By Tyler Falk 
In a fascinating new waste management plan, natural gas from decomposed waste will power garbage trucks in the Canadian city of Surrey.

The city, the second largest in British Columbia, is converting its diesel-powered waste-collection trucks to new trucks that run on compressed natural gas. That natural gas will come from organic waste – around 65,000 tons a year – that will be taken to a new waste-to-biofuels production facility. At the facility, the organic waste will decompose and the biogases it releases will be turned into fuel.

A new report from Energy Vision, a New York-based organization that promotes the transition away from petroleum-based transportation fuel, says that the initiative will cut the total municipal waste stream by 75% through recycling (23%) and separated organics (51%).

Here’s how the city’s waste management plan is projected to reduce waste in landfills and increase recycling: [see below]

“The ambitious and exciting initiative by the City of Surrey is the first we have seen in the U.S. or Canada, in which municipal officials have assumed a leadership role in designing and orchestrating this type of closed loop system,” said Joanna Underwood, president of Energy Vision, in the report.

With the U.S. and Canada being among the top five generators of municipal solid waste per capita, Surrey is a model to help cities cut back on the amount of waste sent to landfills.

It’s also a move that will save the city $2.8 million a year for waste collection, when the new system is fully functioning by 2014.

Article from:  http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/cities/waste-will-power-garbage-trucks-in-canadian-city/1712 
Photo: City of Surrey
Graph: “The City of Surrey: Setting The Pace for Sustainable Transportation”

It's 5 a.m. and pouring rain. Not one of those mornings you jump out of bed, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. But at Waste Management's dispatch center near the Portland airport, 40 men and a few women have already arrived at work, laced up their steel-toed boots, strapped on their reflective vests and filled their coffee mugs. 

They're the first shift of the company's residential collection program, and in a few minutes they'll scatter to neighborhoods throughout Northeast and Southeast Portland, covertly whisking away half-eaten apples, empty yogurt containers and dirty diapers. 


Like the tooth fairy, their existence is confirmed by what they leave behind -- empty yellow bins and blue barrels where once there were mounds of discarded debris. 

 ***

By the time most of us hit the snooze button, Shawn Balfour has been up for several hours. 

The 41-year-old garbageman (though if you call him that, be prepared for a reminder that the proper term is waste collection driver) navigates his monstrous green truck down a narrow street just south of Southeast Woodstock Boulevard and 82nd Avenue. 

A car speeds past, nearly sideswiping the truck. 

"Happens all the time," Balfour says. "It gets kind of hair-raising. It's always scarier on days when it's raining because you can't see them, they can't see you." 

Balfour says most people view his job as mindlessly simple -- pick up the trash, move to the next house -- but it takes a great deal of expertise to operate a 17-ton vehicle. 

"We keep safety at the forefront," he says as the truck lumbers down the road. "I don't think people actually realize the amount of time it takes a 35,000-pound truck to stop." 
 
***

Aside from the occasional passing car, Balfour doesn't see another soul for the first couple of hours. He has never met some residents on his earliest route, but that doesn't stop him from looking out for them. 

When a resident goes on vacation without remembering to take their bins to the curb, he jumps out of the cab and empties them anyway. 

"Customer service is one of our biggest tools," he says. 

Balfour has helped customers change tires and clear branches from their yard after a big storm. Once, he called police to report a drunken driver, then followed the vehicle until officers arrived, rushing to the young woman's aid when she crashed into a guardrail. 

Just before 7 a.m., he has the day's first human interaction. A young woman is dragging her bins out at the last minute. Balfour offers to jump out and fetch the compost bin, but she waves him along. 

"She only has a little bit in there," he says. 

 ***

 By the time the sun comes up, Balfour is hours into his shift as a Waste Management truck driver.Customers toward the end of Balfour's route know him better. During the holidays, they leave plates of cookies on the recycling carts and in the summer they bring him Gatorade and ice water. 

