In defense of Starbucks

By: Jacob Grier
Special to The Examiner
08/24/10 5:27 PM EDT

Starbucks takes a lot of heat from environmentalists for all the trash generated by the estimated 3 billion paper cups it goes through each year. Some of these are recycled, but most of them end up in landfills. What’s often unappreciated is that recycling paper cups is not easy. Separating them from other trash is just the beginning; the next step is finding paper mills willing to take them. An article in the Seattle Timesilluminates how challenging this can be:

The challenge is to convince mills that coffee cups are decent fodder for boxes and other products they make. So far, mill executives remain skeptical, saying coffee cups take longer, and therefore cost more, to process than do other recycled items like cardboard boxes.

"Any time you're asking an industry to change the way it does things — and they have multimillion-dollar pieces of machinery in their mills — they need it to be proved," said Jim Hanna, Starbucks' director of environmental impact. "Once we prove there's a value to our cups, it will create market pull."

"Any time you're asking an industry to change the way it does things — and they have multimillion-dollar pieces of machinery in their mills — they need it to be proved," said Jim Hanna, Starbucks' director of environmental impact. "Once we prove there's a value to our cups, it will create market pull."

The article notes that coffee cups end up in the mixed paper fiber stream, which most US mills can use at only about 10% of a fiber blend. Some Chinese mills can go higher, but they don’t like coffee cups either: The poly coating that prevents the cups from absorbing liquid also makes them harder to process. Starbucks faces an uphill battle trying to turn their garbage into a resource.

Regulations are an obstacle too. In 2006 Starbucks launched cups made with 10% recycled paper. It may not seem like much, but getting these to market required years of research and strict testing to meet FDA standards. From NPR:

George Matthews is executive VP at Mississippi River Corporation, one of Starbucks' suppliers. His pulp company had to prove to the FDA it was safe to drink from a recycled-content cup. That meant eliminating any potentially harmful substances from the high-grade office paper in recycled pulp.

MATTHEWS: The new regulations that the FDA had come out with required testing to be done to really infinitesimal limits. So we not only had to test to those limits but in many cases had to develop the test protocol itself, because it hadn't been done before.

So Starbucks deserves more credit for their work on recycling than many people realize. But is all this effort really worthwhile? Should we start carefully rinsing and sorting our latte cups each morning? While recycling feels good, it’s not always worth the effort and expense. Economist Michael Munger suggests we take price signals seriously:

There is a simple test for determining whether something is a resource (something valuable) or just garbage (something you want to dispose of at the lowest possible cost, including costs to the environment). If someone will pay you for the item, it's a resource. Or, if you can use the item to make something else people want, and do it at lower price or higher quality than you could without that item, then the item is also a resource. But if you have to pay someone to take the item away, or if other things made with that item cost more or have lower quality, then the item is garbage. [...]

"Recycle, regardless of cost!" doesn't solve a problem; it creates one. Laws requiring recycling harm me, the environment, and everyone else. We have to take prices into account, because prices are telling us that we can't save resources by wasting resources.

Obviously environmental externalities may complicate the picture, but he’s right that recycling without considering all the trade-offs is senselessly burdensome.

Fortunately we aren’t yet required by law to recycle our coffee cups, but it’s easy to imagine that happening. My co-blogger Jason Kuznicki notes at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen that Cleveland is installing RFID chips into residents recycling bins to track how often they’re taken to the curb; people who don’t recycle enough will be fined $100.

The costs that go into cleaning, sorting, processing, and finding markets for recycled coffee cups are real. Starbucks deserves credit for trying to overcome them, but if they fail that might be a sign that we shouldn’t waste resources recycling coffee cups. And if consumers want to be green they can take Munger’s advice and follow the price signals: Starbucks offers a 10 cent discount to customers who bring in their own reusable mug.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/Examiner-Opinion-Zone/In-defense-of-Starbucks-101418549.html

Food Scraps In Vermont = Electricity

From The Burlington Free Press (Vermont):

October 4, 2009

A new view of food scraps’ potential

There’s power on your plate

By Nancy Remsen, Free Press Staff Writer

Instead of thinking “yuck” when faced with shriveled brown apple cores, slimly spinach leaves and stinky chicken bones, Dan Hecht of Montpelier thinks “energy.”

“There is value to be derived from stuff we throw away,” he said.

In an age when finding alternative sources of energy is both a state and national priority, Hecht points to the potential in a squandered resource: food scraps.

For one thing, it’s plentiful, Hecht said: “Every city and town in America already possesses a major source of renewable energy, one that does not need to be mined, harvested, refined or transported long distances.”

