Through our search for understanding the process of recycling, we came across this company in Austin that recycles restaurant waste. Pretty awesome concept, right?? Especially, when you think about just how much useful material comes out of a restaurant.

Think of it like a cycle… the foods and products come into the restaurant, get consumed or used, then the waste that is left over; boxes, cans, broccoli heads, day-old foods, garnishes, get picked up and used to create more products or even to create produce that come back into the restaurant…

As we are learning, used materials are not used up at all and there is still some life in them!

The company is called Restaurant Recyclers. It is owned and was founded by a guy named Jimmy Mitchell. We got the opportunity to hang out with Jimmy and his business partner, Nathan to see how the whole operation works.

Here is how business rolls…

First, Jimmy makes contact with a client and evaluates the amount of waste that comes out.

Then, Jimmy will assign barrels to the business. He will have barrels for plastic, cardboard, metals, glass, and… oh, here is my favorite part… FOOD!!

Austin has a million restaurants. Well ok, I lie, but I do know that Austin is giving San Fran a run for 1^st place as the city with the most restaurants per capita.

With that many restaurants putting out waste, the only smart thing to do is to find ways to reduce that massive output!

Now, what does he do with all of that waste? The cardboard, plastics, glass, and metals go to Ecology Action (we’ll be writing about them later). EA is a local not for profit company that provides recycling drop offs in the city. 

What about the food? The food is taken back to his gardens. He has a few within Austin that he can take the food to, but his main site is a 5-acre garden in Spicewood, Texas.

The food waste is comprised of most foods but never meats or bones and preferably not dairy products, however egg whites and shells are ok. Even coffee grounds are encouraged to wind up in the ‘food’ barrels.

Now, this food’s eventual purpose is as compost for the gardens where Jimmy grows vegetables and fruits for other restaurants to use as produce.

Here’s the decomposition process, a tried and true method of windrows: Jimmy sets the food waste up in rows of mounds, then covers it up with a tarp to start decomposition. I was privileged to get a look at these rows. You can see the different levels the waste goes through. In some mounds I could make out different types of foods and in other mounds the process was complete and left behind was a uniform brown mulch. What became of the food was this beautiful composition of nutrients that looked like high grade dirt compost bought at a store. Hmm… forget buying fertilizer and dirt for your garden, use your leftovers!

Be surprised, but there was no smell! Now, I only got to see a smaller garden, so it may be possible that the huge lot in Spicewood stinks of rotting vegetables, but then maybe not.

So, that’s it. It’s very simple! The unused foods in restaurants like cabbage hearts, or carrot heads, or discarded limes and lemons, are thrown out into the barrels by an educated staff and are collected, instead of being thrown into landfills.  Then, Jimmy takes the waste and uses it to grow more veggies and fruits that eventually come back to your plate.

Jimmy currently works with over 30 businesses and he took us on a typical tour of his daily pick up. Restaurant recycling business is booming and Jimmy is having to upgrade more and more as bars and restaurants jump on the bandwagon to a more green and less wasteful way of running.

It’s baby steps. No one person or business can absolutely change over night. It is a matter of changing old habits and educating others.

It’s hard for some people to see the benefit of recycling. It’s costly, it’s obtrusive, and the process is pretty vague. So, why recycle? Why, as a business should you even remotely consider coming to the “green side”?

Well, it depends on how much you care about your reputation. Recycling and reusing are practices that are here to stay. It’s not a trend, it’s a new way of living and a new way of thinking and the best thing a business can do to keep its head above the competitive water is to be revolutionary.

Consumers, other companies, and the media, will notice the restaurants efforts and go there before any other consideration. Going green is a collective effort and society is naturally going that way.

Some of the restaurants that are currently part of this change are Opal Divine’s, Green Pastures, The Alamo Drafthouse, The Highball, Vespiao, Guero’s, Fonda San Miguel, and many others. I wish I could list them all but these are the only ones we could make it to that Saturday afternoon.

“From the Earth to the Table and back to the Earth” -Jimmy Mitchell

For years we’ve been told that we should recycle. It’s doing our part to make the world a greener place and so on and so forth…but…what happens to our goods AFTER we’ve left them on the curb or put them in the bins at our office buildings? Glad you asked!

