Agricultural Waste Feedstock
What do you think about agricultural waste. Maybe you haven’t thought much because you live in the city. Get out of central humanity and you are bound to run into Ag Waste. Like Rice Straw in the Central Valley or Wheat Straw in Eastern Washington. All farming creates a feedstock of leftovers. After the corn there is the stalk. The stalk can become the cup or the fuel. All over the world ag waste is valued at differing levels depending on the needs of the local economy. We are pushing the process of changing our waste stream. The compostable waste stream is the future. The efficiencies of utilizing materials in the area they occur, and dispensing value each step usually results in innovation. Exuberant growth is the natural state of much of our planet.
Out of the exuberance of your life what is the value of your waste feedstock .
My own waste feedstock has things like SpudWare®, spring boxes,car wrecks and cabbage in the garden.
And then there are the relationships.
SpudWare® in the Potato Museum
I was contacted last summer by Meredith Hughes from The Potato Museum located in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They were interested in putting examples of SpudWare® utensils in the museum. Sounded great to me and we have sent them some to display. I think potatoes are great. I especially like baked potatoes with butter and sour cream on the side.
For those of you who can’t make it to the Potato Museum in New Mexico, you will be pleased to know that there will be an exhibition on the spud at the US Botanic Garden in Washington, DC. The exhibition opens on May 7, 2010. Drop on by and learn of the great value potatoes have added to human existence.
and now for some potato trivia
- A potato is about 80% water and 20% solid.
- Henry Spalding first planted potatoes in Idaho in 1837
- “French Fries” were introduced to America when Thomas Jefferson served them at a Whitehouse dinner.
- United States potato lovers consumed more than 4 million tons of French Fries in various shapes and sizes.
- Potatoes are a powerful aphrodisiac, says a physician in Ireland.
- The average American eats 140 pounds of potatoes per year. Germans eat more than 200 pounds per year.
- The largest potato grown was 18 pounds and 4 ounces according to the Guinness Book of World Records. It was grown in England in 1795.
- The highest volume baked potato restaurant, The Hot Potato, is located in Plaza las Americas in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The BioMass Packaging® story
SpudWare® is one part of a larger biobased foodservice packaging program.
The program is known as BioMass Packaging®.
We picked the name because we felt that biomass would become known widely as a feedstock used for both packaging and green power generation. Our goal is to achieve a compostable waste stream. It is logical to consider utilizing unvalued agricultural waste feedstocks like corn stalks, wheat stalks or sugarcane bagasse. Other biomass materials would be forest trimmings, seaweed , crabshells and potato starch. The list of potential feedstock is extensive and really only limited by the innovation needed to add the value and create a product.
BioMass Packaging® is now 5 years old and will soon have its own website. Our goal is to create a knowledge center about all things biomass. An educated consumer is very powerful. We rely on that.
Ten years from now, the compostable waste stream will be a reality.
That means we have time to be ready.
That would be stimulating.
A Sustainable Waste Stream System
Imagine the possibility of a Sustainable. Compostable and Capturable Waste stream. Technology is moving quickly towards giving us the ability to utilize any biomass for either fuel or packaging feedstock. Agricultural Waste is generated all over the United States in the various forms determined by what is grown. In Eastern Washington state wheat straw is the first ag waste feedstock that comes to mind. This is what is left over after harvesting the wheat kernels. Currently it is burned or plowed under. This waste material can be transformed into foodservice packaging. Harvest, clean and make into a slurry. The machine is like a giant waffle maker that turns it into plates or bowls. The most logical market is Seattle and Portland. Carbon foot print reduction occurs in all phases of production and distribution compared to fossil non-degradable plastic pollution.
Look around where you live. What is the agricultural economy based upon. I have no doubt that there is waste that could be utilized for fuel or packaging. We currently do not value these resources. However, much like a weed is a plant growing where you do not want it, Ag Waste is a disposal problem with a value added solution.
It might seem impossible to make this kind of a change. The entrenched interests will force styrofoam down our throats no matter what the consumer prefers.
And yet the change will happen. The plastic in the ocean will force us to change our waste stream.
So Look Around and please let me know what your agricultural waste is made of. We are the consumer. We get to decide. As with any new innovation, there is the price component. Cost is higher for these products while infrastructure is ramped up to supply the innovaters. Efficiencies of scale come into play as systems become refined and the specific successful applications emerge. Creating a compostable waste stream essentially answers in a positive way the problem of culture expansion.