Hecht is project coordinator for the Central Vermont Recovered Biomass Facility, a research project that’s assessing the feasibility of collecting food waste, mixing it with manure and letting it stew until it releases methane gas, which can be used to produce heat and power, plus environmentally safe byproducts.

“The food garbage is the big innovation here,” Hecht said of this waste-to-energy project, seeded by a $492,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. “Nobody is doing post-consumer food waste.”

Once the research phase is completed in December, the food power project would move from the proof-on-paper phase to proof in practice.

The plan is to tap 14 tons a day of food scrap in the Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District, combine it with 10 tons a day of manure from area dairy farms, and feed it into a biodigester to be built on the campus of Vermont Technical College in Randolph. The methane produced would be used either to fuel the college’s heating plant or to generate electricity for the campus.

What’s left — likely a thick, dark liquid — would have several potential uses, such enriching soil on farmers’ fields.

Hecht said this project is intended to produce a roadmap that others in Vermont and across the country could follow to make better use of food scraps. Hecht tries to avoid calling food scraps “waste” because they have so much energy potential: 200 to 400 percent more energy per ton than manure.

Ponder the potential in greater Burlington, with its many eateries, educational institutions and a medical center, Hecht suggested. New data developed by consultants for the research project estimate 245 tons of food materials is produced weekly in Chittenden County.

First step: fetch the food

Start where the food scraps originate, such as the dining hall at Norwich University in Northfield.

Twice a week, a truck from Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District comes to Norwich and collects 22 totes full of food scraps, said Paul Bento, general manager of dining services at the university. Serving 716,000 meals a year, Norwich ends up with a lot of food scraps: 207 tons last year, Bento said.

The Central Vermont district began diverting food scraps from landfills in 2004, sending the material instead to two composting sites.

“We had identified organics in 2001 as a priority for diversion,” said Donna Barlow Casey, executive director of the waste district. It’s part of the district’s zero-waste commitment.

Because of the largely rural nature of the district, Barlow Casey said the food-scrap initiative has focused on commercial and institutional producers, not residential. That would remain the case even with the added demand of feeding a biodigester, she said.

To satisfy the end-users of the food scraps, the district had to provide contaminate-free material — no plastic wrap or foil, just food.

“We have one the cleanest food-scrap programs in the nation,” Barlow Casey said. “When we talk about contamination, it’s just the tiny stickers on fruit and vegetables. We work with every single business that comes on board. We train their kitchen staff. There is a feedback loop. If we see forks, plastic or paper, we reject that tote. It’s that feedback system that keeps the food clean.”

The totes aren’t small like the composting jars that homeowners may keep on their kitchen counters. They are 48-gallon rolling trash barrels with lids.

How smelly is that? Barlow Casey says putting sawdust in the bottom and layering more sawdust or coffee grounds with the food scraps buffers the odor.

“It does work,” confirmed Bento at Norwich.

Barlow Casey said there are more than enough sources of food scraps in Central Vermont to continue to provide material for the two composters and meet the 14-ton-a-day requirement of the new digester. New data estimate 98 tons of food scraps are produced weekly in the region. The district currently has 77 customers providing 18 tons of food scraps a week. In anticipation of having to ramp up collections, she said, the district just began recruiting new customers.

Collecting and delivering the food scraps is an expense that has to be balanced against the benefits of producing energy from it, Hecht said. In planning how to collect it, he said, “You have to do it with the shortest possible distance.”

Now the power part

There are many variables but fewer unknowns about the process that would transform rinds, bones and eggshells into power once they arrived at the biodigester, proposed for a site on the back portion of the Vermont Technical College campus, Hecht said.

Simply, he said, the food waste would go into a “blender” with some water and the manure to create the feedstock that would be put into an anaerobic digester. Some microbes would break down the organic materials into two byproducts: methane gas and a nutrient-rich liquid.

One of the questions yet to be answered is what regulations apply to this process, Hecht said.

“As of right now, we don’t have specific rules for digesters,” said David DiDomenico, environmental material engineer with the Department of Environmental Conservation. State regulators have been working on revisions to composting regulations, he said. “Our plan is to make it more of an organics rule. We’d like to put in a part for digesters.”

Other pending questions have to do with the best uses for the methane and the liquid effluent.

The methane, for example, could replace the oil that fuels the college’s central heating system and warms 15 buildings, said Frank Reed, a consultant working with Vermont Technical College on the project.

But what about in summer, when heat isn’t needed? Reed said the methane could be used to make electricity. Or maybe making electricity would be the best option year-round.

There also are options to weigh with the liquid effluent. It could be spread on fields, or perhaps used to grow algae in a process that would produce biofuels, Reed said.

