All posts by wefuturecycle

Support Crowdfunding Initiative to Bring Small-Scale Biodigester to an Educational Site in Westchester!

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Biogas is the perfect solution to many environmental problems, creating heat, biogas, and compost out of our waste, instead of using fossil fuels to cart that waste away for it to be burnt. It is a technology as old as time, used all over the world, but practically non existent in the U.S.

Check out this fabulous small size home bio digester, perfect for a typical U.S. household and small enough to tuck into a corner somewhere outside.  The Biogas Education Network is seeking contributions via crowdfunding website Indiegogo “to place home biogas units Made in the USA using recycled materials by Hestia Home Biogas at select non-profit educational sites…where they may be visited by the public and utilized by educators to provide students with hands-on experience operating small scale biodigesters and using biogas.”

Please consider supporting the Biogas Education Network Indiegogo campaign by donating and/or spreading the word!

Student Lunch Contributes to Global Warming

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About 18% of elementary school sandwiches are wrapped in Aluminum foil. This data came from a survey in a New Rochelle Elementary School lunchroom. Every child was surveyed on how its lunch was packaged. aluminum-can-life-cycle

We found of the 850 children surveyed, about 55 % brought lunch from home, the others bought lunch in school.  That is about 470 children. Only 6% of these children were completely waste free, meaning they brought all food and drink in reusable containers. Another 16% had some sort of reusable container, either a bottle or a sandwich box , 18% had their lunch wrapped in aluminum foil, of which half had that aluminum wrapped sandwich again in a small plastic bag.  So close to 80 sheets of aluminum were used every day in just one school.

Let’s look at what Aluminum is and how it is mined.

map_enAbout 7 percent of the earth’s crust is aluminium, making it the third-most abundant element after oxygen and silicon. Aluminium production starts with the raw material bauxite.

Bauxite is a mineral found mostly in a belt around the equator. Bauxite, containing 15-25 percent aluminium, is the only ore that is used for commercial extraction of aluminium today.

mineThe bauxite occurs mostly in the tropics, in horizontal layers normally beneath a few meters of overburden . The layers are usually mixed with various clay minerals, iron oxides and titanium dioxide. It is the iron that gives bauxite a deep red color.

This is the process of mining.

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Industry claims that it is mitigating the devastating effects of strip mining huge surfaces, but evidence is ample that mitigation as well as environmental control during mining is lax or non existent.

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Tailing ponds is another source for environmental problems.

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75% of all Aluminum foil used in the US is for single use food  wrapping, and ends up in landfills.

So your child’s sandwich can contribute to global warming.  Maybe there is a better solution?

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Why food composting can save Westchester’s taxpayer money, big time!

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Food waste is around 40% of all waste from households, it is made up of mainly water, thus it is heavy. Garbage cost is calculated by weight. So all this water is costing the tax payer dearly.

Westchester’s garbage is being collected by the municipalities, brought to one of the several transfer stations within the county and from there it is transported in big trucks to the incinerator in Peekskill.

So basically, we are using fossil fuels  (garbage trucks get about 2.6 miles per gallon of diesel fuel) to truck water 50 miles north?

The far better solution would be to sort out all that water laden food waste and actually compost it.  Combine food waste with yard waste and  nature will give us black gold, aka compost.

The absolute best way is to do it right at home. Solon-Compost-Bin-4Have a little bin next to your sink and sort out all your food waste (no bones or meats though, home composters can’t handle that, commercial ones can)

And place that food waste in a ratio of 1 food waste to 3 leaves or woodchips into a composter. It can be a home made one, compost-4-940x626

or a commercially available one like these. And the rest is done by mother nature. Turning the mixture once in a while will introduce oxygen and thus help the bacteria to do a more efficient job. Earth_Machine_close

A few weeks later you will have lovely compost that can be used in your garden.

Most people are afraid that composting will be smelly or attract rodents. With all in life, if it is done right, there is none of that.

