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ISSUE #5 | February 5, 2020
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THE ORGANICS RECYCLING AUTHORITY
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IN THIS ISSUE
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Editorial: The 2020 Compostable Packaging Narrative
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Time To Go All The Way
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 It is time to decide if you’re ready to go all the way. It could feel so good. This conversation is about what you do in your kitchen, namely contaminants in food scraps. For municipalities or communities with food scrap diversion and composting, it is time to decide what the real goals of the programs should be: making high quality composts or getting as much out of landfills as possible. This could be one and the same thing but a lot of work remains to make that a reality instead of a dream. |
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2020 PFAS UPDATE SERIES, PART III |
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Treating PFAS Chemicals
At Composting, AD Sites
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Treating contact water/leachate or groundwater to remove PFAS chemicals is possible. EPA has assembled the Drinking Water Treatability Database, which can be used to identify effective drinking water treatment processes. As noted in Part II, the following processes were found to be effective for removal of PFOS: GAC (up to >99% removal in bench tests), high-pressure membranes such as nanofiltration and reverse osmosis (up to >99% removal), ion exchange (up to >99% removal), and powdered activated carbon (up to 99% removal).
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Vermont’s Universal Recycling Law Update
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As of July 2020, no food waste can be disposed in the landfill in Vermont, including the residential stream. The mandate is in the state’s Universal Recycling Law, passed in 2012. At its December Universal Recycling Stakeholders Meeting, the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (VT DEC) included a presentation and discussion on depackaging of food waste, and gave an update on food scrap management capacity in the state.
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Compost Use Workshop At BIOCYCLE CONNECT WEST 2020
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BioCycle and the University of California, Davis Agricultural Sustainability Institute are excited to announce: “Compost Use In Agriculture: Healthy Soils, Sequestering Carbon,” A Healthy Soils Program Workshop on Monday, March 30, 2020. The half-day Workshop at the UC Davis Russell Ranch (12:30 PM—4:30 PM) kicks off the BIOCYCLE CONNECT West 2020 Conference, March 30-April 2, 2020 at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Sacramento.
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New Report: Business Strategies For Codigestion
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A new report provides insights about the strategies water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs) have used to address the range of risks and impediments they face in adopting codigestion. Funded and released by the Water Research Foundation, the report also outlines a diagnostic framework that individual WRRFs can use to analyze opportunities and potential business strategies for codigestion at their own facilities.
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The 2020 Compostable Packaging Narrative |
I’m going to get right to the point. It is 2020, and it is time for a new narrative on compostable packaging. I’m talking about BPI-certified compostable products, and primarily, food service packaging that is considered a replacement for single use plastics. But also certified compostable liner bags for kitchen food scraps and organics collection carts.
This new narrative starts with viable and realistic alternatives to the current array of single-use plastic packaging — products and components thereof that work their way into our waterways and oceans. Products that are the target of bans on their use, to be replaced with packaging that is reusable, recyclable or compostable. Products that show up as contamination at organics recycling and materials recovery facilities.
The new narrative acknowledges the realities that are constantly cited in the media, in the halls of city and state governments, and on the ground at composting facilities. These include the propensity for certified compostable products to look similar to their noncompostable counterparts (aka “lookalikes”), inviting the lookalikes to ride along in the loads of source separated organics. There is also the reality that composting facilities willing to accept compostable products as a feedstock are far and few between. Those two realities are totally our world at the moment, and thus carry over into the new 2020 narrative.
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Two-Day Attendees SAVE $50
Use Early Bird Discount Code SAVE50
Discount Code Expires February 19
Join us in Sacramento, California for a new BioCycle in person experience
• Outstanding faculty of over 70 speakers
• Facilitated Deeper Dive Discussions
• Exhibit Ballroom with more than 35 companies
• All Day Site Tours including Jepson Prairie Organics and Yolo Food Bank
• Compost Use Workshop at UC Davis
Learn • Network • Strategize
BIOCYCLE CONNECT WEST 2020 is where you'll learn best practices related to source separated organics collection, processing, end market development, stakeholder engagement, financing, ordinances and incentives, RFPs, collection contracts, and much more.
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THE ORGANICS RECYCLING AUTHORITY
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Founding Publisher
Jerome Goldstein
Editor
Nora Goldstein
Publisher
Rill Ann Goldstein Miller
Associate Publisher
Ina Pincus
Senior Editor
Craig Coker
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Senior Adviser
Sally Brown, University Of Washington
Contributing Editors
Ana Carvalho, Peter Gorrie,
Michael H. Levin, Robert Spencer
Advertising Director
Teri Sorg-McManamon
Art Director
Doug Pinkerton
Administrative Assistant
Celeste Madtes
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THE JG PRESS, INC., PUBLISHER OF BIOCYCLE CONNECT & BIOCYCLE.NET | P.O. BOX 248 | EMMAUS, PA 18049 USA
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