Four consultants will provide models to help the college identify the options that best fit its energy goals and wallet. Hecht noted the reports from the consultants will provide others interested in food power with information about alternatives that might work under different conditions than those found at Vermont Technical College.

VTC will decide this winter whether to go ahead with planning and construction. Reed predicted that when the reports come in later this fall, “I think we will find it is feasible.”

What will Chittenden do?

The Chittenden Solid Waste District is pursuing its own research on how to divert more food and other organics from landfills. The district recently requested proposals from consultants for a comprehensive study.

“What is happening now is, we are about to head into the second era of modern solid-waste management,” said Tom Moreau, executive director of the Chittenden district. “This is the second wave of investment, and organics are going to be a big piece.”

Moreau said he is monitoring the development of the central Vermont project. He has no question about the feasibility of the biodigestion process.

“I’m confident it will work,” he said. “It will demonstrate to us in Vermont that once we collect it, we can handle it.”

For him, the challenge is food collection — whether from residents or commercial producers.

“People get lazy. They just want to throw things away,” Moreau said. “How do you collect the material in a cost-effective and energy-efficient way, and how do you get over the yuck factor?”

Contact Nancy Remsen at 651-4888 or nremsen@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com.

Additional Facts

Key terms when discussing “food power.”

• BIODIGESTER: An airtight container in which anaerobic — meaning without air — digestion takes place over periods that range from five to 60 days. The output from biodigestion is methane gas and a nutrient-rich, liquid.

• BIOMASS: Plant materials and animal waste that can be used as fuel to produce energy.

• FOOD SCRAPS: Food that is leftover from meals plus trimmings from food preparation.

What’s so great about food power?

• Food scraps are available in significant volumes.

• Food scraps produce 200-to-400 percent more methane than cow manure.

• Biodigestion of food scraps captures methane, reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

• Food scraps don’t go to waste. Biodigestion creates valuable byproducts.
Source: Dan Hecht

Project facts

• WHAT: The Central Vermont Recovered Biomass Facility is conducting a study of the feasibility of biodigesting food waste along with cow manure to produce electrical power and heat.

• WHO: The project is being carried out by a partnership that includes the Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District, Vermont Technical College, Vermont Environmental Consortium and Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund.

• WHERE: The biodigester, if feasible, will be built on the campus of Vermont Technical College in Randolph. The food scraps would come from commercial and institutional sources in central Vermont.

• FUNDING: The feasibility study received a $492,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, with addition funding coming from the Vermont Department of Agriculture, the Clean Energy Development Fund, the state and Seventh Generation Foundation. The U.S. Department of Energy has promised $952,000 for advanced design and construction. Total construction is estimated at $3 million.

PEPCO Says Use Less Electricty

It's hot - for Washington, DC, very hot - a few days of record setting and close to record setting temperatures. Blazing sun, no rain in sight. Imagine DC as a city of roof top solar and the place would be humming. And if residents owned their roof top solar, money would be "staying at home" rather than being redistributed to increasingly multinational energy services corporations. Instead, the following PEPCO email was in the in box to remind us that the infrastructure has it's limits:

PEPCO News Release

Posted by: "Cook, Sybongile (DOES)" sybongile.cook@dc.gov

Wed Jul 7, 2010 12:47 pm (PDT)

WASHINGTON “ Pepco today requested the public to conserve electricity. The call for conservation was prompted by the intense heat wave.

The request is being made throughout Pepco's service territory.

Demand for electricity is expected to increase as the excessive heat and humidity continue. The electric utility asks customers to conserve electricity, if health permits, especially between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Electricity customers can take simple conservation steps:

Close curtains and blinds to keep out the sun and retain cooler air inside.
Postpone using major electric household appliances such as stoves, dishwashers and clothes dryers until the cooler evening hours.
If health permits, set air conditioner thermostats higher than usual.
Turn off electric appliances and equipment that you do not need or are not using.

Conserving electricity will help ensure adequate power supplies. Pepco continues to carefully monitor power supply conditions. It will do everything possible to keep power flowing in the region. If necessary the utility may take additional steps, such as reducing voltage.

Sent by Ladona Williams to DC ESF # 12 DOE, Georgetown Alert Managers, Hazard:Severe Weather, Hazards-Utility Outages, OperationCenters, Public Safety, Ward 1 Groups, Ward 2 Groups, Ward 3 Groups, Ward 4 Groups, Ward 5 Groups, Ward 6 Groups, Ward 7 Groups, Ward 8 Groups, WASA, WMATA (Metro) (e-mail accounts)

Vegetable Oil For Vehicles

From The Gazette, Montgomery County, Maryland

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Silver Spring man converts cars to run on veggie oil

Monday through Friday, Josh Winston sits in an office high above downtown Bethesda, crunching numbers as an accountant.

