BioCycle April 2009, Vol. 50, No. 4, p. 45

Spring, 1960
WHY COMPOST?
According to Donald Rees, Director of Compost Engineers Limited, London, England, “there are two basic reasons for putting in a composting plant. The first reason is one of utilization of the organic content of wastes. The second is the disposal of wastes. To date, the highest degree of interest is coming from those parts of the world where the population is increasing, and where the level of humus is becoming depleted. The application of artificial fertilizers has only served to accelerate the depletion of humus in these places. These countries have got to feed themselves and, if possible, have a surplus to export. Making good organic fertilizer out of rubbish is thus a necessity.”
“The other reason for composting, disposal is far closer to your country and mine. Both the United States and England have comparatively rich agriculture, and although there are very definite signs that our people are overdoing the application of artificial fertilizers, it is going to be quite a long time before depletion of humus begins to hurt the farmer’s pocket. Nevertheless, where compost is available, the farmers are buying it, and although they are not necessarily crying out for it, they keep coming back. They wouldn’t do this, if it wasn’t well merited from the profit aspect.”
Concerning the failures of some previous U.S. composting attempts, Mr. Rees comments: “In nearly every case, composting has been approached on the basis of a commercial venture, and the price of compost has been too high. I don’t believe that this is the right line of thought. The hygienic disposal of waste is a municipal responsibility, with quite a premium on hygiene. Furthermore, it must be in the national interest to plow back humus and prevent the dustbowls caused by soil erosion.”
Summer, 1960
WASTE UTILIZATION IN SPACE SHIPS
Sustaining life in space travel may be the most challenging problem of all involved in interplanetary flights. As flight durations become longer, the need to recover food, water and oxygen from wastes becomes greater. Recent studies show that using human wastes to grow food and provide drinking water may be one way to solve weight and capacity problems in space ships. At Seattle, Washington, Boeing scientists have developed a “closed ecological system” that handles the waste of persons on normal diets, converts it to reusable forms by treating it with selected bacteria. According to a report in Chemical and Engineering News, Boeing says the system has earthbound uses too. Since the end product is a harmless solution which can be discharged safely into lakes and streams, the system could be used in mobile homes, pleasure boats and areas with pollution problems.
Autumn, 1960
RIGHTS TO COMPOSTING PROCESS OBTAINED BY LOCKHEED AIRCRAFT
The Naturizer Corporation of Norman, Oklahoma, developer and patent holder of a process and equipment to convert municipal refuse into compost, has granted Lockheed Aircraft, Burbank, California, exclusive rights to manufacture and market the equipment. Announcement of this agreement was made in the September 20th issue of The Wall Street Journal. The agreement provides for a royalty payment by Lockheed based on the gross value of machinery and equipment in all Naturizer plants sold or leased, plus royalty payments from franchisers using the copyrighted name Naturizer on compost sales. Naturizer made its first plant sale to North Miami, Florida last May (1959) and has completed negotiations for a second plant in Burbank, California. A description of the Naturizer plant in Norman, Oklahoma by Dr. P. H. McCauhey, Director of the Sanitary Engineering Research Laboratory of the University of California, appears in this issue of Compost Science.
Autumn, 1960
SEWAGE PLANT GROWS VEGETABLES
Persons entering the Lewistown, Pennsylvania sewage treatment plant to buy sludge often walk away with free tomato plants, tomatoes and even pumpkins, reports a recent issue of Grit. The plant has two all-glass buildings in which the sludge drying beds are located and it is not unusual for the buildings to be mistaken for greenhouses. George W. Reichenbach, chief operator, helped build the plant and has worked there since it was put into operation in 1954. He said the tomato plants grow spontaneously in the spring of the year without any harm from the 90-degree heat used to treat the raw sewage.
Reichenbach estimated that more than 2,000 plants and several wheelbarrows loaded with tomatoes were hauled away from the plant last year. He said that a luxuriant growth from a pumpkin vine also contributed 25 mature pumpkins to their “hothouse.” Research laboratories have analyzed the sludge and have recommended it for use on flowers, shrubs and grass, and for soil conditioning.