Westchester County Legislator Catherine Parker Introduces Limited-Use Plastic Bag Legislation

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We Future Cycle is proud to support Westchester County Legislator Catherine Parker in her announcement to introduce a bill to limit the use of plastic bags and styrofoam containers by retail businesses in the county.  She was joined by Legislators Catherine Borgia, Maryjane Shimsky, and Pete Harckham, who are co-sponsoring the bill, as well as Mamaroneck Town Supervisor Nancy Seligson and Girl Scout Cadette Katie Yacoub, who is doing a plastic bag project in Eastchester.   Read the full article on the New Rochelle Patch

Photos courtesy of John Filiberti.

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Fabulous Way to Deal with Surplus Good Used Things

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unnamed (1)Meet Joseph Nicoletti, the Commissioner of DPW in White Plains in front of his most fabulous TILI.

TILI stands for Take it or Leave it. A place to donate good used surplus household items, garden toys, household tools, play items, building supplies, exercise equipment, old but working condition TVs and all those things that really should be re-used, rather then chucked into the garbage. unnamed (3)

And at the same time, a place to pick up that extra vase, the drying rack, the home bike and those large outdoor plastic kids toys.

The front is built from recycled materials and is made to look like an old western style store, but behind the sliding doors are two shipping containers that keep things nice and dry. The TILI is staffed by volunteers and does vivid business during opening hours. unnamed (2)

What a great idea, something that should be replicated in each community.

Setting Up A Recycling Program…..ha, how difficult can that possibly be?

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unnamed (1)As Sustainability Consultants we often run into the attitude that setting up a recycling program is nothing but putting out some bins and ….voila….. all is well.

The reality is a far stretch from it. Changing behavior is a complex problem that takes much outside pushing and delicate prodding as well as proper set up of logistics and safe guards to avoid falling back into old behavioral patterns.

Its human nature.

Just look at systems such as wanting to loose weight. Every person that wants to loose weight KNOWS that it has to do with what they eat and how much/little they exercise.   Some people then make valiant efforts to change and the weight loss industry is making billions in the process, but only very few sustain to the desired effect, unless they have prolonged support from an outside person.

The same problem exists in regards to changing to sustainable habits in institutions. Implementing a recycling program such as We Future Cycle offers looks so easy, so logical, surely the institutional director of facilities can do it all by himself?

How difficult can it possibly be?

Same as with weight loss, how difficult can it possibly be to eat less and to exercise more on a regular basis?

The truth is, unless there is a person or organization in place that constantly supports the program and keeps all players engaged over an extended period of time, no behavioral change takes place.

And the losers in the system are the children.

The children had just learned the value of recycling, they were excited and actively engaged in saving the world, but then they see the adults loosing interest…..

Why are we teaching our children that inconsistency is acceptable?

Setting up a successful recycling program with sustainability education is very difficult and it can only be accomplished with the understanding that it is a long term capital improvement project that takes active management and professional support.

It cannot be accomplished by just putting out some bins…..

Hastings-on-Hudsons Schools Food Service Manager Supports Recycling

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAHastings-on-Hudson school district has changed Food service providers and the new manager Alan Levin is very supportive of the school’s recycling initiative. He worked extensively with We Future Cycle and his staff to find the perfect set up in the kitchen to allow for proper source separation.

Initially the kitchen had garbage cans set up at all locations with only boxes being broken down and placed into recycling. Now the kitchen staff carefully sorts out

all organic waste into composting,

all soft plastics such as the wrapping of drink containers or bread bags,

and all commingled like cans, bottles, salad dressing containers.

This reduces the kitchen waste from 5 bags per day to really just two handful, because only sanitary gloves and soiled soft plastic does not fit into the above mentioned categories.

Mr Levin has shown great support and within days has been able to organize the kitchen to follow the new guidelines properly.

Thank you for supporting Hastings-on-Hudson’s recycling initiative