We here at Eco-monkeys were curious about the recycling process as a whole. Where do the goods go? What happens to them? Is it all used? Is there any waste?

In order to begin to answer some of these questions, we contacted our friends at the Balcones Recycling Plant here in Austin, TX. Balcones handles over half of the paper waste that comes from commercial sources (office buildings, plants, retail) in the Austin area. The plant manager, Andy Andrasi, gave us a tour of the facility and explained to us, in layman’s terms, the general process.

Probably the most striking thing to learn is that (as far as paper goes) there’s very little being broken down, shredded, torn apart, burned, mulched or otherwise being made into some sort of raw material. Most of the actual reshaping of old product into new product happens at the paper mills, production houses, and manufacturers of paper products. So what the heck goes on in a paper recycling plant? Sorting. Lots and lots and lots of sorting.

When a truck full of waste paper comes into the plant, it is immediately sorted into different quality piles. Not all paper is created equally. Some has already been recycled many times and it becomes less and less useful each time because the actual wood fibers become shorter and shorter, leading to a lower quality product. Some of the paper is mixed with waxes or plastics and becomes a different quality because of it. Some is bleached. Some has already been shredded and well maintained. Some is from industrial sources and is extremely high quality.

Once the paper is sorted, it has to be cleaned. This usually involves a combination of human power, visually culling the paper to take out any glass, organics, trash, plastics or other pollutants that cannot be used in manufacture, and lots of conveyor belts and contraptions designed to sift the different sizes and qualities of paper many times to end up with a clean product.

Once these piles are sorted and cleaned, they are separated into huge compressed bails that are ready to ship to a mill for reprocessing. This mid-sized plant in Austin produces thousands of tons a week in recycled paper!

But what about waste? There has to be SOME junk that comes into the plant that can’t be used and ends up in the landfill, right?? Yes, but not nearly as much as you’d think. Andy estimates that less than 1% of the incoming product from the plant ends up in a landfill. Balcones Plant also ships away most of its waste product to a plant in Arkansas that can use most of the solid waste product as fuel.

So what can the average consumer do to help the recycling effort (besides recycling, obviously)? According to Andy, demand and BUY recycled products! The hard facts are that it costs corporations money to buy product from recycling plants to use in manufacturing. It also cost them tons of money to convert their plant to be able to use recycled paper at all! By buying recycled you are sending a message to big wigs that it can indeed be profitable to them to sell and push recycling. And money talks. Yes, you might be paying a premium for buying recycled, but by sending the message that recycled products are commercially viable, you give the big companies a reason to expand production, becoming more efficient and causing prices to go down. Right now it’s a standoff between the consumer and the producer, and somebody has to take the hit in their wallet first. And most likely it won’t be the producer. But isn’t it worth it?

Check back soon for video footage from our tour. Special thanks to Andy Andrasi and Sara Koeninger at Balcones Recycling for taking the time out to show us what you do!

Look for more posts on the recycling process including articles on restaurant recycling and composting and lots more coming soon!

… 11/15/09

As ‘oxymoronic‘ as it seems, yes, vegetarians get to eat chili too.

It’s the 21st annual Lonestar Vegetarian Chili Cook-off.

Come out to the old Historic Travis County Farmer’s Market on Burnet Rd on Sunday the 15th. It’s right next to the new pub, The Pour House. There will be competition for the best veggie chili and the best booth. There will be exhibits, live entertainment, and giveaways.

Not only that, but the awesome 512 brewery will be out there supplying delicious beer who, just recently, celebrated their 1 year anniversary with a batch of an awesome Belgium strong ale that blew up in popularity in Austin.

This should be pretty fun. A great way to spend a Sunday afternoon. We have a couple of friends who will be out there with their chili and we will definitely be there to eat their chili!

It’s $7 for adults and $3 for kiddos and goes on from 11:30am to 4pm.

Hope to see you out there!!

These are public records. Anyone can obtain a report like this one about their own water supply.

2009 1st quarter water report from The City of Austin.

