CRT Glass Recycling - Today and Future Options

The Consumer Electronics Association revealed the results of a recent national survey of electronics recyclers conducted by the Northeast Recycling Council, Inc. on CRT glass management in the U.S., at a meeting yesterday with the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc. and the Electronics Recycling Coordination Clearinghouse.

To learn more check out today's MarketWatch

(May 22, 2013, 2:45 p.m. EDT) -

Electronics, Recycling Associations Seek New Solutions for CRT Glass Recycling, While Acknowledging Options Available Today - CEA, ISRI, ERCC reveal NERC survey results, discuss collaborative ways forward

Food Recovery- An Important Step along the Organics Management Path

Food Donation

Food “waste” is often not “waste,’ but discarded food that is nutritional and safe to use.  In 2011, more than 20% of American households were either food insecure at least some time during the year or had very low food security, where insufficient money or household resources lead to food intake reductions and eating pattern disruptions.[1]  Promotion of food donation is one way that rural and small towns can work to reduce and better manage food discards, while also providing social benefits for the community.

A food bank is typically a charitable organization that solicits and warehouses donated food and other items. Collected food is distributed to community agencies which serve people in need, often servicing hundreds of community-based organizations in large geographic areas. Food banks will usually accept foods that are packaged or can be stored for a period of time.  Food recovery or rescue programs (often affiliated with homeless shelters) usually redistribute perishable foods locally, such as already prepared food from caterers, restaurants, and cafeterias.

Businesses benefit from food donation through reduced disposal costs and opportunities for potential tax benefits.  Conducting a waste assessment helps businesses to identify and make changes to prevent waste and potentially reduce costs associated with food purchases and disposal.  Communities benefit from reduced organics to manage and dispose of, as well as the opportunities to help the needy.

Farm Gleaning

An opportunity to reduce farm discards and assist those in need is a “farm gleaning” program, where crops are gathered from farmers' fields that have already been harvested and the remainder is not economically profitable to harvest or is left unsold.  Organizations that work with farmers to offer farm gleaning establish distribution of “gleaned” crops to local food distribution networks or organizations.

Food to Animals

Food that is no longer safe for people to eat may be of use as livestock feed. “Food to animal” opportunities may particularly benefit rural, agricultural areas. Food processing facilities, supermarkets, and restaurants, can reduce food wastes by sending them to farms for use as livestock feed, thus reducing disposal needs. Livestock producers can benefit by saving money on feed costs.

Farms will typically offer collection services or contract with a local hauler to offer these services. Often most or all food scraps are acceptable, including post-consumer scraps. However, some states prohibit meat products from being used as livestock feed. Alternatively, before being fed to livestock, food scraps may be required by state or local regulation to be cooked to eliminate the potential for harmful bacteria. Check with state agricultural agencies for regulations that apply.

Opportunities and Action

Similar to organics reduction programs, successful action on food recovery at the community level focuses on promotion and education. Private food donations to food recovery agencies in rural areas are often limited because there are fewer big businesses—such as grocery stores or restaurants—to make donation. Local government involvement in promoting food donation can help to raise awareness of the importance for smaller commercial food waste generators to participate.  

Rural areas may have limited food recovery organizations in their immediate area, but are generally served by a regional food bank. These regional food banks typically work with local charities or churches to bring food recovery opportunities to rural and small towns. Mobile pantries are used to fill a void in rural areas without active food distribution networks. Food is shipped in boxes to a mobile pantry site, such as a church, for distribution residents. Animal feed opportunities are contingent on the feed needs and handling abilities of area farmers.

Action Tips:

• Before promoting food donation or food to animals programs, it is important for communities to check local and state regulations.
• Food donation is covered by the federal Good Samaritan Act, but there are important health and safety guidelines that must be included in any outreach on food recovery efforts.
• Conduct outreach to food recovery agencies to find out the services they offer (e.g., pick-up), the types of acceptable food items, and other specifications.
• Keep in mind that for rural areas, these organizations may be regional or even statewide.
• Work with businesses to conduct a waste assessment, to set a goal for reducing the amount of food waste being disposed, and become aware of food recovery opportunities.
• Outreach to farmers, petting zoos, and similar operations will determine options for “food to animals” opportunities, the types of food acceptable, collection options, and storage and processing requirements.
• Check with the State agricultural regulatory agency for acceptable food and processing requirements.

Who’s Doing It?