Autumn, 1961
REFUSE DUMPING LEADS TO AIR CRASHES
“It appears that untidy habits of humans may be responsible for bird threats to jets during takeoffs and landings,” reports an Associated Press dispatch released from Boston. The Massachusetts Audubon Society was asked to investigate factors that brought so many gulls to the Boston Harbor area, after research had shown that birds drawn into the engines of a jet airliner at takeoff were responsible for the crash. After careful study, it was found that refuse dumped into the sea in metropolitan coastal areas had been causing gulls to multiply. The Society’s investigations showed that parent gulls were feeding their young in the Boston area with such manmade tidbits as cooked lobster, hamburger, fish filet remnants and garbage. Their suggested remedy is enforcement of pollution control. This means preventing dumping of fish cleaning refuse from boats and wharves, restricting the dumping of garbage, and making processing mandatory to prevent raw sewage from reaching Boston area waters.
Winter, 1961
COMPOST LOADER
The Ludwig Jabelmann Company, Velzen, Hanover, Germany manufactures a compost loader, turner and spreading machine with a rubber belt conveyor. According to the firm, its machines are used “with good results in compost preparation in many garbage disposal plants, large nurseries and in mushroom culture.” Features of the machine include two wide conveyor belts adjustable for height and width; hydraulic control for steering swivel movement; automatic pick-up with forward and backward movement; and capable of being operated by one man.
Summer, 1962
SCHENECTADY, N.Y. PLANT SELLS MORE SLUDGE THAN EVER
According to Clifford Irving, superintendent of Schenectady’s Bureau of Sewage Treatment, more local residents than ever are buying Orgro, a packaged dried sewage sludge produced at the plant. The sludge, packaged in 65-pound bags, was sold to some 1,600 individuals during the year. Writing in an earlier issue of Compost Science, Mr. Irving described the failure of earlier attempts to give the sludge away: “By establishing a price for this product, the public was made to realize that it had some value.”
Continued Mr. Irving: “Our drying equipment is of the Flash Dryer type as manufactured by Combustion Engineering, Inc. … which dries a blended mixture of vacuum filter cake and previously dried sludge in an air stream. The dried material is separated from the air stream in a cyclone separator from which a portion is returned to a mixer for blending with additional vacuum filter cake, and the balance is pneumatically conveyed to a storage bin for bagging.” The plant has been selling Orgro since April, 1954. Concludes Mr. Irving: “There is over a $60.00 saving to the city every day we operate.”
Spring, 1963
HOW TO MAKE COMPOST
An article in the Spring 1963 issue of Compost Science was translated from a pamphlet given to Taiwanese farmers by the government of Taiwan. Its purpose was to “introduce to you a number of things about compost which is the most important type of self-supplied manure.” The brochure noted that “chemical fertilizers are bought from abroad with a large amount of foreign exchange paid by the Government. If at times in the future when the supply of foreign fertilizers is not enough, or the prices are too high, or the transportation becomes difficult, those farmers who have the experience of making compost can then entirely rely on compost to ensure a fair yield … Fellow farmers: Repair or construct your compost house as soon as possible! Make as much compost as possible!” The brochure continued:
“We all still remember that in 1943 when the war was going on furiously and the supply of chemical fertilizers dropped to 50 percent of the former quantity (325,600 m/t compared to the average 618,000 m/t in the period 1937-39), the agricultural production of that year and the next year was only maintained by the greatest effort of our farmers in this province to make a large quantity of compost. Also, when in 1945 the application of chemical fertilizers in paddy fields was only 4 kg per ha. on the average, it was only through our increased application of compost and other self-supplied fertilizers was the 638,828 m/t of brown rice production in that year possible. Through these instances we can readily see the great value of compost.”