I was having a conversation with a friend today and we were discussing the scary nature of our drinking water. I’ve heard of the supposed substances in the Austin water which comes from the Colorado River, but I’ve never actually read a full report.
Today I did.
Not only did I find what I thought was possibly present, but i also found Cadmium, E.Coli, Coliform, Mercury, Beryllium, Arsenic, Antimony, Aluminum other crazy stuff.
People argue that trace amounts will do no harm and actually build your immunity. I believe that to be a way to create calm among the people; to give the reassurance that so many are looking for.

A lot of this stuff is naturally occurring, but in large part the percentages are increased by human waste products being released into the water.

I have linked to the .pdf file for your viewing pleasure, so make sure you have Adobe Reader. Click on the link above.

If there is any element you are unaware of, please do a quick Wikipedia search. You will be very surprised just how dangerous they are.

In fact, take a sample of your water to your local water company and have them analyze it. They are required and you can get a report of all of the chemicals, bacterium, and radioactive elements in your water.

Also, you can read a little more about recent studies done on tap water.

www.envrioblog.com

www.trendsupdates.com

Here is the really scary thing… You can’t escape it! You will find the same materials in bottled water. The EPA has set a national standard for bottlers to meet the maximum requirements of the percentages of certain elements. So, most bottled water is nothing more than tap water.

Actually, thanks to Pen and Teller, I learned this a few years ago.

You can watch the video here:

Search about your own water. What is the source of your drinking water? What recent news is there about your drinking water? What’s in your water?

Recycle… Reuse… Restore… Sustainability… Renewable resources… Carbon footprint… Climate change… Change life.

There are a lot of things that the current generation is having to suddenly grow conscious of. Most of us are having to change our only known way of living!

I hear a lot of people tell me that they don’t feel they make much of a contribution to this change. “What does it matter if I recycle my trash? No one else does! I don’t really have that much trash anyway!”

It’s sad that people think that way! Because that’s just not true! We have the power to influence! As individuals we have that power!

Our small efforts to help the environment do not go unnoticed. In fact, what we do encourages others. If I decide to throw my trash on the ground, then some who watched me will do the same.

But what if  I threw my trash in a trash can? What if I threw my Coca-Cola can in aluminum recycling?

What if I did this on a daily basis? What sort of message would I be caring, then?

Instead, what if someone decides to row across the ocean, carrying the message that now is the time for change?
How far do you think that message would go?

In 2005, a woman named Roz Savage decides to row across the Atlantic; 3000 miles in 103 days from the Canary Islands to Antigua… rowing solo!
In 2008, again rowing solo, Roz rows in the 1st stage of 3 in the Pacifc. She is the first woman to row solo from California to Hawaii. 
In 2009, her 2nd stage in the Pacific, and in
2010 she will complete her self-organized trip across the Pacific. From San Francisco, CA to Australia. And she will be the 1st woman to do that, as well!

That’s some pretty amazing stuff! But why’d she do it? You can read her explanation here for a full description but mainly, she had the desire to change her ordinary life to something more fulfilling. More valuable…

Since her the Pacific, she has become an integral part of the eco-community:

• She is an ambassador for the BLUE Project
  
• She is a trained campaigner for Al Gore’s Climate Project
• A hero of the United Nations Climate Program
• An Athlete Ambassoador for the 350.org project
• And she is supported by Dot Eco, the Blue Planet Foundation, and the Blue Frontier Campaign.
• She also advocates a ‘Pull Together‘ which asks people to start walking and biking more and driving less.

That is a lot for one woman!!! Her work, alone, shows just how much one person can do. But it also tells me that whatever one person does, is a lot!

So, in the spring of 2010 she is planning the 3rd stage. As she has done each race, she will be updating her journey constantly on her website. I will be there, showing support, and I want to invite you to do the same. Show your green and blue support!!

I will keep you in the loop as I hear more information!!

In the meantime, visit her blog and you can watch as she works to make change!!

As you can tell, I’ve become quite intrigued by this woman, so I made another post about her on my other blog. You can view it here at www.rushmonkeys.com. Oh, and visit her site, of course!!!

(pictures and video courtesy of www.rozsavage.com)

-t

It could be because I am a vegetarian that it is easy for me to look at articles like the one I am about to share and feel a rush of narcissicistic vindication. Or it could be because I am currently entrenched in Jonathan Safran Foer’s new book titled Eating Animals (which currently makes me feel like never eating anything ever again – only because I am reading a chapter about turkeys which makes me feel a little ill).  In any case, this article jumped out at me today and I felt inclined to share it.

