soil & mulch producer news sep/oct2012

NEWS Serving Soil, Mulch, Compost, & Biofuel Professionals

Vol. VI No. 5 September-October 2012

Continued on page 3

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Wood is good! That pretty much sums up the research being conducted at North Carolina State University

— as well as elsewhere — into using whole trees ground up as components in horticultural substrates for both nurseries, and in particular, for greenhouses.

“There’s both a positive plant growth response that we’re seeing plus there’s a potential economic advantage for greenhouses,” says Brian Jackson, an assistant professor of horticultural science at North Carolina State in Raleigh.

Jackson began investigating the use of trees as a potting mix, originally prompted by concerns about a shortage of pine bark for nursery growers, while pursuing a doctorate degree at Virginia Tech in 2005.

“We spent the next four years working on

Tree Shreds Show Promise for Horticulture Mixes

By P.J. Hellerassessing how wood could be used for nurseries and greenhouses,” he says. “We evaluated some 14 different species of trees and determined that

loblolly pine was the best due to its availability and cost and the plant

growth performance.”Now at North Carolina

State, Jackson is continuing his research along with Bill Fonteno, professor of horticultural science and director of the school’s horticultural substrates laboratory.

Jackson is one of four professors involved with

the substrates lab. “In the initial years,

2005, 2006 and 2007, basically the question I had looking at these

wood materials was, ‘OK, here’s fresh pine wood. What can I do with it?’” Jackson recalls.

“In the past two years, based on the work that Bill and I have done at North Carolina State,

Enhanced root growth with wood. Left: Peat perlite, right: peat wood. Photos courtesy of Bill Fonteno, North Carolina State University

From left: Peat with 25% wood, peat with 40% wood an

d 100

% w

ood.

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Soil & Mulch ProducerNEWS

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I can confidently switch my question to: ‘Here’s wood. What would you like to do with it?’ There’s so much that we’ve learned that’s critical about how you process a freshly harvested tree. We can construct it so it will do what we want.

“My mind-set has changed dramatically in the last seven or eight years that I’ve been working on this,” he adds. “It’s gone from, ‘What can I do with it’ to ‘What would I like to do with it.’

Essentially, Jackson, Fonteno and other researchers at the university have developed specific “recipes” for using pine in horticultural substrates. The tree material can be used as a 100 percent substrate for nurseries and in smaller amounts, generally up to 40 percent, in greenhouse mixes.

In nursery applications, the ground up trees can be used as a substitute for pine bark, although presently there is an ample supply of pine bark and little economic incentive to add the loblolly pine. In greenhouse applications, however, the wood can be less expensive than the peat moss it can replace and half the cost of perlite.

“We can use as little [wood] as 15 percent to 20 percent or up to 40 percent. It just depends on the size and the grind of the material,” Fonteno says. “We find it to be pretty effective in all cases.”

He quickly notes that adding wood to the potting mixtures is not just a matter of tossing the ground-up trees into the mix. Careful attention is paid to how the resulting material will perform and fit in with a grower’s operation.

‘You can’t just take wood and substitute it for peat or for perlite,” he says. “But if you process the tree differently, you can make it where it can be usable for both. What we don’t want to do is to have growers change a lot of what they do . . . If you want a grower to do something different, then it needs to fit into their whole process. So one of the areas we spend a lot of time on is making sure that we get the right configuration so that growers can utilize it quickly and it will perform in a similar fashion to the products they already have.

“It’s pretty simple to grind up a tree and put it in a pot,” Fonteno adds. “The plants may or may not particularly care for it and you won’t grow the same exact plant. But if you want the growers’ production practices to be similar to where they’re familiar and they can use it correctly, then matching it up is the name of the game.”

One advantage of using the wood is that it is slow to break down. Fonteno points to research showing that it can last anywhere from a minimum of 12 months up to 24 months “with almost no degradation at all.”

Tests on hardwoods, such as sycamore, oak,

maple and poplar, showed that they would break down rapidly, Jackson says, adding “pine wood does not do this.”

Jackson and Fonteno stress that what growers need to understand is that the wood being used as a component in the substrates is not sawdust.

Jackson’s research at Virginia Tech included conducting growth trials using the same amounts of sawdust and pine tree substrates.

“The growth differences were remarkable,” he reports.

The sawdust was quick to break down and rot, rob nitrogen from the soil and “in no way could create a positive environment in which the plant could grow,” Jackson says.

The larger size wood component did the opposite, providing a favorable environment for growth, adding more air and not degrading or breaking down.

“There was a pretty stark contrast when you actually look at the difference between sawdust as a by-product of some industry and the intentional construction or engineering of wood for use as a potting mix component,” he says.

Even so, Fonteno says one of the major issues they have had to overcome is “grower biases about wood.

“Most growers, when you mention using wood, think sawdust,” Fonteno says. “There’s a little bit of a problem in using sawdust as far as it robbing nitrogen and causing all kinds of shifts that you’re not looking for if you use fresh material. But these materials are not processed in the same fashion. They’re bigger. So what we find is there is none of those issues, or very few


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of them, unless you get into extreme amounts of materials.“We’re not talking sawdust at all,” he adds. “This is a completely

different material. It’s much bigger. This is not your daddy’s sawdust.”To produce the wood material, trees are either chipped or shredded.

The resulting material is then processed through a hammer mill, which can allow for a variety of different sizes in the final end product.

“One of the unique things about this process is it also allows for consistency and a repeatable procedure,” Jackson notes. “We can repeat this. It’s reproducible. The end product is consistent. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the East Coast or the West Coast. Having a reproducible and consistent product is key in this industry, especially when you’re looking at fresh organic materials that could change if they’re not treated the same way.”