• Tripoli in Bremer County, Iowa (population 1,313) is part of a network of anti-hunger agencies and volunteers using mobile pantries to provide food to rural residents in Northeast Iowa.
• The Akron-Canton Regional Food Bank is working to provide local charities with the tools required to meet the food needs in rural Ohio communities.  As a part of its agency capacity building program, the food bank has partnered with Journeys End Ministries in Newcomerstown in Tuscarawas County (population 3,820).
• Elementary schools in St. Francis, a town in Anoka County, Minnesota (population 7,218), along with businesses around the region participate in a recycling program that sends food waste to Barthold Farms, located in St. Francis. The program saves the school district and businesses money by reducing garbage waste and collection fees. See the Pigs Aren't Picky video on the Anoka County Integrated Waste Management Department website.
• The Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina serves 34 counties throughout North Carolina. Their Mobile Food Pantry program works with local partners to bring three million pounds of food to rural communities every year. 
• The Second Harvest of South Georgia serves rural communities throughout southern Georgia. Programs include “Kid’s Café,” which provides needy children with evening meals. The organization effectively leverages the food recovery options of urban areas to meet the service needs of rural and small towns.

By Athena Lee Bradley

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[1] Coleman-Jensen, Alisha, Nord, Mark, Andrews, Margaret, and Carlson, Steven. Household Food Security in the United States in 2011,  Economic Research Report No. (ERR-141) 37 pp., September 2012.

Managing Organics - Low Cost Organics Reduction

The organics management hierarchy starts with reducing organics at the source through smart landscaping, grasscycling, leaf mulching, and food waste reduction. Keeping organics onsite—at residences, schools, institutions, government buildings, and businesses—or not producing them in the first place, offers the most cost effective management solution for communities. These practices save money by reducing municipal leaf and yard waste management and collection needs.  

Smart Landscaping

Landscaping that incorporates local and regional native plants (xeriscaping) and “edible landscapes” results in less yard waste.  Smart landscapes are easier to maintain, typically healthier and more resilient, tend to be better adapted to local soil conditions and climate, and offer benefits to local wildlife.  Encouraging residents to plan lawns in accordance with their family needs (e.g., smaller lawns if there are no children in the family) can significantly reduce maintenance, fertilizer applications, and grass clippings generation. 

Grasscycling

During the growing season as much as half or more of yard waste is grass clippings. “Grasscycling” presents a no cost, simple and easy organics management solution.  Instead of raking and bagging clippings and putting them in the landfill, the grass is left on the lawn when mowing to be “recycled” back into the lawn. Grasscycling saves labor and eliminates the need to purchase disposal bags.

Grass clippings decompose quickly and allow valuable nutrients to return to the soil, reducing requirements for additional fertilizing. The practice does not harm lawns and does not contribute to the growth of thatch. Grasscycling is commonly practiced on large grass areas such as parks, golf courses, and sport fields where bagging of clippings is not feasible. Specialized "mulching" mowers are available from most major manufacturers. These mowers chop clippings into smaller pieces for quicker decomposition. Retrofit kits are also available to convert a standard lawn mower into a mulching mower.  But any lawnmower can accomplish the same result for home use.

Tips for promoting grasscycling success:

• Keep mower blades sharp
• Cut the grass only when it is dry
• Do not remove more than one third the length of the grass height at once
• Water and fertilize lawn as needed

Leaf Mulching

Similar to grasscycling, leaf mulching is another low cost organics management solution suitable for rural and small towns.  Mulching or shredding leaves in-place is simple and saves residents and landscapers time and money. Mulching leaves in place is much easier than raking, bagging, or blowing them to the curb. Once finely shredded, leaves will continue to decompose adding valuable nutrients to soil and improving soil structure.  Like grasscycling, a regular lawnmower can adequately shred leaves to make mulching possible. 

Tips for promoting leaf mulching success:

• Mow over leaves directly on the lawn to shred them into fine pieces which will decompose over winter.
• Rake leaves on pathways or driveways into piles, mow over with a lawn mower, and use as mulch for gardens or pile for backyard composting.

Food Waste Reduction

According to a National Resources Defense Council report, around 40% of all edible food in the United States is wasted.^[1] Better food management practices at home, schools, institutions, and at commercial food outlets (including restaurants, bakeries, and grocery stores) can be easily implemented.

Smart food handling techniques can reduce food discards that result from improper storage and handling, overproduction, preparation trimmings, expiration, spoilage, overcooked, contaminated, and dropped items. General tips on food waste reduction include: improving food preparation procedures; adjusting portion sizes; and, monitoring food expiration dates closely. Through implementation of food waste reduction practices, food purchasing costs and disposal needs can be significantly decreased.

Businesses can determine how much recoverable food is generated by conducting an assessment of their current practices, looking at how much food waste is thrown out, both before preparation (spoiled food), preparation scraps, and the amount of food thrown out by customers (for better “portion management”). Easy tracking methods can be adopted to determine how much food waste can be avoided and what may be suitable food for donation.

There are many more ideas available to both residents and businesses on ways to manage food so that waste is prevented and purchasing and disposal costs are reduced. 

Opportunities and Action

The key to reduced yard waste is to let residents and business owners know that organics reduction practices contribute to healthy yard maintenance, are easy to adopt and implement, and generally result in less time and money spent.