Autumn, 1963
DIGESTER DEVELOPED FOR COMPOSTING USE
A digester described as a “continuous process thermophilic digester” has been developed by Woodrow Hardy and is being manufactured by the Fairfield Engineering Company of Marion, Ohio. One single unit is said to provide more than five days digestion time for 100 tons per day of plant capacity. Its operating principle makes use of periods of agitation and other times when the material is not disturbed. These alternate periods are controlled for effective decomposition of the treated material. The digester has handled materials such as garbage, garbage-sludge mixtures or dewatered sludge alone along with other organic industrial wastes. Pregrinding is considered essential in the Hardy method, although the digester continues to grind the material and produce smaller particle size as digestion progresses.
Spring, 1968
NO END TO AEROSOL CANS
The marketing director of a leading aerosol company has predicted that about 300 new products are slated to be sold in aerosol cans in the near future. “Aerosol’s biggest breakthrough is anticipated in the field of medicine,” according to Paul Welsh, of the Scovil Manufacturing Company. “We foresee radioactive inhalants for lung cancer patients, aerosol insulin to replace injections for diabetics and various types of inhalant vaccines.” The aerosol industry also foresees about 600 million units of pressure-packed foods on the market by 1971. “The housewife will be able to serve a full-course dinner from aerosol cans, some of which will keep food hot or cold, depending on how it is to be served.”
Autumn, 1969
MANY “MAGNIFICENTLY RIDICULOUS” PROBLEMS
The Editor of Public Works recently opened a carton of corned beef and found that the total bulk of the carton was “easily twice that of the volume of its contents.” He called this situation “magnificently ridiculous” and pointed out that the packaging did nothing whatsoever to improve the flavor of the corned beef. Instead it created another gigantic headache for the people concerned with solid waste removal. “If the bulky packages so common in today’s markets are necessary, then at least they should themselves be edible,” he concludes.
Recently the Consumer Protection and Environmental Health Service of the Public Health Service published a 200 page report on “The Role of Packaging in Solid Waste Management: 1966 to 1976.” It’s a very thorough treatment of the subject which is attacked from a point of view that can only be described as discouraging. Say the authors, “On the whole packaging materials are not very degradable, and this includes all materials, not merely those which resist every kind of bacterial or chemical action. Paper, the most degradable of the major category materials, has been reported to persist unchanged in landfills for 60 years or longer.”
However there is a cheerful section on composting which includes some excellent, reasonable arguments on its behalf. “In actuality, of course, it costs about the same to perform composting as it does to incinerate. If incinerator operators were expected to sell heat, salvaged materials, and ash residue at sufficiently high prices to cover incineration costs, incineration would be no more economical than composting. For this reason, it is well to present composting as its wiser proponents now see it, that is, in a neutral light – as a disposal process – rather than as a waste industry which has failed to live up to its earlier promotional promises.”
March-April, 1970
ZERO GARBAGE PRODUCTION
The following idea on Zero Garbage Production was suggested by Ecology Action in Palo Alto, California: 1. Get a group of households together in your neighborhood who want to help make the Whole Earth Salvaging Co. work. 2. Organize a neighborhood pick-up point (a garage, nearby vacant lot, etc.; 1 pick-up point for each group of 7 or 8 households). 3. Arrange to pick up or have the “recyclable resources” taken to the pick-up point. (Each person should separate out glass, aluminum cans, tin cans, and newspapers.) 4. On specified dates, take the segregated items to central storage points. (Storage points now being located.) If you know of any – an unused shed, garage or lot – let us know at Ecology Action.
