Sustainable Burien, Tip of the Week Archive

Tips will be moved here once they've been on the front page for about a week. Sometimes more if we get busy. The most recent tips will be at the top of the list. The date is when it was originally posted on the front page.

Begin food scrap recycling now! Here's a tip from Dr. Lynn Mikel in our Community Pod.

Those of you who recycle through King County Waste Management are now allowed to recycle food scraps in yard waste containers. Keep a small covered container in a convenient location near or in your kitchen (i.e. under the sink or out in the garage) to collect kitchen food scraps. Use a container that has a tight fitting lid and empty it into your yard waste container every other day or so.

To avoid odor and fruit flies; empty the container regularly, wrap food scraps in newspaper, rinse container frequently, line container with used paper bag or towel, sprinkle with baking soda or layer with shredded paper. By the way the yard waste bin is the only way you can recycle shredded paper. If you put it in the regular recycling bin it actually contaminates the other recyclables. The paper fibers in shredded paper are too short to be recycled, so they're just garbage. When shredded paper gets into a batch of recycled items, often the whole load ends up in the garbage because it's too hard to clean up.

Food scraps include fruits, vegetables, grains, bread, egg shells, nut shells, coffee grounds and filters, vegetable and fruit leftovers, tea leaves and bags, meat and dairy products [yogurt, cheese, etc.). Soiled paper like pizza delivery boxes, paper towels and napkins, uncoated (not shiny) paper plates, cups, paper (not plastic) food wrap, food bags, grocery bags, egg cartons, and paper berry cartons. No plastic, no grease or liquids, no pet litter or waste, no diapers, no soil, no rocks, no stumps, no lumber, no metal no glass and no hazardous waste. Waste Management has a flyer that shows what you can and can't put in the yard waste bin. Contamination increases the cost of recycling, if in doubt do not recycle, throw it in the regular garbage.

While I prepare dinner I open up a few pages of yesterday's paper and set it near the sink. As I clean lettuce or prepare vegetables and fruit, the peelings, core or wilted leaves go on the newspaper. While food is cooking, I clean up by folding up the food scraps put them in a small covered container in our garage (under the sink works too). The newspaper keeps the odor down and container fairly clean. I empty this into the yard waste recycling bin every couple days. No odor, little mess and we're starting to see our garbage container at least 30% less full! You might even be able to save money by using a smaller garbage can. "Think globally act locally!" Everything we do helps so enjoy the process of making a difference and start now!

Waste Management in Burien collects food scrapes now. The city of Seattle will require food recycling in 2009 and will provide a specific container for this purpose. Check with your service provider to see what their rules are.

September 5, 2008: Drugs in the environment.

Prescription (and non-prescription) drugs are a huge problem for the environment. Both the ones you take and the ones you don't. The ones people take are the larger part of the problem, accounting for the majority what leeches into the environment. That includes the ones that people take indirectly, like antibiotics and hormones that are given to livestock and used on crops. Some of those go directly into the environment, some go through people first. Fixing the problem with the ones you don't take is by the far the easiest of the two.

It used to be that when people ended up with left over prescription medication the recommendation for disposing of them was to flush them down the toilet or wrap them up and toss them in the garbage. It turns out that that isn't such good advice after all. Drugs are being found all through the environment, and many of them are known to have negative effects. On May 5, 2007 the Seattle Times published The environmental side effects of old medicine.

August 24: You can have your plastic grocery bags (and Styrofoam™ containers) and eat them too.

OK, they're not really plastic, and you probably shouldn't eat them, but it's pretty close. There are biodegradable grocery bags (usually made from corn products) available that could be provided at store checkouts for those who didn't bring their own bag. Plastic bags don't biodegrade, they just break down into smaller and smaller pieces of toxic plastic. And those Styrofoam™ take out food containers? They do the same thing, but there are biodegradable equivalents for them too. At this time the cost is a few cents more than the Styrofoam™ versions (which is a significant percentage) but the prices will come down as demand increases and more are produced.

According to this August 21, 2008 Seattle Times article the University of Washington has started using biodegradable food containers throughout the campus. And they have tips for others who are thinking about it. And if you can buy in enough bulk, it's possible to save money by using them.