But come Saturday morning, Winston, 42, puts down the calculator, slides into a one-piece jumpsuit and tinkers with diesel engines and rounds up buckets of vegetable oil.

Winston has a hobby of converting diesel-powered vehicles to run on vegetable oil, grease that cooked chicken fingers or french fries last week.

"It's really pretty simple," the Silver Spring resident said. "Anyone with a pretty basic knowledge of cars or engines can figure it out."

Diesel engines can run on anything oil-based, even something as far-flung as sawdust, Winston said. Switching the hoses and building a new tank for the oil is more a matter of time than expertise.

Four years ago, Winston saw a television segment on diesel conversions and almost immediately ordered a conversion kit for his 1998 Volkswagen Jetta. Since then he has converted not only his own car and an old mini-school bus he owns, but also a half-dozen cars and trucks from up and down the East Coast.

"Well, I sit at a desk all day and that's not much fun," Winston said of his accounting job. "But this, this is fun."

In front of his apartment sits a 1983 Itasca RV, the vehicle of a vegetable oil enthusiast from New Jersey. The owner found Winston through his Web site, www.feedmywheels.com, a side business he has created to convert vehicles to vegetable oil. The average conversion costs a customer between $1,500 and $2,000, Winston said, but the cost is relatively cheap compared with the cost of diesel fuel.

Running a car on vegetable oil, which can often be obtained for free, could save a vehicle owner hundreds or even thousands of dollars in fuel costs per year, Winston said.

"I get my oil from a Chinese restaurant down the street," he said. "At first they were confused about why I wanted it, but we have a nice arrangement now."

Montgomery County has created an online forum for used vegetable oil givers and takers, according to Peter Karasik, section chief for the county's Division of Solid Waste Services.

The 70-member forum, launched in November 2007, puts those possessing used vegetable oil — such as restaurants, bars and other vendors — in touch with people like Winston who want it.

"There's certainly no reason why anyone needs to waste vegetable oil now," Karasik said. "There's a whole host of people who would like it, and our goal is just to hook people up directly."

Although vegetable oil proponents say grease burns cleaner than diesel or gasoline, converting and running a car on vegetable oil is technically illegal in the United States, according to Cathy Milbourn, an Environmental Protection Agency spokeswoman.

"The Clean Air Act does prohibit these sorts of homemade conversions," she said. "There are conversion kits that we have certified that we say are suitable, but just vegetable oil is not a clean fuel."

Violating the Clean Air Act carries a $32,500 fine per violation if committed by a manufacturer or dealer, and a $2,750 fine if committed by any other person.

Winston estimated that fewer than 10,000 cars nationwide have been converted. The federal government does not keep records of vegetable oil-converted cars.

Winston said despite the legal implications, he's going to keep converting cars.

"It's probably going to be illegal for a long time until people start using [vegetable oil] regularly," he said. "Even the fine probably isn't worth anybody's time. Everybody who does this knows that and isn't praying that someone from the government won't show up at their door."

http://www.gazette.net/stories/05062009/bethnew200045_32534.shtml

http://www.feedmywheels.com/

Flat Roof Analysis

Some good info from Maggio Roofing:

Flat Roof Analysis

Almost all flat roofs in Washington DC are constructed with main support beams (2x10's) that are pocketed into the side brick walls. On top of these walls sit rafters (2x6's) that are fastened to these main support beams. Then, there is wood sheathing (1x6's) that are fastened into the rafters. The roofing materials are then installed over top of the sheathing.

Current building code requires that this roof structure be able to hold a live load (LL) of 30 lbs per sq foot, a dead load (DL) of 15lbs per sq foot with a total load (TL) equal to 45 lbs per sq foot. The issue at hand is that almost all of these flat roofs have the rafters spaced at more than 24" apart. This means that the code will require this roof structure assembly to hold 90lbs per sq foot. The problem is that this assembly will only have an allowable load of 60lbs per sq ft. What does this all mean? It means that your roof structure does not have the structural support to handle the necessary loads that current building codes calls for. Even though structural engineering requirements are conservative, there is a risk here. In January 1922 the roof of the Knickerbocker Theater in Mt. Pleasant, collapsed under snow from the storm subsequently named for this same collapse. January 14, 1996, during the "storm of the century", Potomac Mills Mall was evacuated due to snow causing metal beams to sag in two places, which caused the ceiling to droop about three feet. Inspectors declared the mall unsafe at that time. These stories have a tendency to be forgotten.

