Author: Gina Talt

A quick update to say that we officially have power at our new location!

Dear friends of the S.C.R.A.P. Lab,

We hope all forty-two of you are continuing to stay healthy and are enjoying a great start to 2022 ! As with every first post of a new year and new semester, the ComPOSTer takes a moment to recap the past year and more importantly, provide some optimism about what is to come in the year ahead.

2021 YEAR IN REVIEW

Unfortunately our original plan to relocate and re-open the S.C.R.A.P. Lab during the spring of 2021 was halted due to permitting challenges. While the relocation was delayed to early September, progress was swift, and the entire facility and composting system were reassembled in November. In the meantime, the ComPOSTer completed its faculty Q&A blog series with the graduation of Wesley Wiggins ’21 and covered other news about legislative updates on the state of organics recycling in New Jersey, and world news such as The Global Methane Pledge.

Additionally, we have made good use of the pause in operations by getting more involved in community partnerships in food and agriculture research, understanding how environmental justice factors into these issues, deepening our operations training, networking with other system operators and industry experts, and developing a re-start plan that includes practical tweaks to the facility and equipment that will help make operations easier. 

2022 PLANS

The last remaining  step before we can restart operations is the electrical hookup. We are hopeful students will once again have a hand in operations this semester. Then we are planning to pick-up where we started on our operational and research efforts, including:

• Making improvements to our composting equipment to better meet our needs
• On-boarding an assistant operational manager
• Continuing to test and expand compostable serviceware options in the Frist Gallery
• Integration of research efforts with operational testing of different feedstocks and recipes (i.e. to what extent can we substitute our purchased wood shavings for wood chips, leaves, or even compostable serviceware, the latter of which looks like it could be here to stay? What is the impact on emissions, microbial communities, nutrient density, etc.)?
• Testing of new food scraps collection and drop-off systems to expand reach across campus. Now with our own van!
• Launching new graphics and informational signage for the relocated facility
• Using Tableau Public to better visualize and communicate our composting data
• Continuing to raise awareness about the environmental justice implications of composting
• Seeking new avenues of academic engagement (currently helping to plan a first-year seminar course)

Stay tuned for a notice about a re-launch ceremony when composting officially begins, similar to our ribbon-cutting event in 2018

Progress at 300 Washington Rd.

New updates include the installation of an exhaust fan (back of the facility) and the pouring of the concrete pad for the adjacent wood shed

Jaffé briefs Congress on “forever chemicals”

Meanwhile… Testifying before Congress, Professor Peter Jaffé called on the federal government to support research into and mitigation of chemicals called PFAS, or “forever chemicals” because of the time they take to break down in the environment. Earlier this year, the ComPOSTer interviewed Dr. Jaffé about his research to mitigate PFAS contamination and to remove the chemical from groundwater and the environment. Dr. Jaffé recommended that Congress direct more funding into research on the forever chemicals, arguing that a better understanding of their impacts will help with mitigation.

Read more about Dr. Jaffe’s testimony and find the full briefing here: https://engineering.princeton.edu/news/2021/12/09/jaffe-briefs-congress-forever-chemicals

In Context: PFAS & Compost

In a recent BioCycle column, Dr. Sally Brown shows how the biggest risk of exposure to PFAS comes from direct exposure pathways to dust, cosmetics, cookware and packaging (including the food that touches both). As a result, PFAS ends up inn compost but concentrations are much lower than those in many household products. Dr. Brown argues that the manufacturing of products with PFAS should be restricted to prevent the direct exposure to these chemicals, instead of restrictions being placed on down-stream sources of PFAS like compost. The compostable food packaging industry is currently testing and developing viable alternatives that don’t include PFAS so these chemicals don’t end up in composts in the first place. However they are currently not widely available or in limited supply.

This month we’ve made significant progress on the reconstruction of the composting facility. Check out the photo essay below to see and hear about several new and exciting design and infrastructure improvements (and some well-aged compost)!

More updates to come in December. We are getting closer to a “power on” date and hope to resume composting operations in January of the New Year.

Have a happy and healthy Thanksgiving holiday!

In this ComPOSTer, we provide an update on our facility relocation and highlight an interesting upcoming webinar on Wasted Food Solutions and more composting-related current events.

SCRAPPY on the move

Efforts are underway to move the composting system into the reconstructed facility. Pictured above is a forklift transporting “SCRAPPY” from its storage location to the facility where it will be placed on the elevated slab below

Wasted Food Solutions Webinar

Join this virtual workshop co-hosted by the Center for EcoTechnology (CET) and New Jersey Composting Council (NJCC) to learn about strategies for implementing wasted food prevention, donation, and diversion programs in businesses in the food service sector. Although specific to New Jersey and its Food Waste Law, participants will leave with an understanding of the next steps for building wasted food management into their operations and gain access to digital resources and guidance documents. All attendees will also have access to free one-on-one support from CET, which will take place in the last hour of the workshop.

Register

In the News

The Global Methane Pledge was introduced recently as an ambitious plan to slash global methane emissions 30 percent by 2030.

