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SYSTEMS APPROACH TO RECOVERY AND REUSE OF ORGANIC MATERIAL FLOWS IN SANTA BARBARA COUNTY TO EXTRACT MAXIMUM VALUE AND ELIMINATE WASTE
Impact/Purpose:
Current practices for managing organic waste streams often call for landfill and/or use as low quality animal feed or compost. These represent inferior solutions to waste management, due to the fact that the waste is not treated with a systems approach and the potential value of the waste as a resource input for another product is not captured. In communities that are largely dependent on agricultural productivity, such as Santa Barbara County, sustainable value-oriented solutions to organic waste management are needed. Additionally, some of the current practices in this industry, including the application of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, present human health hazards, damage the environment and jeopardize the future of the local economy.
Description:
The goal of the project is to calculate the net social, environmental, and economic benefits of a systems approach to organic waste and resource management in Santa Barbara County. To calculate these benefits, a comparative method was chosen of the proposed design over the current practice in Santa Barbara. The data was collected by various means including laboratory experiments, interviews, and literature research. The findings are categorized into economic, environmental and social benefits, with some benefits covering multiple categories.
To evaluate the benefits of the project, first the current situation in Santa Barbara County had to be evaluated. This base-line scenario would then be used as a benchmark for the project to determine the value added by the proposed project design. Currently, Santa Barbara County has 3 breweries that produce 156,000 pounds of spent grain per year. Brewery interviews indicated that the vast majority of this grain is picked up by waste hauling companies and deposited in the local Tajiguas Landfill. The landfill is projected to reach capacity in the next 15 at which point a new location will have to be found. The county is aggressively seeking waste diversion strategies to achieve a 70% diversion rate by 2010 and has identified organic waste as the largest target to meet this goal, initially focusing on restaurant and other commercial organic waste. In addition to quantifying the organic waste problem, the current local market for organic mushrooms and vermiculture products was analyzed. This was necessary in order to determine to what extent the products and jobs created by the proposed waste management approach could add more value. The demographics of Santa Barbara demonstrate that there is a strong market for health foods, organic produce demand and high per capita income, research for mushrooms found that there are over a half dozen natural foods and chain grocery stores that sell organic shiitake and oyster mushrooms ranging in price from $6 to $10 per pound. In addition, there are 5 farmer’s markets per week where local produce is sold and also many restaurants that feature gourmet mushrooms on their menu. Interviews with farmers and store purchasers revealed that organic mushrooms are shipped from as far away as Pennsylvania with no organic growers currently located in Santa Barbara or neighboring counties. The local market for vermiculture products (composting worms and vermicompost) is in a similar state. Research into suppliers of these products to local nurseries, farms and garden supply stores revealed that there is no local source within a few hundred miles. Retail market prices were determined for both products at $20 per pound for redworms and $5.50 per cubic foot for vermicompost. Lastly, current land use was examined. Over 50% of county land is devoted to agriculture with 58 organic farms including a few urban farms located near the three breweries. Zoning and regulatory laws were obtained and it was found that our project facility could be located without need for extensive permits within a few miles of two breweries.
The economic data concentrated primarily on the value of the products created, jobs created and avoided cost externalities like landfill space and transportation. Data on job creation, and facility costs and size were based on a mushroom growing facility in Oxnard, California and extrapolated to required size based on a full utilization of all 156,000 pounds of spent grain to grow mushrooms. Mushroom experiments demonstrated that it was feasible to grow oyster mushrooms on a spent grain substrate with a biological efficiency of 70% without optimization of the growing conditions, and an industry average of 100% is easily achieved in commercial scale. With a 100% biological efficiency, 156,000 pounds of spent grain could potentially produce an equal weight of 156,000 pounds of fresh mushrooms with an income of $936,000. This would require a 13,000 square foot facility and create 5 full time jobs (7 days per week). The additional space and time and capital required for the vermiculture component is minimal in comparison and could potentially add one more job. Additionally, it was determined that the project would save externalized costs related to transport of waste, importing of non local produce and landfill space with a value in the range of a few thousand dollars per year. These numbers reflect idealized conditions, but it is clear that the vast majority of value is created in the sale of mushrooms and the creation of jobs as compared to the vermiculture and avoided externality costs.
The environmental benefits of the proposed project were evaluated using a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) using International Standards Organization (ISO) guidelines. It was determined that the primary environmental value for the proposed project would come from the avoidance of transportation related pollution due to the hauling of waste to the landfill and importing of non-local produce as well as avoided environmental costs due to landfill use. Six environmental impact indicators were chosen for analysis including land use effects, climate change, human toxicity, photochemical smog, acidification and eutrophication. Standard normalization factors were applied to the resulting indicators to determine a total world impact of the various waste management approaches. The results indicated that the proposed design of growing organic mushrooms followed by vermicomposting of the remaining waste utilizing 100% of the spent grain would create a net environmental benefit over current practices. Primarily this benefit arises from avoided pollution related to the transportation of goods that would be replaced by local sources.
Data regarding the social benefits of the project were the most qualitative and were also closely interrelated with both economic and environmental benefits. The creation of 5 local jobs is both an economic and a social benefit. Likewise, the decrease in transportation pollution and landfill use benefits the environment as well as social health. Additionally, three major social benefits were identified through literature research including health, local production and education. Based on various studies, locally grown organic produce has higher nutritional value due to less processing and shipping and pesticide use. Organic mushrooms have many nutritional benefits including high nutritional content of certain vitamins and a good protein source. Oyster and shiitake mushrooms have also demonstrated effectiveness in lowering cholesterol and destroying disease agents such as small pox in various government sponsored medical studies. Additionally, the use of vermicompost in soil amendment leads to increased microbial activity and nutrient absorption in soil, which in turn creates more nutritious and disease resistant organic crops and produce without the need for chemical fertilizer and pesticides. Local production of goods has many social benefits as well. It has been shown that reduced distances between producer and consumer increases transparency and stewardship of the human-food relationship in the community. Also, local production of food especially increases the community food security and independence. Lastly, the educational benefits to society of this project were measured. The implementation of this project has already resulted in academic course credit for 10 university students. In addition, through public presentations of the results, other students, faculty, project partners and the general community were educated on the alternatives to organic waste management.