Creating a Worm Bin

Worms can double their population about every 90 days, so you shouldn’t need to ever buy more. If your bin gets too crowded, help your neighbor set up a bin for her garden.

Pentacles and Pastries

Another way to transform waste into gardening gold is a worm bin, in which our favorite little hermaphrodites break down food waste into worm castings. A worm bin acts like a living garbage disposal, transforming kitchen and paper waste into nutrient-rich soil. You can keep one indoors during the cooler months (they do not stink unless something goes wrong0 or outside when above freezing.

In milder climates, you can build one outside from cinder blocks to provide some insulation during cooler temperatures. If you have space for it on an enclosed porch or a quiet corner of your kitchen, an indoor bin can be made out of a 5- or 10-gallon opaque plastic tub. Black or dark plastic or wood is ideal to reduce the amount of light that reaches the worms. To provide your worm colony with air, drill 1/8-inch holes about 1 inch apart all the way around…

View original post 308 more words

Advertisement

Food Waste in the Hospitality Industry

Though lots of attention and encouragement has been given to composting and donating leftover food, the first step we can take is to reduce the amount of food produced. Reducing food portions will help immensely and play an important role lessening the waste. Not only is it a good cost control measure to do an inventory of all of your food products, but it will also ensure that perishable food does not go bad before you get to use it. By putting in place and respecting an organized inventory process, waste of easily perishable food can go down. This will also help in reducing food costs greatly.

Stop Food Waste

Introduction

 Every year, 475 pounds of food waste is produced by the average person adding up to more than 70 million tons in our landfills. Not only does the waste attract vermin, it emits odors and liquids that are toxic to the environment. As a result, the methane gas generated from the waste is 20 to 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Food waste has become a big issue in all types of businesses.

 This is especially true in the hospitality industry. Haute cuisine, all you can eat buffets, and in room dining are all an integral part of the hospitality experience. But what happens to all the leftovers once guests are done eating? Most of it will be hauled off to landfills at a great cost to the establishment and an even greater cost to the environment.

Our report will look at and provide statistics on…

View original post 3,850 more words

Sustainable Waste | How is waste managed at DMU?

Since April 2001, De Montfort University has been running a recycling scheme to help the environment. The scheme started with recycling paper and reusing envelopes. In December 2002 the scheme was extended to include the collection and recycling of cardboard waste, glossy paper and newspaper. In 2004, 149 tons of paper, cardboard and glossy paper were recycled, an increase of 12% on the previous year. Further expansion took place in 2005 with the recycling of cans and plastics which resulted in 164 tons being collected. In 2006 the recycling of CD’s/DVD’s was started. The key performance indicator set in 2009 required that by the end of 2012 60% of waste is to be recycled on campus, with the general waste reducing by the same amount.

The paper recycling scheme set up by the Estates Department has seen over 10,750 bags of waste paper, the equivalent of 2,420 trees, collected annually…

View original post 1,296 more words

Solid Waste Management: Vermicomposting and Its Upgrading

Add your thoughts here… (optional)

Environment

Human beings live in nature and depend on the resources of nature. The utilization of soil, water, coal, forest, gas, etc, is very important for the development of nation. These resources have changed the level of living standard of man. Solid waste is regarded as the resources. Solid waste can be described as non-liquid refusals from household, industrial and commercial establishment, market and public places. These all refusals can be used as resources in one way or other, and can be recycled, reused or transform into other forms of resources.

Solid waste may be organic and inorganic. The best way to manage the organic waste is to make manure by composting. There are different methods of composting such as:

a)      Bin composting                                 d) pile composting

b)      Vermicomposting                            e) pit composting

c)       Box composting

Vermicomposting

Vermicomposting is one of the best ways of making compost. Vermicomposting is the process of…

View original post 951 more words

Composting Is A Great Way To Organically Replenish Nutrients

Add your thoughts here… (optional)

The most novel Food's Blog

We are talking composting today. Composting is a great way to organically replenish nutrients and add create that beautiful dark brown soil everyone is looking for in their garden. There are a number of different composting methods but we are going to talk about a compost pile.

The first thing you need to do is choose the location. You should choose a location that is mostly shady. The compost heats up as it breaks down, and if it is in full sun, it will heat up too much and kill some of the essential bacteria used for breaking down the organic matter.

Next is to build or set up what you will be using to hold your compost. Just remember that it needs oxygen to break down, so don’t build it air tight. Even using chicken wire can be a great way to contain the pile.

Now add the organic…

View original post 365 more words

Composting Guidelines

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

It seems everyone is concerned about the environment and trying to reduce their “carbon footprint”.  I hope this trend will continue and grow as a nationwide way to live and not turn into a fad.  Composting has been around for MANY years.  Composting is a great way to keep biodegradables out of the landfill and to reap the reward of some fabulous “black gold”.  That’s what master gardeners call compost and it’s great for improving your soil.  Plants love it.  Check out 10 Rules to Remember About Composting.

