A world without waste - it really can happen!

Gardening Australia had several outstanding stories this week about innovation and sustainability in action, with another look at Sundrop farm that we featured in an earlier blog. The story that has particular relevance to Archibull is about the amazing sustainability innovator Joost Bakker, in a segment called "Closing the loop". He has amazing ways of creating the most incredibly sustainable cafes and he produces no waste from his business. Garbage bins are not needed.You can watch it at the link below:

http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/video/default.htm?clip=http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/tv/gardeningaus/prog_streams/closingloop_ep26_2013.mp4&title=Closing
the Loop

Closed Loop Organics units are fully contained, commercial on-site composting units that can reduce food waste volume by up to 90 per cent in 24 hours.

The segment about Sundrop farm is called "The way of the Future" and can be viewed at the link
 http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/video/default.htm?clip=http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/tv/gardeningaus/prog_streams/closingloop_ep26_2013.mp4&title=Closing the Loop.

This report includes the growing medium and use of bees for pollination in the greenhouse and is definitely worth a look.
Also the wonderful permaculture gardens that have been created at schools in the Illawarra were featured along with the very important research being conducted by the University of Western Sydney into the long term effects of elevated carbon dioxide on native plants.

 

We also found this information in our research which although the design is American we thought it was relevant to Archibull - composting inspired by ruminant digestion!!!!

 

C.O.W.S. Turn Food Waste into Hot Water May 22, 2012

Closed-loop composting system draws inspiration from the inner workings of ruminants

A team of entrepreneurial urban cowboys at a Michigan-based startup wants to put COWS into supermarkets and cafeterias across the country. They don’t mean the gassy, grass-gnashing farm animals. Rather, it’s a technology they call COWS (Compact Organic Waste System) that draws its inspiration from the inner workings of ruminants.
COWS is a small-scale, on-site composting system developed by University of Michigan graduate students who went on to form the startup ReGenerate Solutions. The anaerobic digester converts discarded food into methane, mimicking how real-life cows digest their meals: anaerobic organisms in their stomachs break down cellulose and create methane as a byproduct. In ReGenerate’s concept, the methane gas will be burned to heat water in the same building where the COWS equipment is located—making for a neat, closed-loop waste-management system.

Each year, “a single COWS unit eliminates more than 170 tons of landfill waste, reduces greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of 300 metric tons of CO2, and produces over 400 million BTUs of biogas,” reports ReGenerate. Operating at full capacity, one composter can process up to 1,000 pounds of waste—fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy, cardboard, and potentially compostable dishware—per day.

 

http://conservationmagazine.org/2012/05/c-o-w-s-turn-food-waste-into-hot-water/

 

A note to blogger - you should have subscript options so that chemical formulas can be written correctly!