On Monday we had the opportunity to visit the waste management center. Here all of the "trash" waste is collected and is gone through and sorted so it can be disposed of in the proper ways. At EARTH University solid waste management is a huge problem just like it is throughout most of the world. This problem is growing substantially due to the exponential increase in population growth. Around the world people are dealing with issues such as odors, pollution, infectious diseases, as well as many other things when it comes to waste management. EARTH University is trying to teach integrated waste management and has been very successful at implementing it on their campus as well as reaching out to local communities to try and adapt these strategies. Currently at EARTH University only 19% of all their waste ends up in the landfill which they manage, the other 81% is either reused or recycled. Imagine if more than just EARTH University did this, what impact would it have on our environment and people's way of living across the world?
At EARTH University these type of bins can be found everywhere you look. Everything is color coded and there is a sign above every one to try and avoid confusion. The green bin is for organic materials such as banana peels or other food waste. The blue bin is for glass or what they can "envases". The yellow bin is for paper, and finally the red bin is for various items. As part of being both a student and professor at EARTH the students are required to go to a workshop about this program. The students also have to work here as part of their school work to see how it is all done. The red bag's contents has to be sorted out at this processing facility to determine if it really is trash or if it can be reused or recycled, many students say this is the worst job so the key is to make an accurate assessment the first time you put the items into a bin because someone (which might be them) has to go through it all later. All of the recyclables are consolidated and are shipped to San Jose where proper recycling can take place.
This is a picture of a shop in their agriculture engineering building. I took this picture because I was amazed at how clean the floor was, it was spotless. My shop teachers in high school could only dream about this neat and clean of a shop!
In the afternoon we had the opportunity to go into the Botanical Garden which is located on campus. Upon entering the garden these are some of the signs that you are greeted with.
This is a cool grasshopper that I found lounging on one of the leaves.
These are two of the many hundreds of flowering species that we saw while in the garden.
After the lovely smells of the botanical garden and beautiful landscapes we then learned about EARTH University's biodigestor facilities. They use the waste (ie the human waste) and put it through a system that produces methane which is then used to cook the food in the cafeteria. This waste in many systems is just lost where they are capturing the methane and have found a way to process and use it. Many smaller facilities like this are being built all throughout the world and can be found on very small farms to power the houses and provide gas for cooking. This is a great waste management system that I am very eager to learn more about because it can be implemented anywhere where there is any sort of organic waste whether that be from humans, animals, or even just organic material.
This is a picture of inside the biodigester building. Here you can see what looks like a blimp which is actually a storage holder for the methane gas. Below it underneath the black tarp is two other big bags that is actually receiving the waste and turning it into the bio-gas methane. They have a very good system in place which takes the gas directly back to the kitchen to use in the cooking of the food on campus. They have ten different biodigestors set up on campus and they are hoping to soon be able to connect these to generators to be able to power the entire campus during peak energy hours to help cut down on utility expenses. This is very interesting technology that can be used just about any where and there is still lots of research being done on these systems.
Through this I hope that you have started thinking about what role waste management is having on this planet and how you might be able to help with that. I'm not telling you to go out and install a biodigestor but rather start thinking about your individual impact on the environment and how small changes can help make a real difference!
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