The Australian reports on a hot new energy source: your food scraps.
'Around 15 million tonnes, or 3 per cent, of Australia's greenhouse emissions are caused by organic matter - mainly food and garden wastes (which) … break down without oxygen and in the process produce methane, which is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.
Potato peels are killing the earth. Of course, anyone with a compost bin in their backyard (I have two, which provide enough compost to cover the garden twice a year) will not be surprised that it is a potent source of energy. The heat generated by these bins is amazing, especially a day or do after the grass clippings go in. No wonder cows give off methane.
'To date, waste policy in Australia has focused mainly on how to recover the seemingly more valuable waste packaging and paper fraction. The value of these mixed recycled materials can be as much as $200 a tonne but the cost of collecting and sorting them is much higher. Kerbside recycling in Australia doesn't flourish because it makes money, it flourishes because it is an environmental service demanded by households that derive satisfaction from the hands-on reward of doing their bit for the environment each week. The households pay for it in higher council rates.'
Environmental lip-service at its best. Call me cynical, but I have always been sceptical about the priority given to recycling schemes to the detriment of slashing consumption in the first place. Check out the amount of wrapping and waste carried out in the average supermarket trolley. Not to mention plastic soft drink bottles - which, for some reason, people feel they need to purchase by the slab-load. But we're not about to reduce organics consumption, which actually rises with environmentally-friendly kitchen practice; i.e, growing, preparing and cooking your own food.
'The stinky organics fraction has tended to be overlooked for all the same reasons in reverse: there is little history of using it, it is difficult to collect and processing, and markets are pretty well non-existant (sic). A consortium of Australian companies ... last week asked governments to incrementally ban all organic waste going to landfill. They think the technology exists to process garbage to eliminate its greenhouse footprint and convert it into value-add composts and biofuels.'
I can see where this is going. While diverting food scraps from garbage to compost bin is a good thing, it will still emit the same amount of methane, just in a lot of different places. So what will they do - make us sell our organic waste to an outside processing agency and then buy it back as compost after the energy has been removed - and onsold?
Hands off my compost!
'Around 15 million tonnes, or 3 per cent, of Australia's greenhouse emissions are caused by organic matter - mainly food and garden wastes (which) … break down without oxygen and in the process produce methane, which is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.
Potato peels are killing the earth. Of course, anyone with a compost bin in their backyard (I have two, which provide enough compost to cover the garden twice a year) will not be surprised that it is a potent source of energy. The heat generated by these bins is amazing, especially a day or do after the grass clippings go in. No wonder cows give off methane.
'To date, waste policy in Australia has focused mainly on how to recover the seemingly more valuable waste packaging and paper fraction. The value of these mixed recycled materials can be as much as $200 a tonne but the cost of collecting and sorting them is much higher. Kerbside recycling in Australia doesn't flourish because it makes money, it flourishes because it is an environmental service demanded by households that derive satisfaction from the hands-on reward of doing their bit for the environment each week. The households pay for it in higher council rates.'
Environmental lip-service at its best. Call me cynical, but I have always been sceptical about the priority given to recycling schemes to the detriment of slashing consumption in the first place. Check out the amount of wrapping and waste carried out in the average supermarket trolley. Not to mention plastic soft drink bottles - which, for some reason, people feel they need to purchase by the slab-load. But we're not about to reduce organics consumption, which actually rises with environmentally-friendly kitchen practice; i.e, growing, preparing and cooking your own food.
'The stinky organics fraction has tended to be overlooked for all the same reasons in reverse: there is little history of using it, it is difficult to collect and processing, and markets are pretty well non-existant (sic). A consortium of Australian companies ... last week asked governments to incrementally ban all organic waste going to landfill. They think the technology exists to process garbage to eliminate its greenhouse footprint and convert it into value-add composts and biofuels.'
I can see where this is going. While diverting food scraps from garbage to compost bin is a good thing, it will still emit the same amount of methane, just in a lot of different places. So what will they do - make us sell our organic waste to an outside processing agency and then buy it back as compost after the energy has been removed - and onsold?
Hands off my compost!
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