composting

Massachusetts plans to ban commercial food waste in 2014 (article)

If you don't clean your plate at a Massachusetts restaurant, the scraps may not go to waste when a commercial food disposal ban goes into effect. They will be turned into clean energy, officials with the state's Energy and Environmental Affairs said. Energy and Environmental Affairs announced a proposed plan that would require any entity that disposes of at least 1 ton of organic waste per week to donate or repurpose the food starting July 1, 2014. The ban will affect large restaurants, hospitals, universities, hotels and other big businesses and institutions. The plan calls for food waste to be shipped to a facility that uses anaerobic digestion to covert food waste into a biogas that produces electricity and heat. Or, it can be taken to composting or animal-feed operations.…

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Piles, Pitchforks, and Perfect Learning Opportunities: Why Colleges and Universities Should Choose Small-Scale Composting (article)

(original content found here: http://www.compostory.org/2013/09/08/piles-pitchforks-and-perfect-learning-opportunities-why-colleges-and-universities-should-choose-small-scale-composting/ )By Jen Schmidt and Adam Long, Farm Manager at Pomona College, California In this blog post, Jen and Adam describe the composting program in place at Pomona College and shares his vision on low-tech campus composting. Shiny, expensive mechanical composters are increasingly popular at colleges and universities that want to compost their food waste, and rightly so. They offer a number of benefits, including reduced labor, minimal odor, and short composting times. At Pomona College, though, we have done things differently and we have come to believe that small-scale, low-technology composting is the way to go. A simple compost pile may not be glamorous, but the educational and environmental benefits of this method are more than worthwhile. Starting in the mid-1990s, Pomona College students and staff members…

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