Jackson’s earlier research at Virginia Tech showed him that the age of the trees to be harvested was not a factor in creating the wood mix.

“For the purpose of easy handling and transportation, typically what we use are trees in a pulp wood stage, which is roughly 10 to 12 years or in some cases up to 15 years,” he says.

In most instances, there is no need to age the wood. “If the amount of wood used is 40 percent or less of the mixture, I

have seen nothing in the way of aging that makes a difference,” he says. “You could go out in the morning and cut a tree, grind it up, hammer mill it and have it in a plant by lunchtime. You could then go home and have a nice afternoon and the plants would be fine.”

Issues can arise when too high of a percentage of wood is used. Aging the wood for two or three weeks, either outdoors in piles under covered sheds or in large bulk bags, eliminates any growth difference, Jackson says.

At the horticultural substrates laboratory, product testing is conducted on the wood mixes in greenhouses and on nursery pads. The products are “fingerprinted” both chemically and physically.

“We have very specific goals for certain things we’re trying to do,” Fonteno explains. “Then we compare them; We have a database with thousands of materials that we’ve studied over 25 years. So we fingerprint the effect of these materials and the quantities that we use and then we look at what that does for each mix.

“What we’re trying to do is match them to materials that the industry thinks are very good products and that they enjoy using and to make sure that these can be done. And then we look for things that are specialty items, perhaps in propagation or for small containers versus large containers. It just depends on the material.”

The results of the research at NC State are available to the public. “We are basically promoting the knowledge and information we

have about how to produce and effectively use these materials,” Jackson says. “That goes from the soil or substrate manufacturers or directly to growers who may decide to do it themselves. So it’s basically just relaying the technical applications of this technology directly to whomever would choose to use it or incorporate it into their production system or into their product line.”

Some nursery and greenhouse growers have embraced the concept so strongly that they have invested in equipment to harvest and process their own trees to use as a supplement to their potting mixes, researchers report. In other instances, growers have contracted out to have the mixes created.

At Young’s Plant Farm, one of the largest greenhouse operations in Alabama, owners there have successfully implemented a process to transform an entire shoot of on-site pine, including the needles, into a soil substrate, according to the company’s website. That effort was prompted by the rising cost of Canadian peat moss and unpredictable fuel costs, it said.

Research was done in conjunction with Auburn University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“We take advantage of the abundance of timber in the central Alabama Continued on next page


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region,” the company says. “In our case the substrate is used alone or with 20 percent to 50 percent of Canadian sphagnum peat moss, depending on the product. Thus far, the whole tree substrate has proven to be an economical and reliable alternative to conventional greenhouse substrates.”

Jackson notes that there is a “tremendous amount of buzz” in both the greenhouse and nursery industries about using wood.

“I’ve never seen it as high as it is now,” he says.

One of the reasons for the interest is because academic, private and commercial researchers who have independently studied the use of wood in horticultural substrates have come to the same conclusion, he says. Universities where research has been conducted include Auburn in Alabama, Oregon State, Kansas State, Virginia Tech and

Continued from previous page the University of Florida. “There are numerous academic institutions

that have either seriously looked into this as a project or at least played around with a couple of projects relating the nursery or greenhouse substrates,” Jackson says.

North Carolina State, however, appears to be one of the, if not the, leading institutions working in this field. In addition to Jackson’s expertise in wood and Fonteno’s experience with the substrates lab, the school also has three graduate students devoted almost exclusively to the effects of wood and how to use it in greenhouse and nursery applications.

“It’s a substantial commitment on our part,” Fonteno notes. “You have to know an awful lot about a lot of different things to make this all work . . . By bringing everything together — both Brian Jackson’s processing experience and our laboratory experience — we’re able to bring all these pieces to bear so we can be very precise and produce very high quality materials.“

“I think we pretty much lead the nation, or we’re right there with the leaders,” Jackson adds. “No one has the expertise or the facilities that we have to conduct the work.”

Forteno agrees, citing the extensive research that Jackson has done on wood over nearly a decade.

“Brian has ground up more trees than you can shake a stick at over the years,” he says with a laugh.

Adds Jackson: “There’s nothing that gets my blood flowing more than the sound of a chain saw . . . ”

Wood-based Fuel to Make Jets Fly?

MISSOULA, MT—Recycling the by-products of logging -- treetops, limbs and slash – into jet fuel was the topic

at a recent meeting of the Northwest Advanced Renewables Alliance (NARA). The Washington State University-led group says that not only is wood-derived fuel less corrosive and polluting than corn-based ethanol, it also represents a technology transfer that could open new business opportunities for the state’s loggers.

Several dozen NARA members and stakeholders gathered in Missoula to discuss initial findings related to the five-year, $40 million research project funded by the USDA. Their goal is to come up with a competitive, ecologically sustainable source of jet fuel produced from waste wood. The grant requires the researchers to use specific metrics to assess and evaluate technological progress against critical milestones throughout the project.

For instance, core challenges facing such ventures include resolving various scientific/technical obstacles that prevent economic viability. NARA leaders say that wood bio-gen co-products are showing greater economic values than expected, however. In addition to producing isobutanol, fermented wood pulp could be used to synthesize chemicals needed for plastics, solvents and other industrial uses. Replacing commonly used petroleum-based products with wood-based ones could translate into job growth and profits.

The prospects appear cloudy, however, when seen in light of the complexities, such as the cost and logistics involved in obtaining, refining and transporting the feedstock, for example. Also to be considered are obstacles posed by existing and future environmental regulations, economic volatility, global warming trends and the impact of pest- or fire-damaged wood on wood processing. As the thinkers view biofuel potentialities, saw log production is greatly diminished from its heyday, yet it remains the lifeblood for loggers in Montana.