The pledge is a big step for limiting the potent greenhouse gas, but critics are quick to point out that the pledge fails to address limiting emissions from the largest source of methane globally — agriculture.

• The pledge only promises to incentivize “the deployment of improved manure management systems, anaerobic digesters, new livestock feeds, composting, and other practices.”
• In the U.S., the Biden administration plans to pose direct restrictions on the oil and gas industry, but only voluntary adoption measures with the agriculture sector.
• Meanwhile, environmental justice groups believe the solution lies in transitioning away from the large-scale livestock operations that are one of the biggest contributors of methane emissions. These facilities dump manure into large “lagoons” which creates unsafe air and groundwater in the disproportionately Black, Latino, Indigenous, and white rural surrounding communities.

As an alternative solution, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker reintroduced the Farm System Reform Act, which imposes a moratorium on these industrial facilities and creates federal financial assistance for farmers to transition to pasture-based dairy and hog farming. 

Read more: There’s a major gap in the new methane pledge: Agriculture

NOTE: If managed properly, grass-fed animal operations can be a more sustainable option and healthier to nearby communities, however the scientific community is still in debate over whether pasture-raised systems (in particular beef), are consistently more climate-friendly than industrial beef.

In today’s update we bring the first photos of the S.C.R.A.P. Lab as it is being reconstructed!

Check out the photo essay below from the construction site:

Welcome back to campus for the new academic year!

It is great to see everyone back again while continuing measures to prevent the spread of covid.

This summer we received our municipal permit to begin the reconstruction of our composting facility on Washington Rd near Princeton’s solar field (see circled area on the map below)

This week the concrete was poured to create the slab and by mid-September the fabric structure will be re-erected and then we will reassemble the composting system inside (more updates and pictures to come). The operational restart is still tentative but will happen sometime this semester, likely in mid/late October.

In other composting news:

• New Jersey’s food waste diversion legislation, will go into effect this October. The bill mandates establishments (e.g. hospitals, prisons, schools, restaurants, supermarkets) that generate 52 or more tons of food waste annually must arrange for separate recycling if an authorized facility is located within 25 road miles. It will also create a market development council to assist in generating demand and finding markets for finished compost.

• At the national level, H.R. 4443 COMPOST Act was recently introduced in Congress to provide critical infrastructure and financial support for the composting industry.  As currently written, this legislation has three main goals:
  • Establish a USDA-led grant and loan guarantee program to provide $200 million in funding per year through 2030 for compost equipment, siting, and systems needed to expand compost facilities accepting food scraps, both public and private.
  • Provide funding for collection programs and development of markets for finished compost
  • Recognize compost as a conservation practice which will make compost use an eligible reimbursement item for farmers who use compost to improve soil and sequester carbon.

The ComPOSTer will continue to follow and provide updates on these and other related legislation.

Our faculty Q&A series wraps up with an update from Professor Xinning Zhang, an environmental microbiologist jointly appointed in the Department of Geosciences and the High Meadows Environmental Institute. This month, the ComPOSTer interviewed Dr. Zhang to learn more about how her lab is extending its research in microbial metabolism and biogeochemcical cycling on the Princeton campus, and how it relates to environmental justice.

What are the main questions that your research group is asking about the composting process and how is the S.C.R.A.P. lab involved?

The Zhang lab is broadly interested in understanding the role of microbes in decomposition and greenhouse gas cycling within man-made and natural environments.  As the environmental and human health harms of using industrial fertilizers to promote plant growth have become clear, many communities, including the University and the township, are exploring compost as a nutrient rich amendment to soils in place of industrial fertilizers.

Working with the S.C.R.A.P. lab, members of the Zhang group (Gabrielle D’Arcangelo ’21, Galen Cadley ’21, Dr. Jared Wilmoth) have been studying the microbial decomposition of food and garden waste into compost and greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane with the aim of optimizing Princeton University’s aerobic digester for producing nutrient rich compost with low net greenhouse gas emissions. Specifically, we would like to determine (a) who the main microbial actors are in the compositing process, (b) how these microbes work together to make healthy compost, and (c) how microbes and their activities respond to changes in the composition of incoming food waste flows and environmental characteristics like aeration levels and temperature.

What have been the preliminary findings to-date and the next steps in the research?

While there is insufficient sample consistency to make any firm conclusions, preliminary findings of the microbial community analysis have identified Lactobacillus and Acetobacter to be the most dominant bacterial groups (indicating a rapid uptake of simple sugars), followed by Clostridium and Chitonophaga (complex carbon degradation), and less than 1% of methane-producing organisms, the most dominant being the oxygen-intolerant hydrogen gas consumer, Methanobacterium.

An accumulation of the latter category or “methanogens” was found during a power outage and when on-loading/off-loading of material was halted. These results indicate that to avoid increased methane emissions, compost materials should not be allowed to sit for long durations (> a couple days) in the composter, particularly in the back end of the unit where oxygen-free conditions favoring microbial methane production easily develop.

