Harbor View Composting Facility Tour

Back in July I had the pleasure of touring my first commercial composting facility. It was awesome! The Harbor View facility was owned by Waste Management, today it is no longer operational.

 This facility sat atop an old landfill on Chicago’s south side and consists of windrow upon windrow of organic materials, slowly decomposing into nutrient rich compost.

Alex, my tour guide, looked at me funny when I showed up. I was about to take a tour of an outdoor facility which specializes in decomposing organic material and was dressed for a business meeting. It had rained many days beforehand and the earth was wet.

I showed up in pressed khakis, a tucked in button down, and black leather shoes on. Alex had overalls, a muddy sweatshirt, and work boots caked in pounds of fresh mud. I was clearly an underdressed fool.

We got into the truck and started our climb to the top of the old landfill. It was muddy and the tires slid and slopped as we ascended the mountain of trash. Our truck rounded the final bend and the ground leveled out in front of us.

The majority of the space was dedicated to windrows of decomposing material; there were a couple staging areas to accept food and yard waste separately, screen out undesirables, and mix nitrogen and carbon rich materials in the proper ratios.

If you look closely in the above photos you can see a pile that appears to be light green in color. I asked Alex if it was lye or some sort of soil amendment. “No, it’s money,” he replied. I didn’t understand at first.

Ever wonder what happens to paper money that is no longer fit for use? It has to go somewhere right? Well I found it. The Chicago Federal Reserve sends it shredded money to be composted. Over $3 million a week was sent up to this facility. Money is printed on a cotton fiber based paper and is totally compostable. Check out this fat stack of shredded cash.

Once the new material was sifted and the majority of the non-compostables were removed, Alex’s crew would move it into windrows. These windrows are designed to provide optimal conditions for the natural composting process to occur. The crew constantly monitors conditions within the windrows. They are turned over every month with a giant machine until the compost has reached its final form.

Once the compost is ready for sale, it is packaged and sold to the consumer market. Alex says they were selling the material for about $20/ton. Pretty cheap compared to worm castings and other compost I’ve seen.

I’m not sure why, but Waste Management has closed this facility. My best guess is that this facility was not profitable.

Waste Management still has a commercial composting facility in Romeoville, IL.

Have any questions about commercial composting or wondering how you can send your kitchen scraps to be composted, just ask in the comments below!

The Plant: Sustainable Business and Experiements

A couple of weeks ago I joined the one hour public tour of The Plant. What an amazing place; its one part urban factory, one part sustainable business practices, and a dash of mad scientist experiments.

This 90,000 square foot building was once the pinnacle of meat packing in the U.S. It was fully operational until just a couple of years ago, Bubbly Dynamics bought the property, which was destined for destruction. They have slowly transformed this urban shell into an experimental space which houses many different business types whose inputs and outputs benefit on one another.

 

Map explaining energy and byproduct flows.

For instance, a bakery inside uses a wood fired oven. A majority of the wood comes from fallen trees on City of Chicago Parks and Recreation sites. The excess heat from the oven goes back into the building to warm other areas.

During our tour we saw an aquaponics set up. For those unfamiliar, aquaponics combines fish farming and hydroponic plant growth. The fish’s waste provides nutrients for the plants, who then filter and aerate the water, which is then pumped back into the fish tank. This cycle can repeat forever. We only saw a demonstration area, the commercial production facility is off limits to the general public in order to maintain cleanliness.

One of my favorite businesses in the building was the Pearl Oyster Mushroom Farm. Bags of straw that have been inoculated with mycelium hang from the ceiling in a warm and moist climate. Each bag creates about 50 pounds of the edible fungi. I took a pound home to try them out and they are freaking delicious, just simply pan fry them in butter with garlic, salt, and pepper until they start to brown and crisp.

I highly recommend visiting The Plant, tours are $10 and they offer two times on Saturdays for visitors. They also host a farmer’s market outside where you can purchase items grown or made on site. For more information, check them  out at www.plantchicago.com.