During the year, we find that 10-15% of the new roofs we install, require structural work due to sagging, cracked, or broken main support beams. Another 10-20% require rafter repairs due to sagging or rotting conditions. Many homeowners are quick to say, "my house has been here for 80 years and hasn't collapsed, why would it now?" My answer to that is, "What is your life worth? Do you really want to take that risk?" This risk gets worse when negligent contractors start installing heavy solar panels or other roof top equipment without taking the structural loads into account.

In order to meet code, the structure would need to be composed of 2x8's 24" on center or 2x6's closer together (less than 16" on center). So, in order to install solar panels on roofs (since roofs in your neighborhood are composed of 2x6's) you will need to modify the structure to support the new loads on the roof.

If contractors are not getting in the attics and looking at the rafters, then they are putting residents at extreme risk. If they are looking and tell you that its OK, they are either not being truthful or they just don't know the facts. Don't let anyone install any solar panels or other heavy equipment on your roof without having the structure visually seen. This may not be possible most times due to access. In those situations, it is better to assume that the structure is not built to support the load and will need modification.

This means that the only way to install solar correctly (and not put residents at risk) is to install one of the following methods:

1. Remove the roof and install additional main beams (either sister laminated beams or install new)
2. Install new 2x6 rafters sistered to the existing or new 2x8 rafters.
3. Install new sheathing.

OR

1. Install steel I beams that rest on the parapet walls
2. Install solar panels on racking that are attached to I beams

OR

1. Install thin film solar system.

http://www.maggioroofing.com/services/roof-analysis/

11 Kw Home System

President Solar hopes to find its place in the sun

By Thomas Heath
Monday, April 26, 2010; 2

I caught up with Roy Dunbar on the telephone as he was fending off hungry herons trying to poach at his koi pond outside his McLean home.

The former chief executive at Herndon-based Network Solutions has launched a new business called President Solar, which will distribute rooftop photovoltaic (PV) solar panels to solar companies that install the panels for residential and small commercial customers.

Dunbar has invested $500,000 already, and probably will invest another $500,000 in the near future. And he wants to make money.

"I have actually been involved and interested in solar for quite some time," said Dunbar, 49, who left Network Solutions last fall. "On the roof of my house is an 11-kilowatt system."

Although the systems can cost thousands to install, Dunbar said federal, state and even local tax breaks and rebates could induce residents and businesses to take the plunge. Solar customers also can sell solar renewable energy certificates to utilities and others on a secondary market.

He has an office and warehouse in Fairfax County and three employees. He is buying the panels in volume from a supplier in Eugene, Ore., called Grape Solar.

"What we are doing is distribution," he said. "But with this market getting so hot . . . I am toying with the idea of setting up an assembly plant," which would manufacture the panels.

The market wasn't hot enough for BP Solar, a unit of the British oil giant that last month announced plans to stop assembly at its Frederick plant because of a big drop in prices for solar systems.

"I know it flies in the face with what just happened to BP Solar, but you might be able to put [a factory] together that makes 60 or 70 jobs on a local scale," Dunbar said.

PVs contain a solar photovoltaic material that converts solar radiation directly into electric current. Dunbar said the solar panels on his roof had stored enough electricity in batteries to keep his home's critical systems running for more than four days during February's "Snowmaggedon."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/23/AR2010042303966.html

Latex Paint Disposal

The DC Department of Public Works web site seems to be of two minds about latex paint (and it's can). First latex paint is listed as "Unacceptable household hazardous waste" and then under a section called "How You Can Help" we are told that latex paint is "not hazardous".

"Unacceptable household hazardous waste and e-cycling items include:

• Air conditioners (Call 311 for a bulk trash collection appointment.)
• Ammunition (Take to the closest police station.)
• Explosives (Take to the closest police station.)
• Latex paint (Dry out and place in the trash.)

How You Can Help

Latex paint is NOT HAZARDOUS. If you have unused latex paint, remove the lid and let it dry out. Then place the can in the trash. You can speed up the drying process by adding some kitty litter to the paint."


Not sure I want to cut through the semantic acrobats of the logic that allows both of those assertions to be true nor do I want to push the limits of recycling possibilities - I just want to get rid of the stuff in as safe a manner as I can given the circumstances...... and it is clear DPW wants me to dry the paint out and put it in the trash.....

So I dried out the paint and left the paint can in the trash container a couple of weeks ago. After the garbage crew came through, I found the paint can left behind next to the garbage can. Other garbage was gone but not the paint can. Hmmmmmm. Will try again.