Future work will aim at evaluating whether increases in aeration frequency and/or changes in food waste/bulking agent composition will further reduce composter methane levels. However it is important to note that even optimally working municipal waste composts can contain anaerobic pockets allowing the presence of about 1% methane-producing bacterial species, so these results are consistent with those found in other composting operations.

Why is this research important and how does it relate to environmental justice?

The application of industrial fertilizers leads to numerous environmental problems, most notably the eutrophication of water supplies with detrimental effects on water quality, fisheries health, and greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately, these environmental harms are disproportionately borne by people of color in lower income neighborhoods. We hope that our work with the S.C.R.A.P. lab on the science behind composting will aid in weaning our food and landscaping system off industrial fertilizers to promote environmental health and justice.

Interview edited for length and clarity

Dear friends of the S.C.R.A.P. Lab,

Thank you for your loyal following during this unusual year of hardship and sorrow due to a global pandemic and acts of national racial injustice. Usually the last ComPOSTer of the year serves as an ode to the past year, but I think we can all agree that we rather leave 2020 behind. Still, with the New Year only several hours away, the ComPOSTer takes a moment to look back on the (brief) composting highlights of 2020, but more importantly, what is to come in the New Year. We are optimistic about 2021!

2020 Year in Review

January – March : Started off the year strong, just where we left off after our first full calendar year of operations. We converted 14 tons of food scraps into nutrient-rich compost before COVID-19 forced our facility to shutdown early in Mid-March.

April: Debuted a new video highlighting the behind the scenes processes and the people involved in the journey from food scrap to compost

May:

• Phase 1 of the S.C.R.A.P. Lab facility relocation began when “SCRAPPY” was dismantled and transported to a temporary storage location
• Celebrated International Compost Awareness Week with new blog content and educational resources and videos

June: Began the study of compost application on campus farmland

August – December:

• Launched a faculty Q&A blog series led by Wesley Wiggins ’21
• Began site planning for SCRAPPY’s new location along Washington Rd. south of Lake Carnegie

Other 2020 Highlights:

The S.C.R.A.P Lab was featured in…

• A combined 10 presentations, webinars and tours
• Campus as Lab projects:
  • Faculty-sponsored research projects: 3 active
  • Junior papers/senior theses: 2 completed
  • Student course projects: 1 completed

WHAT’S IN STORE IN 2021

Re-construction of our composting facility at our new home will begin early next year with operations expected to resume in Spring 2021. We will continue to engage our students as operational assistants, albeit under new social distancing and other covid-related guidelines. Otherwise we plan to pick-up where we started on our operational and research efforts, including:

• Expanded compostables collection in the food gallery of Frist Campus Center
• Integration of research efforts with operational testing of different feedstocks and recipes
• Testing of new food scraps collection and drop-off systems to expand reach across campus

See you in the New Year!

Happy Holiday Season!

Before the Thanksgiving break, I attended the New Jersey Composting Council’s annual Organics Waste Summit on November 19th. Included in the topics of the virtual event were legal updates around the state of organics in New Jersey. Read on for highlights:

First, some background:

• To achieve NJ’s goal of reducing statewide emissions 80% by 2050 (from 2006 levels) , emissions from the waste sector must be reduced by 15%
  • Waste management was the largest source of non-energy GHG emissions in both 2006 and 2018.
  • In 2018, GHG emissions from waste management was over 5 million metric tons CO2e as shown below:

Updates on Recent Organics Recycling-Related Laws & Regulations

Aimed to directly or indirectly advance progress toward the “80×50” goal:

• New Jersey Protecting Against Climate Threats (NJ PACT) – Signed January 2020: Directs the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to make sweeping regulatory reforms to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change.
• Commercial Organics Recycling Mandate – Signed April 2020; Regulations Pending; Stakeholder Meetings Anticipated Early/Mid 2021; Mandate Effective October 2021: Establishments (e.g. hospitals, prisons, schools, restaurants, supermarkets) in the state that generate 52 or more tons of food waste annually must arrange for separate recycling if an authorized facility is located within 25 road miles. 
• Exemptions to Solid Waste Regulations for Small-Scale Food Waste Recycling Activities – NJDEP Stakeholder Meeting November 2020; Proposal Anticipated Early 2021: Aimed to make regulations easier to comply with for those looking to start micro/community-scale composting operations
• Environmental Justice Legislation – Signed September 2020; Stakeholder Meeting October 2020 (with additional meetings anticipated); Proposal Anticipated Early/Mid 2021: Aimed to prevent new environmentally damaging projects (e.g. landfills) from siting themselves in “burdened communities,” Learn more, including how to participate on the NJDEP EJ website
• Cannabis Legislation – pending after NJ voters approved a ballot question to legalize recreational marijuana in November 2020: Given that waste processing of cannabis residue needs to happen in-state, regulations and processes must be outlined to make sure the residue is diluted and sterilized as is most commonly required by governments in other states where cannabis is legalized. If the residue is combined with organic material, the resulting feedstock can be safely composted by effectively reducing levels of THC in discarded marijuana.