Successful organics reduction programs require effective public awareness campaigns and education. Most residents already have a lawn mower, so no additional equipment is needed. Landscapers benefit by adopting the practices since they do not need to spend time raking, bagging, and hauling the materials away. Similarly, food waste reduction practices are relatively low cost and simple to adopt.

Action Tips:

• Government agencies can foster education that promotes the incorporation of native and edible plants suitable for yard landscapes.
• Grasscycling and leaf mulching tips can be posted on town and regional government websites.
• Use social media, including Facebook and Twitter, at the beginning of the fall to promote leaf mulching and again in early spring to promote grasscycling.
• If budgets allow, posters, fliers, and pamphlets can also be developed and distributed.
• Home composting workshops can incorporate yard waste reduction.
• Reach out to agricultural extension agencies for educational resources they have for distribution. 
• Consider adopting a resolution requiring or promoting native plants, grasscycling, and leaf mulching.
• Communities can lead by example—landscaping town buildings and right-of-ways with native shrubbery and practice grasscycling and leaf mulching.
• Promote food waste prevention by posting information on websites.
• If staffing is available, provide training in food waste reduction, food recovery and composting to grocery stores and restaurants.

Who’s Doing It?

Springfield Township is located in north Oakland County in southeast Michigan (population 13,940).  It has a native landscape project that includes a Native Plants CD-ROM and Homeowner's Series: a searchable database containing photos and information on more than 230 plants native to Springfield.

Harwinton, a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut (population 5,283) offers an informative webpage providing specific information on lawn care maintenance incorporating grasscycling.

Irvington, in Westchester County, New York (population 6,468) promotes a catchy “Love 'em and Leave 'em!” campaign promoting leaf mulching. In fact the program, which was started in Irvington, has now spread around the County. The Love 'Em And Leave 'Em website has a vast amount of resources, including information targeting both residents and landscapers, a toolkit with sample letters to send to residents, sample resolutions, talking points, presentations, posters, videos, and more. 

By Athena Lee Bradley

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[1] Natural Resources Defense Council, Your Scraps Add Up: Reducing food waste can save money and resources, March 2013

Managing Organics - We can do Better! Part 2

Strategies that Support Organics Management Practices

Rural, semi-rural, and small towns often face challenges to implementing organics diversion and composting programs.   Challenges range from a lack of information about program opportunities, to concerns about costs, and compliance with state requirements for compost operations.   There are many factors that contribute to developing a successful program.  Securing the support of decision makers, as well as the citizenry, is a first step for moving forward. And, a successful program must be tailored to meet the needs of each community. 

Decision makers and the public may need to be persuaded of the value in adding organics management as an undertaking for their community.   They may feel the program isn’t needed or that organics management is too costly.  These negative attitudes can have many roots, but generally it is the result of a lack of information about the amount of organics being thrown in the trash or “managed” through backyard burning, and the associated wasted resources to the community.  As a result, the potential benefits and economic growth opportunities through improved organics management are overlooked. 

Getting Started with Public Awareness

A public outreach and education program about the value of organics diversion and composting can be the most important organics management tool available for many rural and small towns.  The outreach and education effort has two goals: 1) convincing the public and decision makers to support an organics management program; and 2) to have citizens participate in the program.   In the first phase – developing support for the new program and securing the agreement to create it – efforts should focus on decision makers. 

Start by defining the importance of improved organics management.  Next, outline the specifics of the program and its goals. This will include details on the scope of the program and the costs and benefits in order to provide decision makers with the knowledge they need to act.

Gaining community support for the venture comes next. Citizens may need to be convinced about the need to change their existing organics management behavior.  Concerns will need to be addressed and the requested “change” and program requirements explained, along with the costs and benefits to the participants and the community. Public outreach and training are essential to gain support and participation once opportunities are put into place. Education helps to ensure that residents learn about the program, it promotes participation, and provides residents with an understanding of how to manage materials at their home, or how to effectively participate in an organics collection program. The message and outreach will be specific to the program, as will be described in detail under each program topic in this document.

General strategies for creating public awareness are applicable to virtually all education campaigns, however.  An effective way to begin is to organize a local or regional “organics summit” that brings together decision makers, businesses, schools, and residents to discuss the benefits of organics management and the options that could work in the community.

