Page 12 RAIN July 1979 mixed with everything else. Then chemicals along with mechanical and electric energy-all increasingly expensive~are used to separate the resulting goo into two fractions: a solid and a liquid. The solid is dried, aged and hauled by truck to various "disposal" sites. The liquid is-doped with free ele- . mental chlorine- a highly reactive element not found in concentrated elemental form in nature, at least on this planetand piped into the local river, on its way out to the ocean. We are only beginning to understand the long-term effects of the presence of chlorine residuals in sewage effluents. The impact on aquatic ecosystems is frightening. 3 Too Big, Too Small: Berkeley Gets Burnt Sometimes, the Either/Or process can get pretty subtle: Berkeley, California, is facing the closure of its municipallyowned landfill (really a "bayfill" since it is several hundred feet out into the San Francisco Bay) by the early l 980's. So an engineering and architectural firm was hired as Prime Contractor to figure out what to do. Because there are strong recycling interests and widely-successful programs in Berkeley already, some recyclers were hired to do parts of the study. A good idea so far. A composting study was done, showing a small, but strong local market at a good price. A composition study was completed which revealed significant tonnages of recyclables were possible, given source separation. Meanwhile, in neighboring El Cerrito, the technical and social basis was being laid down for universal collection of sourceseparated recyclables. Perhaps reflecting these positive developments, the cover graphic for the three volumes of the Prime Contractor's report pictured a re-designed and upgraded version of a recycling center, including materials storage and a retail operation. And yet, the Prime Contractor settled on a mechanized, centralized experimental garbage processing plant, including one or more incinerators to burn urban refuse. Since last year the whole thing has ballooned-from a single, experimental modular incinerator, to a 360-ton-per-day facility, to a projected 860-ton-per-day regional "burn plant," incinerating mixed wastes from the East Bay all the way down to San Leandro. The latest price tag is $10,000,000 set against a background of "potential" markets for the steam produced, a probable net energy loss when considering the complete process of burning·refuse-derived fuel, unresolved, extraordinarily complex questions about toxic emissions, and a stillexperimental and risky technology. 4 To get a better sense of how this happened, consider the memorandum from a waste management engineer for the California State Solid Waste Management Board to the chief environmental engineer for the firm employed to coordinate the effort of providing "resource recovery" for Berkeley. Included in this memo are the conclusions drawn at a "screening of the alternatives" meeting between the various engineers involved, eliminating off-hand all biologically based recycling systems-including composting-in favor of the burn plant: • Methanol, Ethanol, Ammonia and Hydrogen Synthesis were eliminated because several studies so far have shown that the economics of these processes require large systems of at least 1000 tons per day ... • Composting was conditionally eliminated. Although it is a demonstrated technology, there is not a demonstrated market for the compost in the quantities that would be produced by composting 200 tons per day ... • Biogasification should not be included. This technique is currently in a large-scale developmental process in Pompano Beach, Florida ... • Enzyme conversion of waste to protein is still in the early developmental stage; it is not ready for commercial operation, and therefore should not be included. The same can be said EFFECTIVE RECYCLING BEHAVIOR The line between disposal and reuse is barely perceptible in my greenhouse, unlike the dump where it tends towards absolute. As the compost is digested on the greenhouse's north side, it is converted into a host of organisms, whose life processes reduce the volume and weight of the solid mass by about 80 percent, by conversion into gases like water vapor, carbon dioxide, and small quantities of methane, ammonia, ethanol, etc. These gases flow into the south enclosure, which ______ is the greenhouse proper. Together they are a nutrient bath for the leaves, which absorb them through specialized structures. The carbon dioxide is converted to carbon ~nd oxygen, liberating the oxygen for me to breathe, and sunlight is used to build the carbons into long-chain organic molecules-the sugars, starches, fats and proteins of food for the table and plants for the hillside. The greenhouse is "passive" in the sense that there are no moving parts other than vents-unless you count the winds and breezes, flows of light and dark, heat and cold, the planet itself as it spins through its seasons. The greenhouse just sits there, conducting and focusing the energies that come its way ... I am a part of this process: I bring the compost feedstock and harvest the rich, crumbly humus residue for use as a growing medium and soil energizer and toner. I bring the seeds and cuttings, control the slugs and sowbugs (I feed them to fish), open and close the vents, and bring water. I know lots of specific small-scale, decentralized waste reducing/recycling systems that work. My personal favorite, though, is my solar greenhouse, which recycles more than half of our non-waterborne household wastes by weight-including floor dirt and vacuum cleaner filterings, some paper and cardboard, some iron, rags and even shoes. It also devours any animal manure I can get my hands on, several weed species that I'm trying to suppress while my perennial food plants get established, almost all the fall leaves, and probably 20 percent of the deadfall that comes out of the trees during storms. (The other 80 percent of the deadfall and prunings are cut and dried for kindling and firewood.) Using this system, while buying food in bulk, burning larger deadfall and prunings as kindling or firewood; saving glass, tin, oil and aluminum for the recycling center, sending
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