He knows which homes have small children and makes a point to wave as they stare out the window at the hulking vehicle. 

Adults are trickier. They usually have questions about the new food composting program. Some like it; others say it's a hassle. 

"I tell them the less amount of stuff we take to the landfill, the less problems our children's children are going to have in the future," he says. 

He admits the program has a downside. It stinks. 

"I don't think any air freshener can take away organics," Balfour says. 

Rotten yard clippings smell like manure. With the recent addition of food to the mix, "I can't even describe it," Balfour says. A few minutes later, the truck passes an area smelling distinctively of skunk. Balfour chuckles. "That's one component." 

 ***

Before the sun is up, Balfour has covered a good chunk of his 900-residence territory. Around 11:30 a.m., he'll meet up with some fellow drivers for lunch at McDonald's. He will clock out at 2 p.m., then head home and pick up his kids from school. 

By night, Balfour is the typical dad. His wife is self-employed and works inconsistent hours, so Balfour cooks dinner and takes the kids to basketball practices and dance rehearsals. Tonight he plans to take his son to a Portland Trail Blazers game, so he'll be up late. He'll awake again at 4 a.m. tomorrow to ensure another week of sanity and sanitation for the next Portland neighborhood.

-- Kelly HouseThe Oregonian  


Article from: http://www.oregonlive.com/living/index.ssf/2012/02/everyday_people_portland_garba.html

 By Gina-Marie Cheeseman | January 26th, 2012
Landfills across the U.S. are teeming with waste. In fact, the average American throws away over 1,130 pounds of waste a year. That’s an environmental disaster because rotting garbage produces landfill gas (LFG) which is made up of 50 percent methane, a greenhouse gas with the warming potential 23 times greater than carbon. Municipal solid waste (MSW) is the third-largest source of human-related methane emissions in the U.S. In 2009, MSW accounted for about 17 percent of methane emissions according to the EPA. MSW landfills released an estimated 27.5 million metric tons of carbon equivalent to the atmosphere in 2009.

The environmental disaster can be avoided by using LFG as a source of energy to create heat or electricity. Landfills can “significantly reduce” their methane emissions through LFG projects. Over 365 landfills in the U.S. already recover methane and use it to produce electricity or heat. An LFG energy project can capture 60 to 90 percent of the methane emitted from a landfill. Generating electricity from LFG makes up about two-thirds of the operational projects in the U.S. Using LFG to offset the use of another fuel such as natural gas or coal occurs in about one-third of the operational projects.



The emerging area of LFG is producing alternative fuels. There has been successful delivery of LFG to a natural gas pipeline as a fuel, according to the EPA, and LFG has been converted to vehicle fuel as compressed natural gas and liquefied natural gas. There are also projects in the planning stages to convert LFG to methanol.

LFG projects save money

Using LFG to provide power or heat generates revenue from the sale of the gas, and creates jobs for communities. Businesses save money by using LFG, and some companies can even save millions of dollars over the life of their LFG projects, the EPA states on its website.

Businesses are not the only ones that can save money by using LFG for power or heat. The LFG project developed in 1997 in Maryland Heights, Missouri for Pattonville High School saves the school $40,000 a year. The Fred Weber Sanitary Landfill runs a 3,600-foot pipeline run from the landfill to the school’s two basement boilers. The school is less than a mile from the landfill. To develop the project, the school received a $150,000 loan from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, and a $25,000 grant from the St. Louis County Solid Waste Commission. Fred Weber invested $220,000 for the pipeline construction.

From New Mexico to Ohio

The City of Albuquerque, in New Mexico, will develop a LFG project to heat water in the Metropolitan Detention Center. The City Council unanimously approved the $1 million project earlier this month. The landfill already has 46 wells that extract the gas, but it’s burned off and not used in order to avoid releasing a greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. The EPA is contributing $500,000 to the project, the city about $300,000 and the county about $230,000.

