A tour of the HERC

I got to tour the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC) this week, and it was fascinating. The amount of trash was staggering, but I'm glad it wasn't going to a landfill and that it was generating energy to heat downtown buildings and put some electricity onto the grid.

This diagram that we went over beforehand was very helpful because then we knew what we were going to be looking at. Click here for a virtual tour.

Trucks are constantly coming and going, dumping their loads of trash.

The grapple (I call it The Claw) picks up the trash and tosses it like a salad as the operator works to get the right mix of wet and dry for a good burn. Are you seeing this massive amount of trash?!!

The grapple drops giant clawfuls of trash into two big hoppers on the upper right. Trash slowly drops down the chutes into the two burners, which run 24 hours a day 365 days a year (except a few times a year for maintenance).

It looks like something out of a sci-fi flick, doesn't it?

Look at the size of it.

Sometimes a big hunk of metal like an appliance will get through, and when the operator spots it, he plucks it out of the trash pile.

The plant's processes are constantly monitored with sensors, and deep in the bowels of the facility, Covanta operators go through their paces, using all of their senses (except taste!) to gauge whether things are working right. They can also tell by how the flames look whether things are burning well or not. This was just after our big snow storm Saturday, and as one guy put it, "snow doesn't burn well."

I was mesmerized by the fire.

The control room operator works 12-hour shifts in front of a bank of computer screens, monitoring everything in the building and constantly tweaking the flow of air and steam, rate of combustion, the speed of the trash in the furnace. The HERC produces steam, which drives a turbine to produce electricity. To read more about the process, click here.

Here's what you see from the outside.

Dunn Bros sweetens the deal

I found out today that Dunn Bros Coffee will soon start giving customers a 25-cent discount on their beverages if they bring a reusable mug. The program starts Jan. 1, 2011. It's a significant savings, and I hope it's just the push some people need to start bringing their own mugs. I think it helps to have several, and to keep at least one clean one in your car all the time, ready for that spur-of-the-moment caffeine stop.

Plastic bag recycling (you can recycle many more types than you think)

Plastic bag recycling seems to be one area in particular of plastics recycling where a lot of people don't realize what types of bags and packaging are recyclable. Besides newspaper and grocery bags, you can recycle cereal and cracker bags, frozen-food bags, zipper-locking bags (cut the zipper part off because it's a different type of plastic). The key is that the bags must be dry and clean. (I think that's why they put frozen-food bags in the 'no' category when they used to be in the 'yes' category -- people were probably putting their wet frozen food bags with bits of onion ring still clinging to the insides into the recycling bin.) Here's a complete list, from the It's In The Bag program:


ACCEPTED MATERIALS
[Note: All material must be clean and dry]
Plastic grocery bags
Plastic retail bags (remove string ties & rigid plastic handles)
Plastic dry-cleaning bags
Plastic cereal bags (must be dry with ALL food residue removed)
Plastic bread bags (must be dry with ALL rood residue removed)
Plastic produce bags (must be dry with ALL food residue removed)
Plastic wrap from paper products (paper towels, etc.)
Plastic salt bags (remove rigid plastic handles)
Plastic zipper bags (remove top closing mechanism)
Plastic stretch/shrink wrap
6-pack holder rings

NOT ACCEPTED
Plastic bags with food residue
Frozen food bags
Plastic bags with strings
Plastic soil or mulch bags
Plastic zipper bags with rigid plastic closing mechanism
Plastic bubble wrap
Plastic food containers
Plastic bottles

Spousal support

Mr. Trashbasher, carrying a bag of organics home from a party so that I could manage my bag of plastics.

The packaging of public school lunches

Concerned Mom Tracy asked me to come to Windom Spanish Dual Immersion School this week because even though the school is already collecting organics for composting, she wanted to know about recycling options for all the packaging that food comes in.
Unfortunately I didn't have a lot of suggestions. Some of the wrappers can be sent to TerraCycle for recycling, and the #5 plastics can be brought to Whole Foods to be recycled by Preserve, but most of the plastic wrap and packaging is true trash.

Fruit comes in plastic cups, tortilla chips are packaged in plastic, fork/knife/spoon/napkin are packaged, burrito comes wrapped in plastic, cheese sticks are wrapped in plastic, salad comes in a plastic container with plastic wrap over it, salsa comes in a plastic cup.

Green bins are for organics, red for trash and small buckets are for liquid.

Bilingual signs

Their organics-recycling coordinator put these stickers on the paper-towel dispensers.

At my old job, my legacy lives on

A few of my most dedicated friends are keeping the volunteer-run recycling programs going at my former place of employment. The 'helpful hint' sign was put up after I left.

My friend put some attitude into this sign.

Finally after years and years of asking, they've got printers printing by default on both sides of a piece of paper! Eureka!

Pumpkin roundup

I sent an email out to our neighborhood, asking for people's leftover jack-o-lanterns and fall gourds for our backyard compost pile.

(Don't you think the one pumpkin with the x's for eyes looks like he's being forcefed the pumpkin on top of him?)