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Imagine going to the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day, but instead of watching two college football teams battling it out for pigskin supremacy before 90,000 screaming fans, what you find is a stadium filled with stinky, gooey

and sticky food waste. That’s the scenario that writer and blogger Jonathan Bloom envisions when

noting that “every day, America wastes enough food to fill the Rose Bowl.”According to a 2012 report by the National Resources Defense Council

(NRDC), 40 percent of food in the United States is never eaten. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated that more than 34 million tons of food waste was generated in 2010.

“This not only means that Americans are throwing out the equivalent of $165 billion each year, but also that the uneaten food ends up rotting in landfills as the single largest component of U.S. municipal solid waste where it accounts for almost 25 percent of U.S. methane emissions,” the NRDC says.

The EPA notes that food waste accounted for almost 14 percent of the total municipal solid waste stream, less than three percent of which was recovered and recycled in 2010. The rest — 33 million tons — was thrown away. The result, says the EPA, is that food waste is the single largest component of municipal solid waste reaching landfills and incinerators.

While some cities such as San Francisco and Seattle have mandated programs for collecting food waste for composting — with more legislation expected across the country — much still needs to be done.

“Food waste diversion represents a major opportunity for the state to increase material recovery and should become an increasing priority for local and state recycling programs, as well as food waste generators such as supermarkets and restaurants,” says Scott Mouw, recycling program director for the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources. “Since curbside recycling is on the rise, and we’ve made progress with many other recyclable materials, food waste is the next frontier for reducing the state’s dependence on solid waste landfills.”

North Carolina generates more than 1.1 million tons of food waste annually. To address that waste, the state agency is co-hosting a Southeast Food

Waste Reduction Conference in Charlotte. The Nov. 12-13 conference is geared for people in both the public and private sector working in the fields of composting and organics recycling.

Composting manufacturers, businesses and entrepreneurs such as Rian Bedard say dealing with the growing mountain of food detritus can not only help the environment but can prove to be a smart economic move.

“It’s exploding right now. It’s absolutely exploding,” says Bedard, who launched EcoMovement in 2009 to collect food scraps from restaurants and other food waste generators in the Seacoast area of New Hampshire and then takes it to be composted. “It’s the new frontier.”

Bedard started the company when he moved from San Francisco to New Hampshire and realized that, unlike San Francisco, composting wasn’t widely practiced.

“When I was in San Francisco, composting was offered curbside,” he notes. “It was just part of an everyday thing. We had big bins for food waste and yard waste. It was no big deal. I moved back here and people had no clue.

“We’re a lot of salty New Englanders,” he adds. “A lot of people don’t want to change.”

Bedard started what he described as a “pilot program” when he first started the business in Dover, NH.

“We started out with three or four businesses that we worked with,” he recalls. “We went in and we educated them on why food waste going to a landfill was bad, the methane it produces, the fact that it’s a wasted resource. Then we would train the staff to teach them how to separate stuff.”

From that meager beginning, the 29-year-old Bedard has grown EcoMovement’s customer base to 30 clients, including schools, hospitals, nursing homes and residential customers. He is currently looking for land to start his own composting facility, rather than having to pay certified compost plants in the area when he delivers the food waste. Hauling of food waste has increase from 15-20 tons a week in the early days to 30-40 tons today, he reports.

“We go to a lot of events and talk to a lot of people and do a lot of education and so that’s the only way it’s growing,” he says. “We’re doing pretty good. We’re taking off.”

EcoMovement will, when required, handle the entire waste stream for a customer. It then subcontracts with other haulers to recycle the other wastes or to haul the remaining trash.

“What we were able to do was to get these businesses that had five bins of trash and one bin of recycling down to just one bin of trash,” Bedard says. “It was unbelievable. We cut their waste by 90 percent.”

The mandatory composting program that Bedard witnessed in San Francisco has also dramatically reduced the amount of food waste going to landfills serving the city by the bay. A pilot composting program was begun in 1996, followed by a city-wide voluntary program in 2001. The program became mandatory in 2009 — requiring all residents to separate their refuse into recyclables, compostables and landfill trash. The city has since composted more than 1 million tons of food waste and has produced more than 600,000 cubic yards of compost, according to officials.

With a diversion rate of 78 percent, the city is well on its way to meeting its goal of having zero waste by 2020, thanks to companies such as Diversion First, which shows businesses how to become more sustainable and save substantial sums of money in the process.

“Composting is just one part of a business becoming sustainable,” a company spokesman says. “The unique policies that San Francisco has to encourage businesses to adopt a sustainable model make diverting recyclables and compostable materials from the landfill a great first step toward truly having a green footprint.”

Some San Franciscans seem to be adapting well to those policies. “For San Franciscans like myself, life without the ‘Fantastic Three’ —

the simple, color-coded cart system consisting of a green composting, blue recycling and black, often smaller trash cart — has become unthinkable,” writes Sven Eberlein on the website alternet.org. “Putting banana peels and used tissues into an empty quart of ice-cream is part of our routine. Trips to cities without composting bins feel like visits to strange planets in distant galaxies.

‘The fact that we could so quickly get used to Skittle-sized garbage bags while our compost bags are bulging with leftovers speaks not only to a well-

The New Frontier: Taking a Big Bite Out

of Food WasteBy P.J. Heller


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conceived program and the adaptability of San Francisco residents, but to the potential of reaching similar milestones anywhere else in the U.S or abroad,” he says.

Nearly 3,000 miles away, Carla Castagnero, owner of AgRecycle, Inc., a composting company in Pittsburgh, PA, echoes the sentiments about food waste composting.