The Houston-based Elements Markets LLC recently made its LFG-to-pipeline project in Amsterdam, Ohio public. The project is at the APEX Sanitary Landfill which is located on 1,285 acres, and receives about 1.8 million tons of waste a year. It is one of the fastest growing landfills in the U.S., according to a press releaseby Elements Markets. The project will produce over 32 million of British Thermal Units (MMBtu) of biomethane, enough to power 19,000 homes. It is expected to be in operation in 2013.

Article from  http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/01/landfills-provide-electricity/ 
This photo is courtesy of CT Recycling Guide. 

Written byJENS MANUEL KROGSTAD
Allison Peterson’s heart sank last week when she discovered her lost iPhone was in the bowels of a garbage truck zigzagging through her Waukee neighborhood.

While her phone’s GPS chip helped her locate the lost device, it was the kindness of the trash collectors that got the phone back into her hands.

The tale begins on Friday, when Peterson couldn’t find the iPhone she had had for about six months. It didn’t take her long to figure out that it most likely had fallen out of her pocket and into an old green recycling bin she had tossed.

Peterson, 39, had the foresight to download a free “Find My iPhone” app to her computer. She clicked on the app and then watched as the blip moved through her neighborhood.

She quickly dashed out of her house to track down the garbage truck. When she found the truck, driver Brent Klaassen stopped his route and called the phone, which later was discovered to have had its ringer turned off.

Klaassen then offered to let Peterson look for the phone at the landfill. While Peterson turned her nose up at that idea, she did call her husband, Mark, to see if he would sift through the trash.

“Once she told me that it would cost around $700 to replace the phone, I said I’d drive up and see what I could do,” said Mark Peterson, who with his wife, has five children.

Several workers for Metro Waste Authority and Waste Management helped Mark Peterson search for the phone Friday, a frigid day.

“The actions of these folks saved me a large amount of money, got me some brownie points with my wife … and made me appreciate how people who didn’t even know me, had nothing to gain, and probably thought I was crazy, took the time to help,” Mark Peterson, 46, wrote in a two-page thank-you letter.

Klaassen and his co-workers have been through similar situations. In their business, people sometimes call in a panic about lost diamond rings, wallets and other valuables.

What made this situation unique is that the owner immediately located her phone through the GPS chip. This gave Klaassen time to separate the trash from the rest of the landfill, said Reo Menning, spokeswoman for Metro Waste Authority.

“If this had been dumped with all the other trucks delivering the garbage, there’s no way this would have been found,” she said.

On the second pass through the pile of trash with a bulldozer, the men spotted the old green recycling bin.

The workers unfolded the container, which had been flattened by the trash compactor, and found the iPhone. The screen was free of scratches and cracks, though there was a slight bend in the body of the phone.

Mark Peterson, by this time giddy with joy, picked up the phone and dialed his wife.

“I found it,” he said.


Article from http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120125/NEWS/301250051/-1/becker_trial/Pricey-cellphone-carted-off-by-garbage-truck-recovered-landfill

JANUARY 9, 2012 
BY HEATHER CARR 
Article from Eat Drink Better blog

On “The Big Waste”, four Food Network chefs prepare a multi-course feast for one hundred people with waste food. Anne Burrell, Bobby Flay, Alex Guarnaschelli, and Michael Symon groan when they hear the challenge. Garbage? Unfortunately, they find it’s very easy to produce a large feast from the food that’s wasted each day.

Typical of Food Network shows, the four chefs are competing in teams to see who can come up with best recipe from a limited selection of foods. They can only use ingredients on their way to the trash. According to the show, 40% of food in America goes uneaten – 200 pounds per person per year. Food waste is a big problem.

Waste in Food Preparation and DistributionAlex and Anne start at Ferrara Bakery, where they find that the ends of deli-sliced meat and grinds of coffee and cocoa are thrown away. Flour on the outside of rising dough is swept off and thrown away instead of being reused or repurposed.