Hydroponics and Vermicomposting

March is going to be a busy month with a move and some travel thrown in. Come April I will begin a vermi-composting (worms) program in my house to reduce trash output. I have also begun studying up on Deep Water Culture (DWC) Hydroponics and plan to create a fresh herb garden for home use.

More to come end of March.

Brewing Solutions to a Better Environment

Anheuser-Busch (A-B) has long been known for its Clydesdales and beers, but they should be associated with something else, sustainability. Since 1978, the Anheuser-Busch Recycling Corporation has been a leading aluminum recycler worldwide. Utilizing a widespread network of recycled aluminum suppliers, in 2001 the company recycled 125% of the aluminum cans it sold in the U.S. (roughly 20 billion cans). A-B continues to recycle about 25% more cans that it produces and today they have a 99.6% recycling rate in their breweries!

“Our environmental philosophy is based on the belief that the world we all share is given to us in trust. Every choice we make regarding the earth, air, and water around us is made with the objective of preserving these resources for all generations to come.” - August A. Busch III, Chairman and CEO

The principles of sustainability and recycling are nothing new, as early as 1899 Adolphus Busch mandated that spent grains from the brewing process were given to farmers and used as a high protein feed for livestock.

Energy is a large expense for A-B and today about 17% of their beer production is powered by a wide range of alternative power sources including solar panels, wind turbines, hydro-electric dams, landfill gas, and anaerobic digesters. They continue to build infrastructure that makes their breweries less dependent on coal and nuclear energy.

Since 2006 the breweries have reduced their water usage by 45%; their Cartersville, GA brewery being the most water-efficient in the entire global company. That location uses roughly 3 gallons of water per gallon of beer produced. After the brewing process is complete, they utilize the high-nutrient waste water to support and nourish a variety of local crops.

The show business side of the company, Busch Entertainment Theme Parks, composts nearly 3.4 billion pounds of yard waste and 4.8 billion pounds of animal stable waste each year. The compost is then utilized for landscaping and gardening projects within the parks.

While all of this is quite impressive, A-B’s sustainability initiatives aren't just trying to garner support from beer drinking hippies, it’s a solid business decision too. They average about $420 million in annual revenue by finding beneficial uses for all of the ‘waste’ material that their processes generate.

So the next time you have a cold Budweiser, keep in mind this amazing company and the forethought they have put into their manufacturing process. Cheers!

Chicago non-profits still non-paying for waste removal, will it last?

It is true that currently some non-profits receive free waste removal from Chicago’s Department of Streets and Sanitation (DSS).  This is an issue that we’ve been tracking for quite some time and looks to be coming to a close in the near future. 

You may know that the city of Chicago recently stopped providing free water to non-profits in 2013. http://www.wbez.org/news/churches-take-%E2%80%98leap-faith%E2%80%99-emanuel-water-deal-107089 . This seems to be the same fate for garbage.

In June of 2014 the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) completed an audit of the Department of Streets and Sanitation’s (DSS) enforcement of service eligibility. 

“Specifically, OIG looked at the provision of garbage service to not-for-profit organizations and to multi-unit residences covered by the ordinance’s “grandfather” clause. OIG found that DSS service enforcement in these areas, which according to DSS’s own estimates costs the City over $6.5 million each year, was inefficient and ineffective.” 

“The audit found that the collection service to not-for-profits, provided based on a list of 1,393 properties, is not legally authorized under the Municipal Code. “DSS did not know why or when service to not-for-profits began or the current list was created,” said Inspector General Joseph Ferguson, “There is no documentation setting forth the legal authority for this service or the criteria or procedures for providing and tracking it. This is ultimately a provision of free service at taxpayer expense, provided without legal authority.” OIG recommends that DSS use recent legislation on the provision of free water service to not-for-profits as an instructive guide in addressing the program’s current lack of legal authorization and program standards.”

You can check out the full Inspector General audit here:

http://chicagoinspectorgeneral.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/2014_06_Release_Audit-of-DSS-Ordinance-Enforcement.pdf