The title of this L.A. Times article caught me first: “FDA urged to ban feeding of chicken feces to cattle”.  I thought, GROSS!  So I decided to read the article and see why chicken feces were being fed to cattle in the first place and what the two sides of this particular arguement were. 

Essentially, cows are being fed 1 to 2 million tons per year of something called “poulty litter” which the artcle describes as a compound consisting of “feces, spilled chicken feed, feathers and poultry farm detritus”.  One person in the article states that this is a tradition that goes way back in the feeding of farm animals.  That anything that hits the ground “was fair game”.  Okey dokey.  I think most toddlers feel the same way. 

Representatives from groups like Consumers Union and Food Animal Concerns Trust, and – surpise – McDonalds (!) are saying that feeding cattle this poultry litter can cause increased infections and lead to problems like mad cow disease.

Other groups like the National Cattleman’s Beef Assn. argue that science does not prove these charges and that a ban on poultry litter is not required.

Here is the current status of regulations as defined in the article:  “Generally, the FDA has left the decision on whether to feed cattle poultry litter up to state regulators. California allows the practice with one exception: Poultry litter is banned in feed for lactating dairy cows.”

So, here’s the article for your perusal.  If you are like me, you may feel a little creeped out, or you may feel like my omnivorous co-worker who informed me that she she just chooses not to think about it.

I never preach about being a vegetarian. I never push my practices on others. I let them ask questions and I answer them honestly. If it makes them think then I feel i have done some good. So, I am not here to convert or preach… I will let the facts do that for me. Johathan Safran Foer has written a book called Eating Animals and has an interview on NPR that is an eye opener on the impacts of eating meat. Impacts not only on the body but on the environment and society. Foer’s words might be shocking to some but only made my practices and assumptions more concrete.

Living a lifestyle of not eating meat is not the end of the world. It is cheaper. I do not feel lethargic after meals. I find myself opening up to a much broader line of cuisine. Many cultures all around the world have been living a non-meat lifestyle for centuries. It is today’s society that has put emphasis on eating meat to the point where humans consume 150 times more chicken than they did 80 years ago. There are many pitfalls to supporting companies that provide beef, pork, and poultry. Environment and social economic impacts that will continue to get worse if changes are not made. Foer makes very good points and supports them with facts.

Read the full article or even listen to the interview here.

Here’s a little Halloween goodness from us here at Eco-Monkeys (and the intrepid basset hound, Chloe)! This little video was put together while one of us was supposed to be working (Shhhhhh!) We hope that everyone has a fun weekend and a safe holiday and we’ll continue posting again on Monday.

I heard this neat little story on NPR the other day and couldn’t help but wonder why somebody had not thought of this sooner!

In a nutshell, San Francisco has mandated that everyone start composting their waste. This is really remarkable because many city recycling programs only apply to people in houses. San Francisco’s new law, however, also applies to people who live in apartments, businesses, and restaraunts!

Residents have received food recycling bins into which they will put their food waste. The bins will then be sealed, collected by the city, and the food will be turned into compost and sold back to community members.

So it’s going to…

1. Cut down on waste being sent to the landfill

2. Motivate residents to become more active in protecting their environment

3. Create revenue for the city

4. And create jobs

What’s not to love? I am very excited to hear about this project and will be following it closely as I have no doubt that other cities will soon be adopting these practices should they prove successful.

Click here to read (or listen) to the article as it was presented on NPR

The International Day of Climate Action occured on October 24, 2009.  There were over 5,200 demonstrations in 181 countries.  Instead of writing anything about it, I thought I would post some of the pictures (out of 15,000 posted on their flickr site) that made the biggest impression on me.   For more information, please visit 350.org:

Ciudad de Mexico,

Rainbow Lake, NY, US

Poppy (11) and Jarrah (9) snorkel with a 350 sign at the Great Barrier Reef, Australia.

Youth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo form a 350.org sign in preparation for the October 24 International Day of Climate Action.

Students in the Dominican Republic form a 350 and circle.

The power of one at Ishtar Gate in Babylon, Iraq.

Women in Bangladesh

Eco-monkeys will explore alternative housing in another installment of the What Is… series of articles.

