[GreenYes] Food scraps

[Matthew Cotton <mattcotton@no.address>]

Kendall -

I enjoyed your recent thoughtful post about biosolids. And I really 
appreciated that you disclosed your relationship with a particular 
system vendor. I'm just curious if you have any data to support the 
statement that "most food waste is actually diverted from the solid 
waste management system...". I've never seen any studies on this. Has 
InSinkErator studied this? Did you mean in New York?

Most waste characterizations studies I've seen [including a very 
comprehensive study done by Cascadia Consulting for the California 
Integrated Waste Management Board 
(http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/publications/default.asp?pubid=1097)] indicate 
that food is a significant component of the (solid) waste stream. To be 
fair, typical waste characterization studies only include materials 
that are already on their way to a landfill; I've never seen one that 
takes the wastewater flows and or solids into consideration. The 
Cascadia Study indicated that food was the number one item by weight 
still in the waste stream in California. Many CA jurisdictions are 
currently planning food collection programs to divert this material 
from landfill disposal.

Clearly way too much food is being wasted in the US. Anthropologist Tim 
Jones at the University of Arizona has estimated that from field to 
table a full 50 percent of food is wasted.  More and more cities across 
the country are looking at ways to divert food scraps from the waste 
stream. And not just in CA or in big cities, Dubuque, Iowa, Hutchinson, 
Minnesota, and Plano, Texas are a just a few examples of lessor known 
cities diverting food scraps. One successful method in some areas is to 
combine residential food scraps with curbside collected yard trimmings. 
Although these programs are in relative infancy, they appear to be 
growing in number.

At least here in CA, whether a residence or a business has an 
under-sink disposer or not there is still a significant amount of food 
scraps that currently end up in landfills and would be better off 
diverted to a beneficial re-use.

Matthew Cotton
Integrated Waste Management Consulting, LLC
19375 Lake City Road
Nevada City, CA  95959
(530) 265-4560
Fax (530) 265-4547
mattcotton@no.address

On Jul 9, 2006, at 6:12 AM, Kendall Christiansen wrote:
>
> The subtle point is this:  in U.S. cities/municipalities, most food 
> waste is
> actually diverted from the solid waste management system via the use 
> of food
> waste disposers (given that it's 70% water, it's more liquid than 
> solid)
> which use the sewer system to transport organic waste (human + food) to
> wastewater treatment plants for processing....with the premise that the
> additional food waste actually improves the quality of biosolids.
> Thanks for considering...
>
> Kendall Christiansen
> Gaia Strategies
> kendall@no.address
> 718.941.9535
>
> The writer has seventeen years experience in solid waste management and
> recycling systems in NYC -- including chairing NYC's Citywide Recycling
> Advisory Board for 5+ years -- and serves as senior consultant on
> environmental affairs to InSinkErator, the leading manufacturer of food
> waste disposers.   (www.insinkerator.com)
>
>
> >


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