Q&A

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METHODS AND ECONOMICS OF RECYCLING SEAFOOD PROCESSING WASTES
Q: We have a seafood residuals composting facility in Alaska and are interested in new business opportunities. Can you tell us who else is in the seafood waste recycling business — making bioproducts that range from compost and natural polymers to fish protein and meal?

A: Facilities that process fish, crab and shrimp generate up to 85 percent or more of their harvest as waste that requires disposal — or utilization. In a recent

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BioCycle World

BioCycle June 2004, Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 6

BAY-FRIENDLY LANDSCAPE PROGRAM STRESSES "DIVERT MORE"
AND "LANDFILL LESS"
The Waste Management Authority and Recycling Board of Alameda County, California serves the county, 14 cities and two sanitary districts — all located on the east side of San Francisco Bay. To provide better waste reduction options for its 1.5 million residents, writes Cynthia Havstad of the Authority, Bay-Friendly Landscape Guidelines were organized around seven principles: Landscape Locally; Landscape for Less to the Landfill; Nurture the Soil; Conserve Water; Conserve Energy; Protect Water & Air Quality; Create Wildlife Habitat.

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CLARENCE GOLUEKE COMPOST RESEARCHER, EDUCATOR

BioCycle June 2004, Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 4

Editorial

CLARENCE GOLUEKE — who died May 23, 2004 at age 93 — was internationally recognized for his research contributions to the science of composting and his work in the entire spectrum of solid waste management. To those of us who had the joy of knowing him personally, we will always treasure his wonderful qualities as a human being. Clarence had an enormous role in the launch and development of this publication right from its beginning in 1960. He also served as the initial editor of Compost Science & Utilization when it was founded in 1992.

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Converting Sugar Industry Wastes Into Ecofriendly Bioproducts (India)

BioCycle June 2004, Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 58

Once considered useless, filter cake and distillery spentwash — following solid state aerobic composting technology — become value-added products for sustainable agriculture.

C. Senthil and K.C. Das

THE SUGAR INDUSTRY follows textile manufacturing to be the second largest agriprocessing sector in India. A typical sugar and distillery complex generates large quantities of wastes like bagasse, filter cake, molasses and distillery spentwash. Bagasse is a solid waste of the sugar mill that is typically used as fuel in boilers for power generation. Molasses is a liquid by-product that is utilized as a fermentation substrate for production of ethanol for industrial and potable uses. Until recently, the filter cake and distillery spentwash were considered as "wastes" and had no known beneficial use. The scope for recycling these wastes in agriculture is vast by any standards, and the enormous potential that they offer in the production of compost has only been recently realized.

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Vermiculture Offers A New Agricultural Paradigm (Cuba)

BioCycle June 2004, Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 56

Based on a small-scale, locally self-sufficient approach, earthworms — through vermiculture — are now an important part of an effort in Cuba to restore the health and productivity of its agriculture.

Jeri L. Berc, Olegario Muñiz and Bernardo Calero

CUBA has applied its education and extension system to combine traditional methods with modern science, thereby establishing a national program for production and use of organic matter and biofertilizers.

Work has been carried out with the cooperation of the Cuban research centers,

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PENNSYLVANIA DAIRY FARMS JOIN MANURE-TO-ELECTRIC PROGRAM

BioCycle June 2004, Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 55

Similar methods that were used to finance wind and solar power are now being applied to boost biomass conversion for "green tag" energy benefits.

George Hoguet

A PROGRAM to use methane and other biomass projects in Pennsylvania with support of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and Environmental Protection, and financing from the West Penn, Met Ed, and Pennelec Sustainable Energy Funds, has been introduced by a company called Native Energy. The company is in the process of completing arrangements to bring funds to a half dozen dairy farms, the first of which is the Schrack Family Dairy Farm near Loganton, Pennsylvania. It is expected that success with the first round projects will encourage other farms to participate.

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THE BIOLOGY OF SOILS

BioCycle June 2004, Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 46

Biological organisms give soil its life and energy and are responsible for driving most of the chemical reactions and transformations that occur.

Part IV
Richard Stehouwer

THE fourth and final article in this series on soil science fundamentals focuses on soil biology. Previous articles (October and November 2003 and April 2004) covered soil formation and soil physical and chemical properties and processes. By understanding soil fundamentals, composters and organics recyclers can better understand the role that organic amendments play in healthy and productive soils.

If sands and silts are the "skeleton" of the soil body, and clays and organic

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Using Seaweed Compost To Grow Bedding Plants

BioCycle June 2004, Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 43

University of Florida trials evaluate substrate characteristics and impact on containerized plants using varied percentages of partially composted seaweed and yard trimmings.

Kimberly K. Moore

THE ORNAMENTAL horticulture industry has a continuing need for organic materials as a component of the growing substrate for container grown plants. Composts from feedstocks such as biosolids, yard trimmings as well as MSW have been shown to be viable in bedding plant substrates, but plant responses can vary with different compost products. Therefore, it is important to identify physical and chemical substrate characteristics associated with optimum plant growth.

