Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

sue4e3

(731 posts)
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 11:22 AM Jun 2016

Why California is spreading waste on the prairie

A groundbreaking farm scheme in California has the potential to cancel out the state’s entire commercial and residential carbon emissions - by using waste.

A collaboration between scientists and San Francisco’s garbage disposal unit, the scheme turns food and yard waste into compost and spreads it into rangeland, i.e. grassland, pasture, scrub and chaparral. A study by UC Berkeley calculated that covering just 5% of California’s degraded, grazed rangeland with half an inch of compost would remove an amount of carbon roughly equal to the CO2 released in providing the energy used by the state’s homes and businesses in a year.

As the calculation includes carbon drawn down into the rangeland and a reduction in emissions from landfill, it promises to create an elegant, circular economy-style solution to the twin problems of waste and climate change.

It would be a mammoth effort

After eight years of small-scale trials, the scheme, which is part of a wider Marin Carbon Project, is now ready to be tested on whole ranches or batches of government-owned land. ‘If we prove this out in the next two years, you could go for 5%,’ Kevin Drew, San Francisco’s Special Projects Zero Waste Co-ordinator, told Apolitical. ‘It would be a mammoth effort, capturing the food and yard waste currently going to landfills and combining it with manure and trimmings, but that could create a lot of compost, enough to take a shot at the 5%.’
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/apolitical/why-california-is-spreadi_b_10258532.html?utm_hp_ref=climate-change

2 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Why California is spreading waste on the prairie (Original Post) sue4e3 Jun 2016 OP
Who throws yard-waste into land-fills??? DetlefK Jun 2016 #1
chicago sure does. mopinko Jun 2016 #2

mopinko

(69,806 posts)
2. chicago sure does.
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 12:17 PM
Jun 2016

and when i used it to build new soil for my urban farm, i got harassed no end.

chicago is in violation of a more than 10 year old law that it must remove landscape waste from landfills. the landscapers and tree service guys have to pay to dump at commercial composting stations, but the average home owner just dumps it in the trash carts.
in fact, under daley the younger, they even had the gall to count weight loss due to evaporation as diverted.

Latest Discussions»Issue Forums»Environment & Energy»Why California is spreadi...