“There has been a dramatic increase in food waste diversion and a dramatic increase in people’s realization that food scraps really aren’t waste,” she says. “They can be a resource and do not need to go to landfills any more.”

Castagnero says compost manufacturers are seeing more and more food scraps coming to their facilities.

“There’s just this greater understanding that it doesn’t have to go to the landfill anymore,” she says.

Part of that was driven home during the recent recession, Castagnero says. “I think there was a dramatic shift in the last recession and people really

looked at sound business practices and realized that throwing everything away was really not the best way to run a sustainable company,” she says.

AgRecycle, which will celebrate 21 years in business in December, began taking in pre-consumer food waste in 1998 and post-consumer food waste in 2007. The company operates its own trucks to pick up the waste. It serves the western Pennsylvania area.

AgRecycle handles food waste from generators including school districts, mom-and-pop restaurants, grocery stores and food producers. It also serves PNC Park, home to the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team, and the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, the first facility in the world to earn a platinum certification for operations and maintenance under the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system.

“Partnering with AgRecycle has been extremely rewarding as not only has the company helped us pioneer our compost program, they have been extremely supportive of our efforts,” notes Kim Wynnyckyj, marketing specialist and community liaison with Whole Foods Market in Pittsburgh. “Produce that is no longer suitable for sale and other compostable waste that used to go into landfills is now being hauled to facilities such as AgRecycle. These materials are turned into a nutrient rich compost that we spread in our community garden.”

That compost is what Castagnero says she wants her company to be known for. “One of the things that people forget is . . . most people view us as waste handlers,” she says. “We view ourselves as a product manufacturer. People forget the wonderful properties of finished compost. We don’t take anything that is dirty or contaminated . . . We view it as a manufacturing process where we want to get the highest and best finished compost out the door.”

Other compost manufacturers are also touting the fact that they accept food waste. Among them: Compost Cincy, said to be Cincinnati’s only urban compost facility. It opened for business in July and receives waste from companies including Kroger, Walmart as well as individual restaurants.

Diverting food waste from landfills not only helps extend the life of those rapidly filling sites, but helps cut methane emissions, one of the most potent greenhouse gases which can remain in the atmosphere for nine to 15 years, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Landfills are the third largest generator of methane in the U.S., the agency says.

A study in the United Kingdom, meantime, estimated that greenhouse gases generated by food scraps in landfills was equivalent to the emissions of one in five cars on UK roads.

Businesses, including grocery stores, restaurants and fast-food eateries, are among those who are discovering that composting food waste can generate positive publicity and a better bottom line by reducing their trash hauling and disposal costs. Food waste accounts for about half of a restaurant’s waste stream, according to industry officials.

At the Green Restaurant Association, the goal is for eateries to have near-zero waste.

“Our goals are nothing less than to create an environmentally sustainable restaurant industry,” says Michael Oshman, founder and chief executive officer of the Boston-based association.

Among the requirements for a restaurant to be certified as “green” by the association is that it must have its food waste composted.

“Easily half of the restaurant’s waste, the heavy wet side of the waste, there’s no reason in this day and age in most of the big cities that this can’t

Continued from previous page

Continued on page 8

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be going back into soils to grow new food,” says Oshman, who started the organization in 1990 and has restaurant members in 44 states and Canada.

Companies such as EcoMovement in New Hampshire are starting up to help restaurants and other food waste generators to achieve those goals.

“Every day, ordinary people who just care about the environment and have a dream can start up these little businesses and scale them up,” Bedard says.

In other cases, food waste generators may take the initiative on their own to compost.

At the University of Michigan, for example, a pilot program collected and composted more than 29 tons of pre-consumer food waste in 1998. That number grew to more than 145,000 tons in 2012. The collected waste is brought to the city of Ann Arbor’s compost facility.

A post-consumer pilot program is currently underway at the university.

Composting of food-prep waste at Appalachian State University in North Carolina proved so successful that the school last year opened a larger facility which could take up to 275 tons of material, nearly three times its previous site.

“It’s going to really help us in our sustainability efforts,” Mike O’Connor, director of Appalachian’s physical plant, said at the time. “We’re going to increase the amount of food waste we’re going to be able to put through here. We’re currently recycling or diverting about 40 percent of our waste. That’s phenomenal. This will allow us to increase that number.”

Oshman says it makes little difference whether restaurateurs — or for that matter any business, school or organization — get involved in composting for altruistic or economic reasons.

“It doesn’t matter what the motivation is,” he says. “What matters is that restaurants just got all their plastic wrap, their aluminum, food and napkins and packaging out of the landfill and now it’s going back into new office paper, new plastic containers, new cardboard containers and that food is now going back into soil that’s going to grow your sandwich six months from now.”

The New Frontier: Taking a Big Bite Out of Food Waste

Rian Bedard, who lists his title as “chief executive composter” at EcoMovement, delivers a load of food waste to a composting facility. Photos courtesy of Rian Bedard, EcoMovement.

Adam Williams, an employee at EcoMovement, checks one of the bins used to collect food waste.


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Campus Organic Waste Recycling Takes Off

UEENSLAND, ALBERTA, CANADA–University students have taken up food waste recycling in a serious way, according to a report on Queensjournal.com.

For Queen’s University campuses, the result of such efforts has been a weekly 200 kg of organic waste diverted from landfills since the inception of its program this past February. University of Guelph’s Office Organics Program is responsible for annually diverting 100 metric tons of food waste.