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How Novices Became Experts On The Compost Learning Curve

BioCycle June 2004, Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 40

The start-up and operation of the Beltsville composting process provided a thorough education in organic materials handling, windrow size, odor management, compost quality and public acceptance.
James F. Parr

IN THE EARLY 1970s, I was appointed Chief of the USDA-ARS (Agricultural Research Service) Biological Waste Management & Organic Resources Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland. The Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Water Act had required that public wastewater treatment plants shift from primary to secondary treatment which resulted in the following: Increased production of sludge (biosolids); Insufficient anaerobic digestion capacity; and Increased ultimate disposal by landfill, ocean dumping and incineration.

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IN-VESSEL SYSTEM GROWS COMPOSTING OPERATIONS IN FLORIDA

BioCycle June 2004, Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 30

Sumter County solid waste facility incorporates front-end recovery of recyclables as part of integrated management system.

Miriam Zimms

IN MARCH 2004, a new rotary digester began operating at the Sumter County, Florida Solid Waste, Recycling and Composting Facility (SWRCF) at Lake Panasoffkee. The original digester is currently undergoing repairs. At full capacity, the two digesters are designed to process about 200 tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) and biosolids.

The new digester, 14 feet in diameter by 185 feet long, is able to process 120

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BIOFILTRATION: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

BioCycle June 2004, Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 35

Living systems that rely on microbial populations to degrade compounds in
waste gases, biofilters have a rich history and a bright future.

Sarina J. Ergas and Beatriz Cárdenas-González

OVER the last two decades, biofiltration has become a key component in the control of odorous emissions from composting facilities, wastewater treatment plants, confined animal facilities, food industry, and other sources of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and odors. However, in the past, many decision makers at these facilities shied away from biofiltration technology because they had heard of system failures at other plants. Since that time, improvements in design and operation of biofilters have led to improvements in biofilter process performance and reliability. At the same time, we have begun to understand the limitations of biofilters and when other technologies may be more appropriate.

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BUILDING A KNOWLEDGE BASE FOR COMPOST TEA

BioCycle June 2004, Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 32

Field experiments this summer will compare disease control impacts on plants from applications of aerated and nonaerated compost tea.

Sarah Kelley

IN RECENT YEARS, water-based compost extracts — commonly known as compost teas — have attracted increasing attention from growers and researchers. Field trials, laboratory tests and grower testimonials suggest that these substances have the potential to suppress plant diseases, particularly fungal infections.

To obtain more data on the efficacy of aerated compost tea (ACT) for disease control, field experiments on a Long Island, New York farm are being conducted

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RECYCLING WOOD HELPS FIGHT FOREST FIRES

BioCycle June 2004, Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 53

Colorado town of Nederland uses thinnings to provide power and heat, while in Bernalillo, New Mexico wood slash and biosolids will be turned into compost.

DURING the last two years, millions of acres of forest land have burned as a result of extreme drought conditions. According to Steve Roosa of the BioEnergy Corporation in Denver, over 10,000 acres have already burned in 2004 in Arizona and over 8,500 acres in Colorado. "The fire season usually does not begin until late summer," points out Roosa, whose company was founded in 2003 to provide communities, schools and small businesses with a way to recycle woody biomass into renewable energy. Its first Community Biofuel Projects started round-the-clock operations in Nederland, Colorado in February.

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COMPOSTING FACILITIES APPLY LESSONS LEARNED TO CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS

BioCycle June 2004, Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 26

Facilities in Akron, Ohio and Calabasas, California —18 and 10 years old respectively — make process changes that have improved composting efficiency and economics, and built longevity into existing structures.

Nora Goldstein

OVER 20 years ago, the city of Akron, Ohio began construction of a 73 dry ton/day in-vessel biosolids composting facility. Doors opened in 1986 and since that time, the plant has been processing 100 percent of the biosolids produced by the city’s wastewater treatment plant. While the original in-vessel equipment, supplied by Paygro, is still in use, some significant changes have been made in recent years that have resulted in a more efficient operation. Chief among those changes was the installation of new belt filter presses, and a shift to using sawdust instead of shredded bark as an amendment.

In California, the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District in Calabasas, built an

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EVALUATING COMPOST AND BIOFILTER AERATION PERFORMANCE

BioCycle June 2004, Vol. 45, No. 6, p. 20

In a perfect aeration world, every microbe would be supplied with just the right amount of oxygen necessary to optimize its metabolism of the waste material. In reality, air always flows through the bed following the paths of least resistance.

Don Mathsen

FORCED aeration of bulk material by means of a blower, aeration floor and associated ductwork is at the heart of an ever-growing number of compost processes. Aerated static piles, in-vessel compost systems, and odor control biofilters all require either the continuous, or intermittent, movement of air through a biologically-active bed of material. Within these processes, the effectiveness and cost of the aeration function are major elements defining the performance of the overall system.

To achieve both optimal performance and economic value in an aeration system,

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