Islands of Plastic
I have just returned from a couple of weeks in the Bahamas on a very good vacation.
As we walked along the beach we observed bits of clear plastic and styrofoam pieces that were mixed in with the seaweed and shells along the water lapping edge of the Atlantic Ocean.
Seeing the impact of plastic in the ocean is a wake up call. It was only about 60 years ago that we started using plastic for packaging. We now are finding vast areas of the ocean full of plastic. We need to start to change away from non-degradable fossil based plastic to biobased compostable feedstocks.
To me this is a much more important problem then the theory of global warming. Here is an article about plastic in the ocean.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/blog/2009/12/committed_to_cleaning_the_garb.html
The challenge is to become aware of the true cost of non-degradable plastic.
As the consumer becomes educated, she will make a good choice for the future.
Plastic is changing our lives right now.
Here is an example
BPA could make girls more aggressive: Study
SpudWare® has no BPA or any plasticizers added.
You can stay mellow by using SpudWare®
Government efforts to ban Polystyrene(styrofoam, clear hinged containers, plates, utensils)) continue to grow.
More cities and counties are moving forward to enact regulations that ban polystyrene for foodservice packaging use. Polystyrene is seen as a significant pollutant at all life stages. The polluting process begins at the factory where the plastic beads are blown away from the manufacturing site and much of it ends up in the water drainage ultimately going into the ocean. When the product is made and sold, there are few end of life scenarios that do not include polllution and contamination. Government actions are typically heavy handed and usually leave exemptions for large businesses like fast food outlets.
I believe the consumer is the preferred engine of change towards a compostable waste stream. The education of the consumer should be the major avenue of change away from fossil material. Consumers balance cost versus benefits with every purchase. Consumer demand for alternative choices in foodservice packaging have been evolving towards sustainability for many years. In my 35 years of selling foodservice packaging I have seen the sustainability issue come around every 5-8 years. There are some changes that stick with each cycle of change. The paper hot cup had to be made to look like a styrofoam cup in order for the consumer to understand the difference in the application. The acceptance of the paper hot cup proves that if consumers recognize added value in the coffee drinking experience they will pay much more for the experience, up to 4 times as much cost for the cup.
Government should focus on educating the consumer. Let the consumer decide how to spend the money.
Products like SpudWare® and Ecotainers® serve to educate the consumer in multiple ways.
First they learn what the plastic they have been using is made of, fossil materials.
Second they learn that Bio-plastic alternatives exist now in a way they have never existed. Large waste streams can be filled with compostable material that can be disposed of in a variety of sustainable end of life scenarios.
Third they learn the importance of taking care of our own needs. This means utilizing feedstocks that exist domestically and are not currently used or valued. Whether they are in the form of wheat straw in Eastern Washington or the forest trimmings in Colorado these waste feedstocks hold great efficiencies that when realized result in a system of self sustainability.
This is just the beginning of the process. Do you think that there might be a curriculum about plastic in our education system. Plastic that is ubiquitous, yet when we first started presenting to colleges in 2006, 70% of American Consumers did not know what plastic was made from.
Now is a time for innovation. Foodservice packaging is evolving faster than it has since the introduction of fossil plastic and fast food. Feedstocks of vegetable starch, sugarcane bagasse, Ingeo corn plastic, bulrush and many other mediums are the solutions for the future. Learn and advocate for this new sustainable solution.
The potatote dilemma
I had an interesting conversation with Christine Sayre Goldstein regarding her company Potatote.
She is intent on bringing potato based plastic tshirt bags into the market. It is very difficult to make something really new like a potatote. But I do like the name. It is the effort of individuals that is the innovation driver. Doesn’t she know that since it doesn’t exist now, efforts to make it real are just tooo hard. Creativity and freedom. And the passion to see it through to the end result.
The Mission of SpudWare®
SpudWare®, it makes a connection. When you realize that plastic can be made of vegetable that is one thing. But the potato is everyday news, ordinary like plastic. Why is it that a material so involved in our day to day lives has no part in public education. I am talking about ordinary plastic. It is everywhere, yet we remain uneducated. The mission of SpudWare® is to educate and connect. The mundane with the magic. Knowing that you always have a choice and make a choice. Now we bring SpudWare.com to life. I know a lot about foodservice packaging made from bio-based materials and will answer questions now. Maybe we can have a conversation.