Environmental Stewardship: A Terrible Thing to Waste

Once a month, Dad writes a column for the newsletter of the church where he is a member, and for any other publication which might like to use it. This column is free for anyone to use; please credit John Berge as the author.

The old adage “Waste not; want not” may be more truly stated in the United States as “Want not; waste a lot.” In one of the richest countries in the world, we waste the most on a per capita basis. While most of our people have all that they need, if not all they want, we pour more waste into our landfills than any other country.

Last month, I attended a program entitled “Erase the Waste” sponsored by the Racine Library and Greening Greater Racine. Are you aware that there is an organization in town that has set for itself the tremendous task of making Racine a zero-waste city? There are many cities that have set such a goal and some that are nearing it, especially out west and in Europe. The February program set somewhat lower goals for each of us.

Mike Williams, Division Manager for Kestrel Hawk Landfill, told of how surprised and disappointed he was after the new recycling bins had been distributed in the City of Racine. Watching the city’s garbage trucks dumping their loads into the landfill, he saw no detectable reduction in the amount of recyclables that residents were tossing into their garbage bins instead. There was just as much paper, cardboard, aluminum cans, plastic water bottles and food – lots of food waste! If clean, the first four should be in the recycle bins, not the garbage bins. Food waste I will discuss below.

So what? At the current rate, Kestrel Hawk Landfill will be full in about four years. Then we will have to ship our waste longer distances, out of the county, and that will be more expensive. The city has sent a wrong message with the size of the wheeled containers. The garbage container is larger than the recycle container, and it should be the other way around! Also, that unrecycled material will be replaced by cutting down more trees, mining and drilling for oil and gas (fracking).

As an extreme example of what can be done, I know a man in Racine who, when the containers were delivered last September, told himself that he would not take that big garbage container out to the curb until it was full. Now, five months later, it is nearly full. Unfortunately it is well snowed in. His recycle bin has been out to the curb regularly.

The other main speaker was Mike Keleman, Manager of Environmental Engineering for Emerson. He pointed out the advantages of using your garbage disposer to recycle food waste. This way, your food waste is transported to the wastewater treatment plant where it goes to an anaerobic digester, in which much of it is converted to methane used to generate heat for the treatment process. This happens in hours or days rather than the partial decomposition in a landfill, which generates methane ever so slowly. Kestrel Hawk’s is sold to SC Johnson to run Waxdale. The solid residue from the waste treatment plant is available for agriculture; the waste in the landfill stays there for decades and centuries!

Keleman told how, after breakfast he grinds up the orange peels, coffee grounds and egg shells and sends them down the sewer. I take all those, along with other plant waste, down to my compost pile, using our disposer for meat, plate scrapings and greasy food waste.

I asked for a rule of thumb about grinding up bones. He said if it had fins or feathers, grind ‘em up; if it had hair, probably best to send them to the landfill; but in their lab, they have ground up beef bones. It just takes longer and is awfully noisy. Another person asked about clogging. He said this is rarely (or never) a problem if you do things in the right order. First turn on the water, then the disposer, and only then add the food waste. Let the water run a short while after the food has gone down and the disposer is turned off and you need not worry about clogs.

There were many other ideas for reducing waste in the handout sheet which I don’t have room for here.  I want to publicize the next two programs: March 12 – Recycling with Dan Jongetjes of John’s Disposal  and April 9 – Pollinator Gardens with Michelle Blaynley, Master Horticulturalist with Stein’s Home Garden Center.  The programs are held on the second floor of the Racine Library starting at 6:00 p.m. and include appropriate gifts and door prizes.