A yurt is a Mongolian home that is becoming popular in the western world because of the low impact it has on the environment. Yurts can be quickly constructed for a low building and very little cost for the upkeep of the house.

Rammed earth homes are made from materials from the earth that it is constructed on. The walls of the structure are made from the dirt in the area and eliminate shipping building materials long distance.

Recycled Structures are a very creative way to reuse larger objects for housing. Using old large boats for housing on land is one way to preserve the boat and keep it in use for years to come after it has been retired from the sea. Shipping containers also make for a solid structure to live in.

Any creative home building and green additions to homes will be covered through this on going series, so stay tuned.

Here are a couple of places for alternatives to the suburban home blues.

http://www.yurts.com/

http://www.diyrammedearth.com/

Picture from http://www.simondale.net/house/index.htm

Josh sent this website to me the other day and I am shamelessly posting it because it is cool.

Here is a fellow in Wales who wanted to build a low-impact house for his family to live in.  According to his website, he built it in about four months for a cost of 3000 pounds.  His house is extremely eco-friendly with everything from a fridge cooled by air coming from the underground foundations to a compost toilet.  There are pictures of how he did it as well as tips for people who just want to reduce their impact but can’t build their own house.  Check it out!

Interview with Simon Dale(the builder) on Future Ethics:

Was roaming around the internet today and found an article put out by the U.S. Department of Energy with all the information (and more) you need in order to determine when to turn the lights off and when it’s more energy cost-effective to keep them on. The general rule seems to be to turn the lights off every time you leave a room if your light bulbs are incandescent. However, if you are using flourescent bulbs, they suggest to only turn the lights off if you will be gone for more than fifteen minutes.

The website has many tools for calculating energy savings and as much information on how light bulbs use energy as anyone could possibly want. Here is the link: When to Turn Off Your Lights

And because I seem to be in a video mood this week, here is a bizarre but amusing commercial from Thailand done by Sylvania lightbulbs:

The Egyptians are credited for some of the earliest recipes for beer. In their day the effects of human carbon imprint on the planet probably was not a consideration. Today we can look at the damage that is done simply by a single product that is accepted in society… ALCOHOL.

If you partake in the consumption of alcoholic drinks you may have never taken into consideration the damage that a single drink can cause the planet. A bottle of beer, wine or other alcoholic products are transported from the factory to the store or establishment where the consumer purchases it. This transport is most likely done with the aid of a delivery vehicle that runs on fossil fuels. Wine can come from local vineyards or from out of state but the majority of wine is international. Australia, South America, and many European countries are among top wine distributors. With further distances air transport is heavily relied on. Majority of wine is bottled in thick glass bottles that along with the wine itself can weigh on average of 2 pounds per 750ml. bottle. Twelve bottles in a case plus the weight of the box it’s self can really effect the gas efficiency of a vehicle.

Which is better bottles or cans? Well if you are at the pub go for a pint and avoid both. If you go to the store options are limited. Does your town have a good recycling program? Is the product your buying made locally or is there a long shipping distance for it to reach your store? If bottles and cans can be recycled in your area get bottles for the locally brewed and aluminum cans for the out of state brews. The shipping weight alone will help in the carbon dioxide output of the delivering. Boxed wine utilizes paper and plastics in its packaging is a little more difficult to separate for recycling. Corks for the wine is a much debated subject with distributors and connoisseurs and now come in traditional cork, screw tops and few new alternative products. While this debate continues you can always turn to your organic wine option. Most organic wine distributors will take the alternative route in their packaging as well. Don’t forget to read those labels and ask questions when in doubt.

The production of the actual alcoholic product should be taken into consideration as well as packaging a shipping. Brewing of beer creates carbon dioxide as well as the carbon dioxide put into the environment from the delivery of the product or even the trip to the store for a six-pack. Spirits, beer, and wine are all contributors of carbon dioxide in the environment. There are scientific studies that say none are worse than the other in it’s output of carbon dioxide.

Nina Shen Rostogi wrote a really informative article on the subject of carbon imprint of alcohol. Check it out here.

Alcohol is technically a depressant, not this story. This eco-monkeys article was meant for enlightenment on the subject not a sobering slap on the wrist for those who drink.