May-June, 1970
THE RIGHT TO SUE POLLUTERS
An article in the May-June issue of Compost Science by Maurice Franz and Jeff Cox provides insight into the founding of the Environmental Defense Fund. The article describes passage of the Environmental Policy Act of 1969, which in essence allowed any citizen or group of citizens to go into court and demand an injunction against a project that does not disclose the impact of its proposal on the environment. To learn more about how citizens could fight polluters, Franz and Cox went to Stony Brook, New York “to talk with the people who are heading up The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) which operates under the provisions of the Environmental Act.” They met with Rod Cameron, 31 (at the time), a lawyer and executive director of EDF. “We’re working to set precedents in environmental law, not just to solve specific problems,” said Cameron. EDF, wrote Franz and Cox, “wants to set landmark cases for others to use in winning the legal end of the battle against pollution. If the courts, for example, force the federal government to live up to its own laws in EDF’s pesticide cases, then municipalities and their various departments should demand the same effectiveness for current-but-unenforced laws against air and water pollution … Attorneys Cameron and Edward L. Rogers, general counsel for EDF, firmly believe that suing polluters hurts them most and stops them quickest … EDF has some seed money for landmark cases, and Rogers and Cameron suggest that persons interested in suing for a better environment call them to talk over the possibilities.”
May-June, 1971
TOWN ENCOURAGES BACKYARD COMPOSTING
“Compost your leaves in your backyard, and stop dumping them at the curb.” That is what the Town of Brookhaven, New York is telling its resident-citizens, noted an article in the May-June 1971 issue of Compost Science. Leaves are still being collected and transported in Brookhaven for both composting and mulching operations. But the old plastic bags are out, and a new, biodegradable kraft paper bag is in. Made by St. Regis Paper Company, it holds 50 percent more than plastic, and stands the weather well. The article also reported that once the town Highway Department “began planting trees and shrubs along the roads and on the slopes of the really enormous storm water recharge basins, they soon found that seedlings take hold better and thrive when they’re fed lots of compost.”
May-June, 1971
EXPANDING MARKETS THROUGH PREFERENTIAL PURCHASE
A memo written by the New York City Environmental Protection Administration called for a program of preferential purchases of environmentally beneficial products. The memo noted that the “essential aspect of recycling is utilization, or more precisely, reutilization.” It decided to target paper because it is “the largest single component of our solid waste. The various grades of paper constitute an estimated 40-60 percent (by weight) of our refuse. Yet … the paper industry has been using progressively less waste paper (on a percentage basis) in the manufacture of new paper. Data compiled by the American Paper Institute reveals that in 1944, waste paper accounted for 36.6 percent of the fibre consumed in the manufacture of new paper. Today, waste paper accounts for only 20 percent …”
“New York City is beginning what must become a national effort to reverse this trend, to expand the markets for secondary materials, by starting to channel the millions of dollars spent annually for equipment and supplies into a program of preferential purchase of environmentally beneficial products. The new specification for bond paper is the first step. It requires that our paper be made with at least 20 percent ‘recycled deinked’ fibres.”
January-February, 1973
RESEARCH SHOWS SOIL AS A “LIVING FILTER”
William Sopper, professor of Forest Hydrology at Penn State, continues to report excellent results from the experiment initiated in 1968 to determine if municipal sewage effluent and sludge could be used to improve the harsh site conditions existing on many bituminous coal strip mining spoil banks. More recent research has shown beneficial effects on farm crops as well. Orchard grass grown from seed produced more than 3,000 pounds to an acre of dry matter when irrigated weekly with two inches of effluent plus two inches of sludge.
With regard to land application of sludge, Charles Reed, agricultural engineering professor at Rutgers University, uses a plow-furrow-cover technique to apply sludge and liquid manures to soil. W. J. Bauer of Chicago’s SEMCO (Soil Enrichment Materials Corp.) invented a multi-blade plow that lifts the uppermost foot of topsoil, simultaneously injects a 6-inch layer of sludge into the topsoil, and returns the upturned soil to its original position.
November-December, 1973
OHIO EPA PROMOTES STATEWIDE LEAF COMPOSTING
The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has produced a concise, thorough promotional packet on leaf composting. The packet was mailed to mayors of all cities and villages in Ohio (over 730 persons). Larry R. Menchhofer, citizens’ action coordinator for the Ohio EPA, says the packet urges both municipalities and individuals to compost, rather than burn, their leaves this fall. In addition to the mailing, the promotion includes public service radio, TV and newspaper ads, feature stories for newspaper use and magazine articles encouraging leaf composting. The packet includes “Citizen’s Guide to the Proper Disposal of Leaves and Other Organic Material,” a simple but thorough 8-page booklet on how to compost not only leaves but kitchen garbage, animal manures and other organic materials found around the home. It details the methods of making compost, and describes the value of finished compost and how to use it.