1. Layer your compost bin with dry and fresh ingredients: The best way to start a compost pile is to make yourself a bin either with wood or chicken wire.  Layering fresh grass clippings and dried leaves is a great start.
2. Remember to turn your compost pile: As the ingredients in your compost pile start to biodegrade they will start to get hot.  To avoid your compost pile rotting and stinking you need to turn the pile to aerate it.  This addition of air into the pile will speed up the decomposition.
3. Add water to your compost pile: Adding water will also speed up the process of scraps turning into compost.  Don’t add too much water, but if you haven’t gotten any rain in a while it’s a good idea to add some water to the pile just to encourage it along.
4. Don’t add meat scraps to your pile: Vegetable scraps are okay to add to your compost pile, but don’t add meat scraps.  Not only do they stink as they rot, but they will attract unwanted guests like raccoons that will get into your compost bin and make a mess of it.
5. If possible have more than one pile going: Since it takes time for raw materials to turn into compost you may want to have multiple piles going at the same time.  Once you fill up the first bin start a second one and so on.  That way you can allow the ingredient in the first pile to completely transform into compost and still have a place to keep putting your new scraps and clippings.  This also allows you to always keep a supply of compost coming for different planting seasons.
6. Never put trash in your compost pile: Just because something says that it is recyclable it doesn’t mean that it should necessarily go into the compost bin.  For example, newspapers will compost and can be put into a compost pile, but you will want to shred the newspapers and not just toss them in the bin in a stack.  Things like plastic and tin should not be put into a compost pile, but can be recycled in other ways.
7. Allow your compost to complete the composting process before using: It might be tempting to use your new compost in your beds as soon as it starts looking like black soil, but you need to make sure that it’s completely done composting otherwise you could be adding weed seeds into your beds and you will not be happy with the extra weeds that will pop up.
8. Straw can be added if dried leaves are not available: Dried materials as well as green materials need to be added to a compost bin.  In the Fall you will have a huge supply of dried leaves, but what do you do if you don’t have any dried leaves?  Add straw or hay to the compost bin, but again these will often contain weed seeds so be careful to make sure they are completely composted before using them.
9. Egg Shells and Coffee grounds are a great addition: Not only potato skins are considered kitchen scraps.  Eggshells and coffee grounds are great additions to compost piles because they add nutrients that will enhance the quality of the end product.
10. Never put pet droppings in your compost pile: I’m sure you’ve heard that manure is great for your garden, but cow manure is cured for quite a while before used in a garden.  Pet droppings are far to hot and acidic for a home compost pile and will just make it stink.

Contributed by Roxanne Porter whose original blogpost can be viewed at http://www.nannypro.com/blog/10-rules-to-remember-about-composting/. 

Food Waste-to-Energy

The waste management hierarchy suggests that reduce, reuse and recycling should always be given preference in a typical waste management system. However, these options cannot be applied uniformly for all kinds of wastes. For examples, organic waste is quite difficult to deal with using the conventional 3R strategy.  Of the different types of organic wastes available, food waste holds the highest potential in terms of economic exploitation as it contains high amount of carbon and can be efficiently converted into biogas and organic fertilizer.

There are numerous places which are the sources of large amounts of food waste and hence a proper food-waste management strategy needs to be devised for them to make sure that either they are disposed off in a safe manner or utilized efficiently. These places include hotels, restaurants, malls, residential societies, college/school/office canteens, religious mass cooking places, airline caterers, food and meat processing industries and vegetable markets which generate organic waste of considerable quantum on a daily basis.

The anaerobic digestion technology is highly apt in dealing with the chronic problem of organic waste management in urban societies. Although the technology is commercially viable in the longer run, the high initial capital cost is a major hurdle towards its proliferation. The onus is on the governments to create awareness and promote such technologies in a sustainable manner. At the same time, entrepreneurs, non-governmental organizations and environmental agencies should also take inspiration from successful food waste-to-energy projects in other countries and try to set up such facilities in Indian cities and towns.

Utilization of Biogas and Digestate

An anaerobic digestion plant produces two outputs, biogas and digestate; both can be further processed or utilized to produce secondary outputs. Biogas can be used for producing electricity and heat, as a natural gas substitute and also a transportation fuel. A combined heat and power plant system (CHP) not only generates power but also produces heat for in-house requirements to maintain desired temperature level in the digester during cold season. CHP systems cover a range of technologies but indicative energy outputs per m3 of biogas are approximately 1.7 kWh electricity and 2.5kWh heat. The combined production of electricity and heat is highly desirable because it displaces non-renewable energy demand elsewhere and therefore reduces the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.

In Sweden, compressed biogas is used as a transportation fuel for cars and buses. Biogas can also be upgraded and used in gas supply networks. The use of biogas in solid oxide fuel cells is being researched.

The surplus heat energy generated may be utilized through a district heating network. Thus, there is potential scope for biogas facilities in the proximity of new housing and development areas, particularly if the waste management system could utilise kitchen and green waste from the housing as a supplement to other feed stock.

Digestate can be further processed to produce liquor and a fibrous material. The fiber, which can be processed into compost, is a bulky material with low levels of nutrients and can be used as a soil conditioner or a low level fertilizer. A high proportion of the nutrients remain in the liquor, which can be used as a liquid fertilizer.