Public awareness strategies and outreach programs can incorporate a number of relatively low cost activities, including:

• Speaker’s Bureaus and presentations at neighborhood association meetings, schools, and public events
• Public outreach at local fairs and special events
• Printed materials, including newsletters, bill inserts, brochures, and door hangers, and posting resources on town websites and social media pages
• Radio, TV public service announcements and ads
• Press releases and ads placed in local newspapers, and letters to the editor  
• A banner on main street is highly effective in rural and small towns
• Neighborhood and school contests to help create program logos, messages, and mascots are effective at getting the word out about new programs and building support
• Interpersonal contact and word of mouth are important communication avenues in rural and small towns

Social marketing has been used to effectively promote waste reduction and recycling to targeted audiences. Applying social marketing techniques for residential organics diversion could include individual visits, neighborhood contests, door-to-door outreach, pledges, and colorful, targeted messages. Similarly, social marketing techniques for local businesses might involve the establishment of business recognition programs, focus group meetings, involvement of restaurant owners, hands-on training efforts, and more.

Social marketing messages are designed to provide consistent information on program expectations, goals, and guidelines; however, the message is targeted to specific audiences. Messages would address perceived barriers to participation, such as the “yuck” factor in composting, providing suggestions and solutions for overcoming concerns.

Funding Policies and Programs

Solid waste disposal “cost awareness” is the first step in providing financial incentives for organics management. Informing decision makers and residents about the actual costs of trash disposal and the potential to reduce costs through organics reduction and diversion can help to gain support for better management practices. Many rural and small town communities continue to pay for solid waste programs through general taxes or property taxes. Often decision makers and residents do not know what landfill disposal or incineration of organics and other wastes is costing the community. Similarly, if private sector hauling services are provided, residents and businesses typically do not know what is included in their service charge.

Differential rates for waste disposal services foster desirable behavior (such as waste reduction and diversion) by providing a financial incentive.  Tiered rate programs, called volume-based rates or “pay-as-you-throw” (PAYT), apply a variable rate pricing to customers based on the amount of waste disposed. The more waste disposed, the greater the customer cost, thus encouraging reduction and diversion. These incentive programs offer communities a successful mechanism for both funding and fostering improved organics management.

If residents pay a regular fee for trash disposal, charging less for the disposal of separated organics than for trash or embedding fees for collection of organic materials into the residential trash rates will provide an incentive for residents to separate organics and save money by doing so.

Similarly, if rural areas operate a landfill or transfer station for private hauler dumping, charging a lower “tipping” or disposal fees for discarding organics provides a financial incentive to haulers to provide organics collection services.  

Charging sales taxes, surcharges, or special fees (such as licensing fee) on solid waste collection, but not on organics collection is also an available mechanism for rural and small towns to encourage haulers to provide organics collection.

Bans and Mandates

Banning of open burning or at least restricting open burning contributes to more environmentally-sound organics management. Residents and even towns will continue to burn leaves and yard waste unless regulations are in place to restrict or ban burning. Education about management alternatives and benefits can help to achieve compliance with burning bans and help to overcome engrained cultural acceptance of burning.

Banning yard debris from disposal in landfills and incinerators promotes diversion if the ban is successfully enforced and effective education is in place. Disposal bans provide states and regions with a way to effectively draw attention to the benefits of organics diversion and then inform people about their options for organics waste reduction and recycling. Bans work well since most residents, institutions, and even businesses in rural and small town areas at least have some options for managing yard waste through reduction and backyard composting. Promotion of reduction and recycling programs available to residents, institutions, and businesses (including landscapers and gardeners) work in concert with disposal and burning bans for effective compliance and increased organics diversion.

Mandatory regulations require residents and other organics generators to participate in a designated program. Mandatory programs can be effective if a satisfactory organics collection and processing system is in place. However, mandatory requirements do not allow for the flexibility that bans do, as residents may not have the option to fully participate in alternatives, including organics reduction. Mandatory ordinances can be adopted and enforced at the local level, where landfill bans are typically more easily applied at the state or regional jurisdictions.

Food waste disposal bans or mandatory diversion of food scraps, while not currently widely adopted in the U.S., can lead to increased diversion of all organics and could be successfully included in an “organics ban” or “mandatory organics recycling” program.

Regional Cooperation and Private-Sector Incentives

Regional planning and cooperation that unites rural areas, small towns, and regional entities (counties and solid waste districts) can be an important strategy to lower program costs and expand the range of program options available.    For example, use of regionally shared mobile processes equipment (e.g., wood/brush grinders) or leases for mobile grinding contractors provides communities with a low cost processing opportunity without the need to invest in equipment.

Another opportunity presented by regional cooperation is to collaborate with private industry to help identify sites for the collection and/or processing of organics, to be owned and operated by the company, or using public land but privately managed.  The economy of scale offered by regional collaboration can make siting in your region more attractive.   

Additional Support Strategies

Once programs are implemented, data collection and reporting on participation levels, material quantities and quality, environmental benefits and impacts, job creation, and diversion program costs and revenues is essential to track and report back about to decision makers and the public.

Policies and programs that promote the organics management hierarchy—reduce, reuse, and recycle—will prove to be cost effective and most successful in rural and small towns.

Next up - Promoting the Organics Management Hierarchy.

 

By Athena Lee Bradley