpret surface water conditions so that they would recognize a pollution incident and know how to report it. The guide also suggests actions that communities can take to prevent water pollution and protect vital water resources. Finally, the guide includes helpful, relevant resources that will further explain particular surface water conditions