In its letter to the municipalities, Ohio EPA stated, “The autumn season, with its deluge of falling leaves is rapidly approaching. In the past, leaf disposal has been simply the process of striking a match. But our society is beginning to realize that the open burning of leaves and other refuse is too expensive to condone … As a result, the State of Ohio has found it economically and environmentally advantageous to implement regulations limiting open burning as a method of solid waste disposal … Leaf composting benefits the environment and your constituents by eliminating the need to incinerate, bury, or dump the leaves and by providing valuable organic soil conditioning material for your public lands and/or citizens’ properties.”
January-February, 1975
HARDWOOD BARK MULCHES CONTROL ROADSIDE EROSION IN ILLINOIS
Since 1968, the Illinois Department of Forestry has been conducting research on the use of hardwood bark to stabilize the soil on roadside slopes, report Michael F. Bolin, Extension Specialist, and Theodore R. Yocum, Associate Professor of Forestry, in Illinois Research. Preliminary field trials were conducted at two locations: along I-70 between Effingham and Terre Haute and along I-72 west of Champaign. Both the short- and long-term capabilities of shredded hardwood bark as a seeding mulch were observed. In the short term, a mulch should reduce soil erosion from bare slopes to an acceptable level. In the long term, it must provide adequate conditions for development of a vegetative cover dense enough to assure permanent slope stabilization. Several mulches were tested on a clay loam topsoil provided by the Illinois Department of Transportation, Paris District. Each mulch treatment was exposed to the simulated rainfall for 30 minutes.
Four mulch materials were tested in addition to a control or bare soil model. The materials were a processed hardwood bark that’s now being produced in the Midwest; sawdust from an Illinois sawmill; and coarse and fine shredded bark mulches. In field studies previously conducted, applications of less than 20 cubic yards of bark mulch per acre did not control erosion satisfactorily. However, applications of 25 to 30 cubic yards did reduce erosion markedly. For the current studies, two rates were tried: 30 cubic yards, to confirm the field trial results; and 40 cubic yards, to determine if higher rates were more desirable. Two slopes, 2:1 and 3:1, were included in the tests. Two excessively high rates of rainfall, 6 and 9 inches per hour, were selected to test the mulches’ capacity to withstand extreme conditions. Although the data collected in the study have not yet been completely analyzed, the bark mulch was obviously very effective. It held the soil in place even when subjected to rainfall at the rate of 6 inches per hour for a full 30 minutes. Under the same conditions, a sawdust mulch was severely eroded.
July-August, 1975
THE SLUDGEGATE AFFAIR
With all the investigating going on in Washington these days, we wish someone would take a few minutes to find out who stopped the delivery of 20 tons of USDA-composted sewage sludge from being spread on the south lawn of the White House. The ill-fated decision must have cost U.S. taxpayers an extra few thousand dollars, and we’re certain President Ford will ask some hard questions when he sees last month’s bills for whatever expensive turf-builder was substituted for the compost. Only a few blocks away, at the new Constitution Gardens, National Park Service personnel saved $200,000 by using 9,000 tons of the compost. (See “Enrichment of Urban Soil with Composted Sludge and Leaf Mold Constitution Gardens” in the May-June issue.)
Originally the composed sludge was to be spread over the White House grass in a layer between one-fourth and one-half inch thick. But, according to the Washington Post, certain Presidential staff members called the project “too experimental” for a White House lawn “frequented by large numbers of domestic and foreign dignitaries.” As a result, the 20 tons of humusy material went to a polo field (where evidently few dignitaries go).
