Cold Canyon Tour

The Zero Waste Club took a tour of the Cold Canyon Landfill and Recycling Center! We got to drive up to the site where they are currently burying trash, meet the falconer who keeps the birds from eating stuff, and go inside the recycling center where they hand sort everything you put in your blue bin.

It was a beautiful day and I was personally surprised at how nice the landfill was. I didn't notice too much of a smell, and the whole trash mountain that we drove on had been planted with grass and actually looked decent.

Random facts from the tour:

• 300 to 500 tons are buried every day at the landfill.
• By compacting the trash with a heavy tractor driving back and forth over it, they are able to fit 8 times as much stuff in the same volume.
• 18 people hand sort all of the recycling in the recycling center.
• The recyclables are then shipped away to other locations to be reprocessed.
• Buying goods "made from recycled material" increases the market price for recyclables, making recycling more economically attractive for waste management institutions everywhere.

Here are some pictures from the day:

Build a Composting Toilet

From Rory Aronson's blog:

Today I built a composting toilet and a urinal at the Upham house. The toilet consists of a 5 gallon bucket with a toilet seat on top, and a bucket of sawdust from the hardware store's shop vac to cover your work when you are done. Once the bucket gets filled up, it will be buried in a hole in the backyard to be further composted and eventually supply our tree in the back with nutrients. The urinal is a large funnel connected to a tube. The tube goes through the floor, out the wall, and into the grass outside.

Every time this system is used, we will prevent the use of 1.6 gallons of water and also alleviate the need to clean that water in the waste water treatment plant.

(4 flushes per day)*(1.6 gallons per flush)*(365 days) = 2,336 gallons saved per year

SLO County to Ban Disposable Bags

Bill Worrell, head of the Integrated Waste Management Authority (IWMA) proposed banning single use plastic and paper bags at supermarkets in order to promote the use of reusable bags. City Council voted unanimously on September 6, 2011, to pass the ordinance. Vote now goes to the IWMA board on the 14th. The ordinance will eliminate disposable bags from all county supermarkets July 1, 2012, and from smaller stores by Jan. 1, 2013. Let's hope it gets passed!

http://www.newtimesslo.com/news/6588/slo-council-mulls-disposable-bags/

Bringing Composting to the Upper Class

Kylie, Rory, and Jeremy built a rotating composter with some of the club funds this last weekend. They used bike wheels to make the barrel, and bike forks to allow the whole thing to rotate. On the ends, old bike tubes were used to seal up the holes between the spokes. They added latches to keep the door shut and a handle that Rory found in a dumpster to kick up the fancy score =] They then carried it across the train station bridge and set it up in Kylie's backyard. His name is George.

Recycling Master: Noah Smuckler

Morro Bay Music Festival Numbers

~ 270 lbs Total Waste

~ 100 lbs Recycling (Cans, Bottles, cardboard, plastic (no #6)

= 37% of Total

~ 135 lbs Compost (Paper, oyster shells, corn cobs, etc)

= 50% of Total

~   35 lbs Trash (zip ties, styrofoam coffee cups/lids/beer cups, misc dual plastic packaging)

= 13% of Total

Morro Bay Music Festival

Kylie, Rory, and Jeremy took the 4 waste stations out to the Morro Bay Music Festival this morning, painted on some last minute signage, and set up 3 of the stations. It was raining the whole day but the waste stations held up great, even to the occasional gusty winds!

The Zero Waste Team learned a lot from the test run of the waste stations. We decided that simplicity is the best way to go, and that easy setup and take down is a must. Already in this first generation, we decided to not use the footings or incorporate handles into the boards.

In the second generation, we will also get rid of the arrow signs, holders, and cutouts for manufacturing simplicity. These will be replaced by painted boxes and arrows on the boards themselves. Then, example items will be stapled onto the boards themselves and then removed at the end of the event.

Furthermore, next time we will have all of the posters in the previous blog post printed and laminated and placed on each station, along with the title of each section painted on the boards. A lot was learned and we are looking forward to the second generation of waste stations!

Waste Station Signs

Morro Bay Waste Stations Update 2

The first 4 waste stations are finally done! Jeremy, Lindsey, Rory, Gabe and Kylie finished painting them this afternoon, just in time for the Morro Bay Music Festival tomorrow! Big thanks to Hunter Kilpatrick and his brother for building two of the stations, Rory for building the other two, Miner's Ace Hardware for sponsoring the project, and Noah Smuckler and Hunter for giving the Zero Waste club the opportunity to take on the project. Pictures of construction and painting:

Morro Bay Waste Stations Update

Click images for full size.