An audit done in January 2011 at Queen’s University revealed that 70% of campus refuse going to landfills was food waste. With growing interest in organic waste collection expressed by students, faculty and school employees, the University Sustainability Office launched its collection program earlier this year. For off-campus housing and residence dining halls, and many office buildings, indoor green bins have been provided, along with educational consultation on what may and may not go into the bins. Some students have begun backyard composting.

At the University of Guelph, a similar program that has been running since 2003 involves 22 campus locations. In addition to office participants, smaller apartment-style residences are also involved with volunteers recycling on an individual basis, though receptacles are provided.

Future plans at Queen’s include an environmental office certification program to track on-campus office environmental habits and evaluate for composting, energy usage and transportation sustainability measures.

Dairy Digesters Turn Manure into Clean Energy

ADAMS COUNTY, WI—Marshfieldnewsherald.com reports that the number of large-scale dairies is increasing, particularly in the “Dairy State,” Wisconsin. In some cases, herds at such farms may total more than 4000 head of cattle. While foes

of these operations call attention to odor and water contamination, issues that have been well-documented in the media, agribusiness has been developing solutions with valuable environmental benefits.

Several dairies in Central Wisconsin have installed biodigesters, processing systems that break down animal waste. The biodigesters reduce odor and greenhouse gas, as well as degrade environmental toxins. The newest systems provide an added benefit–clean energy. At Central Sands Dairy, owned by the Wysocki Family of Companies, there’s even enough electricity created to sell back to the utility grid. The methane gas that is captured in the break-down process is used to fuel farm vehicles.

Currently, there are 26 animal manure digesters operating in Wisconsin and 186 in the United States, according to AgSTAR, a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy. In a 2011 report, manure biodigesters reduced direct greenhouse gas emissions by more than one million metric tons.

Digesters use anaerobic (oxygen-free) tank processing to kill bacteria, such as salmonella and E-coli to break down the manure. The byproduct, methane gas, is captured and can be used to generate electricity. It also can be mixed with other gas and used to fuel vehicles or sold commercially. Clean Energy North America, the company operating New Chester Dairy’s biogester, will sell the methane gas.

The liquids from the tank are recyclable, too. Diverted to a holding pond, the solids are removed for use as fertilizer, which can be spread on the farmland or bagged and sold. Some dairies sell the dried manure to companies that bag it and market it as organic fertilizer. Communities benefit from this solution, as well. Central Sands dairy allows residents from the surrounding area to come and take dried fertilizer on designated days in the spring for use in their home gardens.

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Utah Community Group Fights Compost Odor

UTAH COUNTY, UT—The Deseret News (www.deseretnews.com) reports that a Utah compost facility and a citizens’ advocacy group remain at odds over foul odors and alleged compliance issues.

Few complaints about odors have been filed since the dispute began. Nonetheless, the advocacy group, Citizens for Clean Air and Progress (CCAP), representing businesses and residents, is continuing its legal action. CCAP blames the American Fork compost facility run by the Utah County’s Timpanogos Special Service District for allowing a 300 percent increase in biosolids production since 2010. CCAP wants the District to shut down its compost operation and pay the plaintiffs $425 million in damages.

The dispute centers around two issues, the first of which is the alleged sharp increase in biosolids production – an amount that CCAP says has totaled 26,424 dry metric tons (DMT). The group also claims the facility has been operating in violation of its permits with the Utah Department of Water Quality. CCAP says the increase in greenwaste has contributed to foul odors which are driving away businesses and devaluing both commercial and residential real estate.

The solid waste district officials deny CCAP’s biosolids production figure, saying such an increase would be impossible because the average waste intake would have had to triple, which it didn’t. A reporting error – entering tons as the measurement unit, rather than yards – occurred in 2011, the District officials explain. They say the actual amount of compost produced is 6,656 DMT. They also say that measures have been taken to reduce odors.

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Compost Contamination Woes – A Sign of the Times

According to a Vermont Digger.org article, compost contamination from herbicides in horse feed and grasses is growing into a sizable problem. Mandated recycling of organic waste and the ever-increasing demand

for soil amendments are two trends on an apparent collision course, compost-ing industry experts warn.

The situation has compelled composters to urge the state to consider regulatory and certification measures ensuring the quality and safety of compost products. So far, laboratory test results have been inconclusive, federal and state EPA standards and labeling requirements are murky, at best. And, the long-term health effects of pesticide and herbicide residues in compost are unknown.

The magnitude of the problem came to light last summer when gardeners around Vermont reported damage to plants from the soil amendment made by Green Mountain Compost, a subsidiary of Chittenden Solid Waste District. The damage was traced to herbicides still present in the compost when it was sold. Although herbicides were detected in compost from other companies, the ill effects only were seen where Green Mountain compost was applied.

Green Mountain refunded hundreds of customers and provided them with herbicide absorption kits and bags of oats. Planting oats as a cover crop speeds the degradation of herbicides. Customers were asked to bring in garden waste in exchange for the oats, which they were instructed to plant and harvest in fall. They were asked to deliver the oat clippings back to Chittenden Solid Waste District drop-off centers in marked bags for analysis.

Dan Goossen, Green Mountain’s general manager, said he has changed the mix of feedstocks in the compost. Horse manure has been replaced by chicken manure. The District also has sought an alternative source for grass clippings

because clippings previously used came up positive for picloram and clopyrid in its initial testing. Another change that has been implemented is reducing the height of the compost piles from 12 feet to eight feet. This is done in the second phase of composting, says Goossen, to slow the decomposition process and allow more time for any chemical residues to degrade. The company also is tapping research universities around the country for more answers and solutions.

Meanwhile, some long-time composters complain that government regulations have lagged behind the astronomical growth of the compost industry. State and local mandates for recycling organic waste are proliferating at the same time the demand for soil amendments is exploding, the latter being due to the depleted condition of most soils.