Cut up 9 pumpkins. I could hear the squirrels overhead, holding a press conference about the new buffet in town. And while I was cutting, a little mole burrowing through the leaves visited me. Wish I'd gotten a picture.


Then the lovely Shannon and her charming brood showed up with 15 more!



Hey look, my SunChips bag is disintegrating. Pretty cool considering our pile doesn't get very hot.

An organic ale with an amazing story

My brother alerted me to this special batch of ale from Sierra Nevada. This organic, fresh hop Estate Ale is made entirely from hops and barley grown at their property in Chico, CA. All the crops were hand-grown and hand-harvested. Think of all the labor that went into this beer!

Closing the loop on the process, the spent grain, brewer's yeast, hops and trub are fed to dairy cows and beef cattle at CSU Chico. Then the beef is served at their taproom & restaurant at the brewery, along with locally raised veggies.

Check out my brother's review here. And for the full inside scoop on how the beer was made, go to this post at thefullpint.com.

And in looking at their website for info about the ale, I found out Sierra Nevada has done substantial work to be environmentally responsible: solar, fuel cells, recycling, energy efficiency, water conservation and more. Here's just one example:
We have been able to reduce our water usage to almost half of the historical value typically used by breweries in this country.

Sierra Nevada made the commitment several years ago to treat all of our production wastewater to remove this burden from the local municipality. We installed a European-designed, two-step anaerobic and aerobic treatment plant that reprocesses and purifies all of the water produced from our brewing operations.

The methane generated from the anaerobic digestion of the wastewater is captured and used to fuel our boilers. This uses 100% of an energy byproduct as fuel for another process instead of releasing it into the atmosphere. Additionally, water used for truck washing is collected and purified through our own facility.

Thanks to one man, a zero-waste event goes like buttah

Resource Center of the Americas executive director Jason Stone wanted to make their anniversary gala a zero-waste event. He started planning early, he consulted the right people, then he did the legwork. His request for assistance the night of the event passed from person to person to person until it landed in my 'in' box, and since I wasn't busy Friday night, I said sure, I'll help as a coordinator/monitor.

As I posted back in August, the YWCA triathlon overwhelmed me, so I was a little nervous about being the point person on the ground. What unexpected glitches would come up? I really wanted RCTA's first attempt at zero waste to be a success, so I tried to trouble-shoot: I brought extra signs, containers, bags, tape. I talked to Jason the day before (up to that point we'd only e-mailed) to ask about containers and volunteers. And I arrived extra early.

Well, I needn't have worried. Jason had made things very simple by purchasing everything compostable: plates, cups, utensils. I set up a couple of stations, talked to the caterers ... and relaxed. This was going to go well. And, it did! I met lots of wonderful people working for a very worthwhile organization, the food catered by Banquetes Tradicionales Mexicanos was delicious, the music was lively, and all went smoothly.

The party was held at Plaza Verde in Minneapolis.

Disposal station

Jason customized this sign, adding pictures of the compostable cups and utensils (center picture and bottom right picture).

Another great touch: Jason's instructions posted for the caterers.

Beverage station with compostable cold cups, hot cups, bowls of sugar and pitchers of creamer (rather than single-serve sugar packets and creamers), and real metal spoons rather than plastic disposables.

Wine (and a keg of beer) with compostable cups

The trash

The man who made it happen. Jason said to his wife, "It's magic! This is going to be dirt!" He also said his event would be a model for how to go zero-waste, and he was definitely right.

Airports and receptacles

Finally!! An airport that puts a recycling bin right by the screening area, where most people dump their beverages! Good job, Sea-Tac! They got a pat on the back earlier this year for their recycling efforts. Thumbs-up to this part:

Also during the past year, the airport published an Environmental Strategy Plan which identifies airport sustainability efforts over the next five years, including specific waste reduction and recycling goals that will be used as benchmarks to measure our progress.

And then Sea-Tac stumbles: free-standing trash bins

Why not just make these combo set-ups the norm?

Disposal station at the Hubert Humphrey Airport (which also had free-standing trash bins)

And then closer to home: the Central Library in downtown Minneapolis. Co-worker Carolyn pointed out that having the universally recognized recycling symbol on the Waste container is confusing. Quite right.

Off to TerraCycle they go

While we were on our trip, my mom sorted thousands of granola-bar wrappers, candy wrappers, cookie wrappers, juice pouches and chip bags for TerraCycle. What a mom, huh??

Below: the fruits of her labor

There's about 800 chip bags stuffed into here.

About 400 juice pouches in here.

It's hard to tell in the photo, but these granola bar wrappers are exploding out of their box.

Coffee bags

Six boxes and one envelope ready to be dropped off at the UPS Store. Thanks, Mom!! You saved me hours of work!

Cool Minnesota GreenCorps gear

I got my Minnesota GreenCorps gear today. The T-shirt is AnvilOrganic, which is 100 percent organic cotton, and the hoodie is AnvilSustainable, which is 50 percent organic cotton, 50 percent recycled PET polyester. Read more on their website. They also have an AnvilRecycled line, made from pre-consumer fibers and clippings. A big company doing good things, Anvil was recently ranked the sixth-largest organic program in the world by the Organic Exchange.