Kristyn's Travel and Trash Thoughts

Day 4 The fourth day we visited another waste company outside of Venice. This is a  100% public company owned by a consortium of 49 municipalities. First we observed waste collection in a neighborhood.  Back at headquarters, the company gave us a presentation followed by a tour of the waste collection and sorting facility, compost facility, and diaper recycling facility. We learned about the public outreach aspect which include s a magazine, calendar, website, social media, branch offices, public tours, curriculum modules, and more.  The sorting facility was interesting but the diaper recycling facility was even more interesting. They collect used disposable diapers from households, autoclave them to kill the bacteria, and used a unique patented process to separate out the plastic film, and the stuffing which are then recycled.  The compost facility was really cool because they utilized a complex conveyor belt system to transport the compost from...

Day 3 The third day we split into two groups, one focused on food rescue and the second focused on reuse. I was in the second group and we had a busy day of driving around the region. We visited an anaerobic digestion facility, which had only been open a couple months.The main input is residential food scraps and they use yard waste as a bulking agent. They accept all types of food waste, even raw meat and bones.  First, machines squeeze out the liquids from the food waste, then compost the remaining solids.  Italy has favorable incentives for bio-methane. The gas goes into the high-pressured gas lines to be used as part of the electric market. For the compost, they are testing  different uses, such as a green roof medium.  Waste sent to waste to energy is required to have a certain calorific value. We then visited a compost facility which was very large and impressive. It was a good day, even with the smells and the heat. 

Day 2  We started the day early in the morning to follow a collection truck and see how households set out their items for collection and are picked up. In Milan there are 5 separate containers for collection: organics, cardboard, glass, plastic and metal, and residual waste. This was impressive since most places in the U.S. only have 2 or 3 separate containers. It takes a lot of effort to educate residents on what goes where and to get them to take the time to do it. Having the space for so many containers is also a challenge most of the time. In Milan, the vast majority of households are in multi-family dwellings (apartment buildings/condos), rather than single family, stand-alone homes. Each building has dedicated space to hold the containers.    After a coffee break, we visited the headquarters of the waste company, which I found to be one of the most interesting stops of the study tour. I enjoyed hearing about the history of the company, its operations, and i...

I recently spent  a few days in Milan on a study tour organized by the Natural Resources De fense Council (NRDC), Economia e Sostenibilita (esta), and Novamont. This tour was attended by representatives from five U.S. cities and focused on food waste prevention, rescue, and recycling (compost and bio-gas production). The five cities were Baltimore, Denver, Phoenix, Cleveland, and Oakland. There were two representatives from each city who have some role in food waste prevention in their city. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to represent Baltimore, in my position as a waste reduction coordinator. My co-representative was works for the Planning Department.  While in Milan, w e met with city officials, waste companies, local non-profits, university officials, and others. We observed waste collection in Milan and Trevisio. We visited multiple compost facilities (small and large), an anaerobic digestion facility, a waste sorting facility, and even a diaper recycl...