Proactively, Vermont composters have asked the state EPA to look at ways to prevent source-point contamination and review the compost manufacturing process for improvements; to develop a (lab testable) compostability standard for herbicides and pesticides; and set up a fund to compensate composters affected by chemicals in EPA-approved products that are detected in their compost. So far the U.S. EPA has declined to impose additional testing on the chemical companies, nor has it agreed to consider compost certification programs.

The state EPA is helping the Chittenden Solid Waste District figure out how the herbicides got into the Green Mountain Compost system, but CSWD won’t have proof that the herbicides have been rendered inert until plants grown in soil with their compost leaf out healthily. Bio-assays of the material (growing tests) have begun in an on-site greenhouse provided by the University of Vermont.

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Droughts are Pushing Trees to the Limit

According to a report in sciencedaily.com, droughts in the Southwest made more severe by warming temperatures are

putting plants in stressful growing conditions, a new study has found, identifying an increas-ingly water-thirsty atmosphere as a key force that sucks moisture from plants, leading to potentially higher stress -- especially in mid and low elevations.

As temperatures rise and droughts become more severe in the Southwest, trees are increasingly up against extremely stressful growing conditions, especially in low to middle elevations, University of Arizona researchers report in a study soon to be published in the Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences.

Lead author Jeremy Weiss, a senior research

specialist in the UA department of geosciences, said: “We know the climate in the Southwest is getting warmer, but we wanted to investigate how the higher temperatures might interact with the highly variable precipitation typical of the region.”

Weiss’ team used a growing season index computed from weather data to examine limits to plant growth during times of drought.

“The approach we took allows us to model and map potential plant responses to droughts under past, present and future conditions across the whole region,” explained Julio Betancourt, a senior scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey who co-authored the study along with Jonathan Overpeck, co-director of the UA Institute of the Environment. Betancourt holds

adjunct appointments in the UA department of geosciences, the UA School of Geography and Development, the UA School of Natural Resources and the Environment and the UA Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research.

“Our study helps pinpoint how vegetation might respond to future droughts, assuming milder winters and hotter summers, across the complex and mountainous terrain of the Southwest,” Betancourt said.

For this study, the researchers used a growing season index that considers day length, cold temperature limits and a key metric called vapor pressure deficit to map and compare potential plant responses to major regional droughts during 1953-56 and 2000-03.

A key source of plant stress, vapor pressure deficit is defined as the difference between how much moisture the air can hold when it is saturated and the amount of moisture actually present in the air. A warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor, and during droughts it acts like a sponge sucking up any available moisture from the ground surface, including from plants.

Both droughts -- with the more recent one occurring in warmer times -- led to widespread tree die-offs, and comparisons between them can help sort out how both warming and drying affected the degree of mortality in different areas.

Weiss pointed out that multiyear droughts with precipitation well below the long-term average are normal for the Southwest. He said the 1950s drought mainly affected the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and southern High Plains and happened before warming in the region started. The 2000s drought centered on the Four Corners area and occurred after regional warming began around 1980.

The actual causes of physiological plant stress and tree death during droughts are being investigated by various research teams using models and field and greenhouse experiments. One possibility is prolonged embolism, or the catastrophic disruption of the water column in wood vessels as trees struggle to pump moisture from the soil in the heat of summer. The other is carbon starvation as leaves shut their openings, called stomates, to conserve leaf water, slowing the uptake of carbon dioxide needed for photosynthesis. Stomatal closure is triggered by deficits in the ambient vapor pressure, which controls the rate of evaporation for water and is very much influenced by temperature.

“When the air is hotter and drier, it becomes more difficult for plants to conserve water while taking up carbon dioxide,” Weiss explained. “As plants become starved of carbon, it also weakens their defenses and renders them more susceptible to insect pests.”

To make matters worse, Weiss said, the size of the “atmospheric sponge” grows faster during increasingly hotter summers like those over the last 30 years, absorbing even more moisture from soil and vegetation.

Continued on page 18

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New York Food Waste Compost Facility Opens

KINGSTON, NY — Recordonline.com reports that the Mid-Hudson-based Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency expects

to compost 30 tons of food waste a week, once its pilot program is running at full speed.

In the beginning, the Organics Recovery Facility, as it is called, is accepting waste from area businesses and institutions only. SUNY New Paltz and The Culinary Institute have expressed interest in participating.

The outdoor composting facility is a three-sided, 100-by-40-foot concrete block structure, built at a cost of $40,000, which was co-funded equally by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency.

“The program will pay for itself in a year with tipping fees and the sale of the product from compost,” agency recycling coordinator, Michelle Bergkamp says. The new soil will be sold for $15 per cubic yard.”

At $50 per ton to dump food scraps, yard waste and food-soiled paper, such as tea bags and paper napkins, haulers will be saving half the customary $100 per ton municipal solid waste tipping fee. This is an incentive that Bergkamp hopes assures participation in the program.

According to agency executive director Tim Rose, the composting method used involves mixing a pile with one-third compost and two-thirds wood chips, then forcing air through it. This method prevents odors that are often associated with composting.

“When warmer temperatures combine with drought, relatively stressful growing conditions for a plant become even more stressful,” Weiss explained. “You could say drought makes that atmospheric sponge thirstier, and as the drought progresses, there is increasingly less moisture that can be evaporated from soil and vegetation to fill -- and cool -- the dry air.”

“In a sense, it’s a vicious circle. Warmer temperatures during droughts lead to even drier and hotter conditions.”