Inside the Seattle City limits, it will be mandatory soon, but anyone can do it voluntarily. Start asking your favorite stores and restaurants if they have a biodegradable option. See if you can talk them into buying at least a few and providing them to people who ask for them, perhaps even charging a few cents extra if necessary. I'd pay for it, would you? Some restaurants will let you bring your own food container for your Take Out order, see if yours will. And you can buy the bags yourself at some stores in Washington, including biodegradable bags for pet waste. Which means it can be composted if you want. Even if it still ends up in the garbage, at least it will break down properly. We have information about biodegradable bags and food containers on our Links and Resources page, including a link to a list of stores in King County that sell some of the bags. Ask your favorite store if they'd consider getting on that list.

Did you know that when you shut off your TV, stereo or many other appliances, they aren't really off? Instead they simply draw much less power. Sometimes this is needed in order to retain settings or keep a timer running. Other times it's just so that when you turn it back on, it turns on faster. Sometimes it serves no useful function at all. One example of the latter is the wall wart/power adapter that many small appliance use. Even when they're not connected to anything, the adapter is drawing power. If it's warm, it's wasting electricity. The average appliance only uses 1 to 10 Watts in standby mode, but this adds up, estimates of the percentage of a home's power that is used by vampire devices are usually in the range of 8-10%.

Many new appliances are designed to use minimal power in standby, older appliances are often less efficient. If you want to check your house for vampires, you can use something like a Kill-A-Watt meter. It's available online and many hardware stores carry it. For things that don't really need to be on all the time (like battery chargers) you can just unplug them, plug them into a power strip so you can really turn them off, or use special plugs that will shut them off when they only draw a trickle of electricity. More information about vampire power is available at Wikipedia.

Here's a few more related links, all from the Department of Energy.
This site lets you estimate appliance energy consumption. You can use this to calculate the operating cost of existing items or compare potential new products.
These calculators allow users to enter their own input values (e.g., utility rates, hours of use, etc.) to estimate the energy cost savings from buying a more efficient product.
This page lists standby power consumption for a lot of products.
They also have an older page on standby power hosted at UC Berkeley. The last update appears to have been in 2001 or 2002, but there's lots of good information. Javascript is required for the menus.

Did you know that putting food scraps down the garbage disposal is not the best way to handle them? Food scraps often contain grease, which is very bad for the sewer system, but they also add significant amounts of solid material. That requires more processing, and by the time it is processed, much of the nutritional value in the food scraps has been removed, so it doesn't go back into the food chain. It's even worse if you use a septic system because the additional solids mean you need to pump more often and risk clogging the drain field sooner.

Reduce, reuse, recycle.

The best way to deal with food scraps is to buy food with less excess material [pre-trimmed if possible], generate less if you can [use leftovers in stews, soups etc.], and compost what you can't reuse. Do your own composting, or if you have Residential Yard Waste Service, see if you can put your food scraps in with the grass clippings and tree branches. Many areas in Washington State now have this available. If you don't have food scrap recycling available and can't compost [for instance if you live in an apartment], then you have to choose between the disposal or the garbage. Residential volumes are not a huge problem for sewage plants, but look for alternative ways to dispose of them if you can. Talk to your landlord, your Waste Management Provider, or your local government. Food waste is a large proportion of our solid waste stream no matter where it goes.

For more information about food scraps and garbage disposals you can Google. Grinning Planet has an old [before food scrap recycling was available] article about this, and many local sewer districts mention it. Consumer Reports has a section titled THE DOWNSIDE OF DISPOSERS. Of the three options; sewage system, landfill or composting, there is no doubt that composting is the best method if it's available. There is some debate about whether landfills or sewage systems are less costly [in several ways], but if you can, compost it.

Plastic bags don't biodegrade, they photo-degrade, breaking down into small toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food-chain when mistaken for zooplankton or jellyfish. Many large stores have bins for used plastic bags. They aren't actually recycled, but they are disposed of as safely as possible.

You can minimize your use of disposable plastic bags. Use a Reusable bag for groceries and other purchases. If you only have a couple of items, carry them in your hands instead of a bag. Many stores sell reusable bags for a reasonable price, and some offer a small discount if you carry in your own bag. If you're picking up take out food, don't use a plastic bag if you don't need it.

You can also do something like buy different colored bags from ChicoBag.com then use one color for groceries, one for clothes shopping, etc. Their bags are small enough to fit in your pocket.