A long time ago, I interviewed a friend on vermicomposting dog and cat waste. I recently found this useful article on composting dog waste from a couple of Alaska government agencies.
It includes tidbits like:
Composting can reduce the volume of dog waste by 50 percent.
and:
REMEMBER—It takes at least 10 dogs, preferably 20, to generate enough waste to maintain a bin.
Hot composting is one great way to take care of dog waste. And this 11 page document certainly takes you through a lot of the complexities, so if you have a lot of dogs or access to large amount of dog waste, you probably want to take a read.
October 5th, 2010
Via John Anderson, I found the Supermarket Composting Handbook (2MB pdf), produced by JFConnolly & Associates and WasteCap of Massachusetts. This handbook, while it doesn’t mention worm composting, is a fantastic resource for anyone who is attempting to implement composting at a corporate level. It discusses the economics of composting vs trash hauling, monitoring program success, employee training, has sample contracts and signage for employees and consumers, and in general appears to be a fantastic resource.
Here’s my favorite takeaway from the Handbook:
As waste disposal costs rise and the need to help improve our environment becomes increasingly more important, supermarket operators are looking for alternatives to reduce disposal costs through recycling more of their waste. Seventy five percent (75%) of most supermarket waste, after recycling cardboard, paper and plastics, is comprised of non-recyclable biodegradable materials including discarded food, waxed and wet cardboard, paper, renderings, soil, and plants. Recycling these wastes through composting can be a lower cost alternative to disposal and makes a lot of sense for supermarkets.
Of course, the economics for composting vs recycling vs landfilling are different for every location, but this handbook makes evaluating composting as a solution easy.
April 10th, 2010
“Hairdresser Jeff Stone was told he was breaking the law because his clients’ disgarded locks were classified as trade waste.” The issue appears to be ensuring “[business'] waste was not harming the environment”. Here’s the Blackburn with Darwin council page on trade waste.
At first, I thought this was just another silly government action. However, as there are health concerns regarding hair dyes, composting may or may not be the best way to deal with the substance. (Whether folks should be putting such chemicals into their hair is another matter.)
There are more details in the Telegraph story, and here’s Jeff Stone’s (the barber) contact information.
Via Care2
February 15th, 2010
Boulder County Resource Conservation is putting on three free recycling workshops in November. While these aren’t worm centric, I thought they might be of interest to readers.
LAFAYETTE
Compost Workshop (FREE)
Thursday, November 5, 2009, 6:30-8:30 pm
Lafayette Public Library
775 W Baseline Rd, Lafayette (located at 287 & Baseline)
LONGMONT
Compost Workshop (FREE)
Saturday, November 7, 2009, 10am -12pm
Boulder County Parks & Open Space
5201 St Vrain Rd, Longmont
For a map see: <http://www.bouldercounty.org/openspace/contact_page.htm>
BOULDER
Compost Workshop (FREE)
Saturday, November 14, 2009, 10am -12pm, for America Recycles Day
Boulder County Recycling Center
1901 63rd St., Boulder
RSVP to Jennifer Bohn (space is limited)
Feel free to RSVP to Jennifer at jbohn (at) boulder county (dot) org, or give her a call at 720 564 2242 if you have questions.
September 8th, 2009
I just returned from the third annual Rocky Mountain Compost School, four days of classes about compost in Fort Collins. It was quite interesting, though definitely not aimed at home vermicomposters, home composters, or vermicomposters in general (I think the North Carolina Vermiculture conference would be a better be for vermis). The focus was on industrial composting, and all the intricacies therein.
I’m not complaining–there was a ton to learn and the conference was never billed as a home vermicomposting conference. Most of the attendees (there were about 20) were from Colorado and Wyoming municipalities that were composting or were thinking of composting. There was an attendee from the EPA, some environmental consulting companies, someone from Waste Not Recycling, two farmers, and me.
Among other things, I realized that instead of sending my worm castings to a soil lab to find out their chemical content, I should have sent it to a compost lab. One of the speakers, Will Brinton, runs Woods End, which does compost testing among other things. He mentioned that there were only seven labs capable of analyzing compost in the United States. (Europe has ~200, and compost running out of their ears, apparently.)
Large scale vermicomposting of biosolids, municipal waste, and yard waste doesn’t appear to be happening locally. If you are composting more than 100 cubic yards of waste yearly, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment regulates you, heavily . Wyoming doesn’t have any such regulations, and Illinois has some of them. Apparently, the EPA 503 rules, which deal with biosolids (humanure), are the starting point for many regulators, but each state then layers on their own regulations.
The class spent some time talking about compost tea. Again, this was specific to compost, and not to vermicompost, but I was amazed to learn that the main research focus of compost tea has been on increasing plant resistance to pathogens, *not* on increasing nutrient delivery to plants. Also, the common practice of adding sugars to compost tea during the brewing process actually increases the viability of E. coli (if any E. coli is present in the compost). And the bubblers that are often sold are overkill–simply stirring the compost tea three times a day with an oar is enough aeration.
Some of the other interesting talks including what it took to make compost that was certified as organic, experiences with composting dead animals, how applying compost to Colorado soil affected pH and organic matter, and the various standards and lack of standards in the compost market. There was also some hands on exercises and demonstrations: the class made and monitored a compost pile, measured the water content of compost, saw how to use the Solvita compost testing kit, and used a spreadsheet to build a compost recipe.
The class also toured two different municipal composting facilities (Cheyenne, WY and Boulder, CO). It was great to have a chance to ask questions of people on the ground, doing real industrial composting. Another interesting tidbit was the US Composting Council was started as a way to deal with the public relations problem of disposable diapers.
A highlight, for me, was visiting John Anderson’s worm farm but I’m hoping to get another post up with some pictures from that visit, so I won’t go over about that.
Compost making seems like a relatively young science. Brinton mentioned several times that there was a large amount of disagreement in many aspects of compost, including what it actually is, how the process works, and how to characterize it in terms of quality. There are few nationwide standards, and any group can put out their own standard (as a group of Colorado composters did a while back). The class was fascinating, and there’s a ton of work being done.
My overall takeaways from this course:
- finding a market for compost is the most difficult part of the process, but there are markets out there
- large scale composting is real and happening
- large scale vermicomposting is not prevalent, at least not around here
- compost nutrient value and process depends highly on the purity of ingredients
- there’s no ‘one way’ to make compost–how you make it depends on your end use
April 18th, 2009
Via Colorado Local Sustainability, I found out about the third annual Rocky Mountain Compost School. It’s happening in April, and covers all kinds of large scale composting questions.
No indication of vermicomposting content, so it’s not quite what I had in mind, but it looks like it will be quite informative. A bit pricy, but informative.
I did send an email to an organizer asking about worm composting specific content; if I hear back, I’ll let y’all know what I find out.
Update 1/23:
I heard back from the organizer, and this is what she said:
“The workshop does not focus specifically on vermicomposting. However, the site where we do our hands-on compost experiments is a worm farm here in Fort Collins. Do you know John Anderson, the ‘Worm Man’…?”
The agenda is still being fleshed out, but topics will likely include “the C:N ratio info, microbiology, compost quality discussion and many more [and] would be beneficial to vermi- as well as thermophyllic-composters.”
January 23rd, 2009