The researchers mapped relatively extreme values of vapor deficit pressure for areas of tree die-offs during the most recent drought determined from annual aerial surveys conducted by the U.S. Forest Service.

“Our study suggests that as regional

warming continues, drought-related plant stress associated with higher vapor pressure deficits will intensify and spread from late spring through summer to earlier and later parts of the growing season, as well to higher elevations,” the authors write. This could lead to even more severe and widespread plant stress.

The results are in line with other trends of warming-related impacts in the Southwest over the past 30 years, including earlier leafout and flowering, more extensive insect and disease outbreaks, and an increase in large wildfires.

“We’re seeing climatic growing conditions already at an extreme level with just the relatively little warming we have seen in the region so far,” Weiss said. “Our concern is that vegetation will experience even more extreme growing conditions as anticipated further warming

exacerbates the impacts of future droughts.”Weiss added: “We also know that part of

the regional warming is linked to human-caused climate change. Seeing vapor-pressure deficits at such extreme levels points to the conclusion that the warmer temperatures linked to human-caused climate change are playing a role in drying out the region.”

Betancourt said: “We have few ways of knowing how this is going to affect plants across an entire landscape, except by modeling it. There is not much we can do to avert drought-related tree mortality, whether it is due to climate variability or climate change.”

Instead, Betancourt suggested, land managers should focus on how to manage the regrowth of vegetation in the aftermath of increased large-scale ecological disturbances, including wildfires and drought-related tree die-offs.

“Models like the one we developed can provide us with a roadmap of areas sensitive to future disturbances,” Betancourt said. “The next step will be to start planning, determine the scale of intervention and figure out what can be done to direct or engineer the outcomes of vegetation change in a warmer world.”

Droughts are Pushing Trees to the LimitContinued from page 16

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Vancouver Launches Food Waste Recycling

VANCOUVER, B.C.—According to an article in the Vancouver Sun (www.vancouversun.com), recycling just got easier for about 100,000 households with a promising new program underway to divert all organic material from landfills by 2015.

The pilot project now eliminates the requirement for citizens to meticulously separate certain types of waste for collection. The City of Vancouver is now supplying bins for household, yard and food waste. Food scraps, raw and cooked, can go into the newly provided green bins, right along with pizza boxes, coffee grounds, eggshells, and food-soiled paper. Such co-mingling is now permissible because of the volume of green matter being composted. The food waste is trucked to private composting facilities, such as Harvest Power, which are on contract with the city.

To prevent the logistics and odor issues that often accompany composting enterprises, Metro Vancouver officials and landfill operators say they are planning things very carefully. The city is studying organics programs around the world to determine what works and what doesn’t. And, while they are teaming up with hauling companies and municipalities to encourage more capacity for organics, they also are considering the impact of large-scale composting on area residents. For example, new facilities will have to be licensed and disposal bans or “polluter pays” rules are being considered.

The pilot program is part of an overall effort to divert all organic material from landfill sites by 2015, when a ban on dumping organics takes effect. The city plans to reduce regular residential garbage pick up to biweekly. Green bin pick up will continue weekly. Because no new staff or resources are involved in the green bin pickup, the program is expected to be cost-neutral. Next year green bins will be provided to multi-family buildings and businesses, such as restaurants and grocery stores.

Harvest Power, which collects revenue through the tipping fees as well as from the sale of compost, hopes to partner with Vancouver’s northeast municipalities to build composting sites throughout the region.

Residential backyard composting still is being encouraged to accommodate citizens who want to make their own compost and to redirect waste from sink garburators, which empty into the sewage system.

Study Shows N.C. Generates More than 1 Million Tons of Food Waste Annually

North Carolina’s businesses and citizens generate more than 1.1 million tons of food waste each year, according to a

study released today by the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Prepared by the Division of Environmental Assistance and Outreach, or DEAO, the study estimates that food makes up at least 12 percent of municipal solid waste (MSW) in North Carolina. DENR’s report (found online at http://goo.gl/BK9Nq) provides individual estimates for residential and commercial waste generation, as well as the total MSW landfill stream. In addition, the study reports specific estimates for food retailers such as supermarkets.

“Food waste diversion represents a major opportunity for the state to increase material recovery and should become an increasing priority for local and state recycling programs, as well as food waste generators such as supermarkets and restaurants,” said Scott Mouw, state recycling program director. “Since curbside recycling is on the rise, and we’ve made progress with many other recyclable materials, food waste is the next frontier for reducing the state’s dependence on solid waste landfills.”

Additional findings from the study include: The projected estimate of annual food waste •

that enters the residential waste stream in North Carolina is 673,362 tons. This equates to just over seven pounds of waste per household, per week.

The commercial sector – mainly food • retailers in the restaurant and grocery industries – generates an estimated 569,343 tons of food waste every year.

Together, fast food and full service restaurants • produce the largest total amount of food waste in the retail business. Meanwhile, the average supermarket produces more waste than any other single restaurant or convenience store, 106 tons of food waste every year.

Large-scale diversion of food waste from disposal is uncharted territory for most communities around the United States. However, DEAO estimates that more than 60,000 tons of waste per year are already being diverted from North Carolina landfills through collection and composting of separated food from individual businesses and institutions, subscription residential food waste collection services, commercial donations to food kitchens and household backyard composting. The report suggests that DENR and local governments work to build up and expand the collection of food waste from the commercial and retail sector, such as large supermarket chains. It also notes the need to facilitate the growth of household diversion programs to accompany curbside recycling in the residential sector, the state’s largest source of food waste.