Bobby and Michael go to Manhattan Food Exchange, where fresh produce that looks fine to my eye is being thrown out. The owner of the store points out peas with lighter green spots on the pods. He takes the chefs to the back of the store and shows them carrots with bumps and radishes with wilted greens. All this is food that we would love if we pulled it out of our own gardens.

The next place Alex and Anne go to is a seafood distributor. He’s stuck with returned orders because of party cancellations and other reasons and, in some cases, fish with slightly discolored flesh that are still fresh. As a distributor, he can’t find a new buyer before the fish goes bad. Any delay of delivery can mean that he’ll lose a large stock of fish.

Bobby and Michael continue on to a butcher. They find beef bones and organ meats that are going to be thrown away. They make the obvious decision and take those home for broth and stock.

All the food has to pass inspection by a food inspector. He meets them back at the kitchen and tests all the animal products for temperature. Everything passes, except the prosciutto, which Anne decides to take home and feed her family.

Dumpster Diving with a FreeganNext up, Anne Burrell spends an evening with a freegan. A freegan dumpster dives for food. After stores close, they throw away the food that will expire the next day or just to make room for the next day’s inventory. The segment shows an astonishing amount of fresh veggies and prepared food in the garbage.

It’s a great idea to reduce waste, but with one caveat: you really have to know what you’re doing to pull food out of the garbage and eat it. Earlier in the day, the chefs were looking at food pulled from produce stands. Once food goes into the garbage, you don’t know if the raw produce has had contact with raw meat. A store might have thrown out that prepared food because they found a problem with the preparation and decided it was unsafe, not just “old”.

Waste on the FarmThe next day, the chefs head out to various farms and produce stands. Rick at Lawrence Farm Orchards says that 40 to 50% of his food is wasted. His pick-your-own farm has a lot of food lying on the ground and he says this is because people pick a head of cabbage or a tomato and then see one they like better, so they throw the first one on the ground.

At the other farms, the same thing happens. The piles of fresh produce that are being wasted are beautiful, but sad.

The Chicken and the EggBut what was even more sad was amount of chicken and eggs wasted. Chickens are thrown out just because of appearance. They show one where the wing is broken, but the rest of the chicken looks fine. If I were roasting a whole hen, it would matter. Most of the time, though, when I buy a chicken, I’m just going to cut it up anyway.

Eggs are thrown out because of size. The ones that are too big can’t fit in the carton. The ones that are too small wouldn’t stay put and might break in the carton. They’re just as useful in making bread or scrambled eggs, but they never make it to market.

The last fifteen minutes of the show focus on the competition and the dishes the chefs produce from the waste foods. By now, I’m sure you realize that their options are really unlimited. They’re pretty much the same as if they had shopped in the grocery store for the food.

“The Big Waste” will show again on Food Network at 4 p.m. Eastern Time on January 14.

Image of produce via Shutterstock

By Christopher Rosacker
Staff Writer 

A festive holiday season can bring families together in picturesque settings, often with lots of food and gifts to exchange. 

But all this travel and extra activity produces a lot of waste.

“We see more trash because people come in for the holidays and people are cooking more,” said Daria Kent, a recycling technician at the McCourtney Road Transfer Center.

Grass Valley and Nevada City dump trucks picked up three tons more waste on the Monday and Tuesday following Christmas than on those same days' averages during the rest of the year, reported Waste Management spokesman Justin Caporusso.

On Dec. 12, Waste Management collected around 40 tons of garbage locally, but collected 59 tons two weeks later on the Monday after Christmas, Caporusso said. 

Nationwide, Americans throw away 25 percent more trash between Thanksgiving and New Year's as compared to any other time of the year, according to Waste Management. Traditionally, the extra waste amounts to about 1.2 million extra tons per week — or an extra 6 million tons during the entire holiday season.

Although waste collection services see more waste on their routes, landfills don't necessarily see the spike. 

