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Should more Iowa food waste be used for compost?
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Food waste and other compostable material made up nearly 42 percent of the garbage by weight at the State Capitol cafeteria in Des Moines during a recent waste audit done by Iowa City students.
The Jan. 16 audit done by students from Northwest Junior High, South East Junior High and Borlaug Elementary, in conjunction with the Iowa Waste Exchange, yielded 285 pounds of garbage from the Capitol cafeterias, operated by Treat America Food Services.
Nonrecyclables – or actual garbage – made up the largest share of waste with 42.1 percent by weight, but compostables were right behind with 41.75 percent. Compostables include food, paper towels and paper dining products.
Rep. Chuck Isenhart, D-Dubuque, said the audit was a good way to show lawmakers how much recyclable product can be diverted from the waste stream. Food waste makes up about 14 percent of Iowa’s landfills, where it generates methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
Should more Iowa cities trash systems pick up food waste and use it in compost?
Absolutely. The only other alternative use is to use it to feed swine, but most large-scale hog producers would shun the food waste flow because its nutrient mix can’t be as easily controlled as grain-based feeds can, which is critical to producing the lean pork which is in demand these days.
Currently the food waste stream goes into dirt-cover landfills, which might seem like composting, but really isn’t- gases from the partial decomposition of waste trapped under the dirt cover displace oxygen and tend to preserve waste food.
Real composting would at least produce a nutrient-rich soil component. The downside is that composting literally stinks; on a huge scale it would REALLY stink. In the City of Five Smells, this would be of little concern; Iowa City residents may find the new “rotting garbage” odor objectionable, which would probably be most oppressive during hot, humid weather. It might be necessary to truck the waste to a site many miles removed from population centers… such as Nebraska.
We are years away from practical plasma waste reduction, which would be another decent solution: reduce the organic matter to its combustible elements which are burned to produce electricity. Unfortunately, this process is in its infancy and may yet prove to have more downsides than benefits.