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Info Request #175

Report Reveals Conservation Efforts Have Strong, Positive Impacts in WatershedUSDA Study Shows Wind Erosion Control Greatest Conservation Need in Missouri River Basin

A new study shows that conservation practices have made great strides in reducing pollutant losses from cultivated cropland in the Mis-souri River Basin. The study – called the “Assessment of the Effects

of Conservation Practices on Cultivated Cropland in the Missouri River Basin” – showed that conservation practices, such as building terraces and reducing tillage, reduce the runoff of sediment by 76 percent, nitrogen by 54 percent and phosphorus by 60 percent.

“This study shows the hard work of conservation-minded farmers and ranchers is having positive benefits for waterways downstream,” said Dave White, chief of USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. “We are seeing cleaner water in the Missouri River, which means that we are sending cleaner water to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. Conservation efforts – like the ones we have seen in this basin – are testament to the importance of conservation on the landscape level.”

The report is part of USDA’s tradition to assess the effects of conservation practices and how they can be improved. It is part of a series completed for USDA’s Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP) and it covers Nebraska, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

“These reports compose part of the scientific backbone that we use to improve and update our conservation efforts,” White said. “We use the assessments to strengthen our service to our Nation’s landowners and natural resources.”

Although conservation practices installed by producers have reduced the runoff of sediment and nutrients in the Missouri River Basin, wind erosion remains the top conservation concern in the region.

The report found that 18 percent of cultivated cropland in the region has a moderate or high need for additional conservation practices to further reduce sediment and nutrient losses from the basin. Although this percentage is lower than in other regions studied by USDA, it represents more than 15 million acres in the vast Missouri River Basin. Soil and nutrient losses through wind erosion, particularly in the western part of the basin which is drier, are the most critical conservation concern in the region.

If additional conservation practices were implemented, NRCS technical experts estimate that the conservation practices would reduce runoff of sediment by an additional 28 percent, nitrogen by an additional 13 percent and phosphorus by an additional 12 percent. Comprehensive conservation planning that includes both erosion control and nutrient management practices is needed to simultaneously reduce sediment and nutrient losses through wind, runoff and leaching.

Download a fact sheet, a summary or the full report for the Missouri River Basin at http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/national/technical/nra/ceap/?&cid=stelprdb1048705.

St. Louis Jazzes It Up with Food Waste Recycling

ST. LOUIS, MO—Organic food waste recycling is taking off in St. Louis with two new pilot programs involving downtown restaurants and Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.

The Partnership for Downtown St. Louis’ “Project Compost” is distributing on-site bins for pre- and post-compostable waste in an effort to divert more than 1,500 tons of organic food waste from landfills each year. The expected total amount of diverted waste is estimated to be 3,000 tons.

Funding for the project comes from Solid Waste Management District and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources grants.

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Product/Equipment ProfilesMorbark Introduces 4600XL Horizontal Grinder

The Morbark 4600XL Horizontal Grinder i s a v e r s a t i l e ,

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The Morbark 4600XL is built with a large hammermill and a 36” tip swing. Standard features include a 60-inch infeed opening for processing bulky material, engine options up to 1050-HP and the easy-to-operate Morbark Integrated Control System (MICS) which allows feed systems to be adjusted for increased output while maximizing fuel efficiency.

Additional features include an internal planetary drive feed wheel with no chains or sprockets resulting in lower maintenance, more torque and better durability; a pegged feed wheel to prevent wrapping; WHD 120 rugged infeed chain to easily handle tough material; proven drive line protection system to protect against catastrophic damage from contaminants; and a laser-cut upturn rotor, factory balanced with forged hammers for unsurpassed durability.

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With a production capacity of 200 lbs. per hour, the VPM 250 Pellet Mill from Vecoplan Midwest, is

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www.mulchandsoilcouncil.org

Info Request #142

Pine Trees Infested with Beetles Contribute More to Air Pollution and Haze in Forests

According to a report in sciencedaily.com, the hordes of bark beetles that have bored their way through more than 6 billion trees in the western U.S. and British Columbia since the 1990s do more than

damage and kill stately pine, spruce and other trees. A new study finds that these pests can make trees release up to 20 times more of the organic substances that foster haze and air pollution in forested areas. It appears in ACS’ journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Kara Huff Hartz, Gannet Hallar and colleagues explain that western North America is experiencing a population explosion of mountain pine beetles, a type of bark beetle that damages and kills pines and other trees. The beetles bore into the bark of pine trees to lay eggs. Gases, called volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which act as defense mechanisms against the beetles, are released from the bore holes. VOCs, however, also contribute to the smog and haze that obscures views of natural landscapes in U.S. National Parks and other nature areas where tourists gather in the summertime. To determine exactly how beetle attacks affect the atmosphere, the researchers measured VOC levels in the air near healthy and infected pine trees.

They found that beetle-infested trees release up to 20 times more VOCs than healthy trees near the ground surface. The predominant type of VOC was a monoterpene called ß-phellandrene. The data suggest that the bark beetle epidemic in the western U.S. could have led to higher monoterpene concentrations in the air that can contribute to haze, which can harm human health, reduce visibility and impact climate, say the researchers. For more information visit http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120523115045.htm.

http://www.mulchandsoilcouncil.org

http://www.sciencedaily.com/


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InsIde ThIs IssueTree Shreds Show Promise

for Horticulture MixesPage 1

The New Frontier: Taking Big Bite Out of Food Waste

Page 6

Dairy Digesters Turn Manure into Clean Energy

Page 11

Droughts are Pushing Trees to the LimitPage 16

Vancouver Launches Food Waste RecyclingPage 19

Pine Trees Infested with Beetles Contribute More to Air Pollution and Haze in Forests

Page 22

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VOL. VI NO. 5 SeP / OCt 2012

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soil & mulch producer news sep/oct2012

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