Info/Links

Resources relevant to Zero Waste concepts and practices.

Background

Stories

  • Food for Thought
    Recycling food waste may be the next big recycling frontier.

  • WTE debacle
    As a Republican, I am outraged that the “fiscally conservative” Board of County Commissioners is moving forward with an oversized, overpriced, unnecessary and polluting incinerator project.

  • Musket Ridge Launches Zero Waste Food Initiative
    New sustainability program lessens club’s environmental impact.

    Musket Ridge Golf Club, Myersville, Md., is launching a zero waste food initiative for its golf course, restaurant and Catoctin Hall wedding and banquet facility.

    The club is transforming its entire restaurant, wedding and banquet operation to zero food waste through an onsite bokashi composting program. Bokashi, originated from Asian cultures, uses fermentation to break down all food scraps including meat, dairy and oils, in less than half the time of conventional composting while avoiding unpleasant odors and deterring pests. The end product is a natural liquid fertilizer that greatly increases the population of beneficial microbes that add valuable nutrients to the compost and helps improve the health of soil and plants. The Club will utilize the bokashi, compost, and compost tea on their new organic vegetable and herb garden that is being developed by their Executive Chef and will be featured as part of their menu options.

    Musket Ridge is also planning an educational program with local public schools that shows students the importance of sustainability, with tours of Musket Ridge’s zero waste initiative and also through hands-on school-garden and composting projects. The club currently recycles all plastic, aluminum, glass and cardboard and has contracted with a biofuel company to utilize its kitchen grease to be reproduced into fuel.

  • Red Horse restaurant goes green
    Roy Bromfield, co-owner of the restaurant, wants to make the eatery Dumpster-free by 2012, compost 100 percent of all pre-consumer vegetable waste and purchase electricity from renewable energy sources.

  • Pratt Opening Paper Recycling Facilities in 2 States

  • Starbucks expanding recycling program with coffee cups in Chicago
    This fall, the Seattle coffee company will send cups used at its Chicago stores to Green Bay, where a Georgia Pacific paper mill will turn them into Starbucks napkins. The effort is a major push by Starbucks to create a commercial market for its used cups, which include 1 billion plastic cups for cold drinks.

  • Nudging Recycling From Less Waste to None
    Though born of idealism, the zero-waste philosophy is now propelled by sobering realities, like the growing difficulty of securing permits for new landfills and an awareness that organic decay in landfills releases methane that helps warm the earth’s atmosphere.

  • Carroll-Frederick incinerator plan brings unlikely allies together against it
    Toward the end of his presentation last month about the cost of building a waste-to-energy incinerator, Bruce Holstein brought out two large pieces of poster board that listed the "winners" and "losers" if the project is built.

  • Board of Commissioners candidates discuss the Carroll-Frederick waste-to-energy incinerator
    Candidates for the Carroll County Board of Commissioners discuss whether they support the waste-to-energy incinerator proposal.

  • Frederick, Carroll countians debate, ask questions about proposal in e-mail chain
    While public discussions by elected officials about the incinerator have been less frequent since both Carroll and Frederick voted to go forward with a shared incinerator, a debate among residents in both counties has continued to boil in e-mails.

Alternatives

  • In-Vessel Composting: An Innovative Process in Food Waste Management
    Bacterial digestion raises the temperature of compost naturally which is the “thermophilic” part of the process (ATAD – autothermal thermophilic aerobic digestion). Thermophilic describing bacteria that work best at higher temperatures (c. 110-130 degrees F). The same effect is gotten with any large scale composting such as the County facility.

Informational Websites

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