Last year, approximately 945 tons of solid waste material was deposited in the week prior to Christmas at the McCourtney Road Transfer Center, according Bob Elder, operations manager of the western Nevada County landfill. 

Although that number is 45 tons more than the typical 900-ton weekly average, Christmas week sees a drop in disposal of waste, Elder said. Last year's Christmas week only saw 697 tons deposited at the landfill, followed by 850 tons the subsequent week.

“Weather dictates a lot of people's dropping off,” Elder said, adding that many who generally deposit waste at the landfill may travel, or don't work during the week between Christmas and New Year's. 

Elder said this year's December total numbers are not yet tabulated and were not available Friday, but he doesn't anticipate them to deviate from the norm.

While regular solid waste may not be so heavy during the weeks people typically celebrate the December holidays, recyclable drop offs do spike, Elder reported.

For the month of December 2010, 1,347 ton of recyclables were brought to the McCourtney Road Transfer Center, where as October of that same year only totaled 1,108 tons, Elder reported. 

“It's really mostly about packaging material, cardboard and Styrofoam,” Kent said.

On Dec. 12 and 13, Waste Management collected 91 tons of recyclables, which jumped to 96 tons on Dec. 26 and 27, Caporusso said.

“This is the third year we have not bought any Christmas wrapping supplies,” wrote Nevada City resident Ann Hobbs in a note to The Union. “We continue to re-use both paper (in good shape), ribbon, bows and make our tags out of Christmas cards. It's not a big savings, but it isn't as if its single use makes it unusable or dirty.”

Another seasonal spike is the legal disposal of pharmaceuticals at safety bins at places such as the Grass Valley Police Department and Kmart, Kent said. 

“People are lightening their load for the first of year,” Kent said. “There just seems to be more awareness of it heading into the New Year.”

To contact Staff Writer Christopher Rosacker, e-mail [email protected] or call (530) 477-4236.  
Article from: http://www.theunion.com/article/20120102/BREAKINGNEWS/120109990/1001&parentprofile=1053 

A male black bear took an improbable road trip after he hitched a ride on a garbage truck and ended up in downtown Vancouver, Canada, Monday.

Believed to be up to 18 months old, the bear was caught on video roaming on top of a garbage truck as conservation officers climbed the truck in order to tranquillize the bear, all in the heart of downtown Vancouver. It’s unclear where the bear hitched the ride.

While the bear’s appearance surprised many city residents, Dave Cox, a conservation officer with the British Columbia Conservation Officer Service, says it makes sense that a bear ended up in the back of a garbage truck.

“Bears are a very opportunistic animal.”  Cox said of the chance that a bear would get into a garbage truck. “He would probably just climb inside and find a whole bunch of used garbage and had a big feast.”

Once in Vancouver, Cox says, the bear was spotted after sticking his head from the truck.

While Cox says the bear initially appeared nervous as officers approached him,  the bear’s appetite actually kept him calm as officers prepared to tranquillize him.

“His priority is food. No one is harassing him too much and he has a food source in front him,” Cox said. “He’s occupied. ”

While bears and other wild animals are not a common site on the streets of Vancouver, this is not the first time in recent months that a wild animal made its way into an urban area in British Columbia. A cougar was shot Dec. 8 by police officials after being spotted at a ferry terminal in Victoria, Canada.

Luckily for the black bear, officials deemed the unlikely hitchhiker a good candidate to be released back into the wild, because he did not act aggressive or confrontational. “The bear had no priors with us,” Cox said.

As news of a bear in the city captivated residents, a twitter feed started Monday afternoon titled @downtown_bear. Tweeting from the bear’s point of view, it laid out his plans for the day.

“Swim over to Granville island for lunch. I hear their dumpsters are organic,” read one tweet.

In spite of what the tweets reported, the bear was actually tranquillized and tagged before being released back into the wild near Whistler, Canada, earlier this week.


Article From: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/12/hitchhiking-bear-ends-up-on-garbage-truck-in-vancouver/