USDA scientists remain enthusiastic about the composting project at the Beltsville, Maryland research center. According to Dr. Eliot Epstein, the digested sludge from the Blue Plains treatment plant, after being composted with wood chips and reaching 165° F temperatures, is the kind of valuable soil conditioner-fertilizer which “people go to nurseries to buy.” After the Post story appeared, operators at the plant got more than 100 phone cal1s from persons seeking the rejected compost. Said one caller: “If the President doesn’t want compost, I do!” (Note: Eventually, biosolids compost did makes its way to the White House lawn, as evidenced by a photo provided by Dr. Epstein for the 50th Anniversary Celebration Gala’s “mural.”
January-February, 1976
BANGOR, MAINE, COMPOSTS SLUDGE FOR USE ON PUBLIC LANDS
The municipal sewage sludge of Bangor, Maine, is now being composted for use as a soil conditioner and mulch on city parks, golf course and other public lands. The project began last June with a $20,000 one-year demonstration grant from the Environmental Protection Agency. According to EPA, “most cities around the country already have the principal equipment necessary to adopt this relatively inexpensive process. Bangor officials estimate they will save in excess of 50 percent of their current annual expenditures for loam and mulch materials which will now be replaced with the compost.” In addition, the city saves on disposal expense.
Under the composting process, developed by the USDA’s Biological Waste Management Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, sludge is mixed with waste wood bark which creates air spaces and makes it possible to draw air through the mixture. The mixture is then piled on top of two parallel sections of perforated pipe, 40 feet long and 4 inches in diameter, which are attached to a blower. When the blower is on, the pipes draw air from the pile, providing control for oxygen content, temperature and odors. After the pile has been composted for 21 days, it is stockpiled for a minimum of 30 days. About 50 cubic yards, all of the sludge generated by Bangor, is composted each week.
January-February, 1978
PRESIDENT CARTER IS “FASCINATED” BY DUNG-TO-ENERGY MACHINE IN INDIA
A methane digester operating on a small farm southwest of New Delhi, India made international news following a visit by President Carter in early January. According to a Reuters dispatch from Daulatpurx Nasirabad, India, the President “showed particular interest in a machine that converts cow dung into methane gas for cooking and lighting and for running small farm machinery. Any dung left over is used as fertilizer.” The unit which attracted the President’s attention costs about $500, and there are about 25,000 similar machines operating in India. “They are the answer to fuel problems for farmers,” an Indian official was quoted as saying. During his visit, Mr. Carter was asked by a U.S. reporter if he thought the idea of methane digesters could get into his energy bill. “We still have time for amendments,” the President answered – amid laughter, noted the Reuters dispatch.
May-June, 1978
SECOND ANNUAL MANURE GIVE-AWAY
With much hoopla, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus gave away bags of manure from a herd of 22 elephants, dozens of horses and “other hay-eating animals” prior to a May performance at New York’ s Madison Square Garden. Circus manure, we are told, is premium quality fertilizer since the animals have a rich and varied diet, consisting not only of grains and hay, but also apples, carrots and other vegetables. And that’s not all! “Zebra manure can produce striped tomatoes perfect for the chef who has trouble slicing in straight lines. A plant treated with camel manure can go days without water.”
July-August, 1978
CHEYENNE’S SOLAR GREENHOUSE USES METHANE DIGESTER
With several thousand dollars in grants from the Community Services Administration and great amounts of volunteer labor from local citizens, there’s an impressive solar greenhouse in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The greenhouse is divided into three chambers with 1,500 square feet of floor space in each. The greenhouse’s solar heating system uses water in 200 55-gallon steel barrels to store the sun’s rays, estimated to provide at least 100,000,000 British thermal units of heat per year.
A methane digester, developed by Bio-Gas of Colorado, is designed to process 150 pounds of dairy manure and garden wastes daily. According to Joan Nice, an editor with High Country News, the digester will produce burnable methane gas, and carbon dioxide for plants, plus composted sludge for fertilizer use. “Solar water heaters mounted in front of the greenhouse will provide the heat needed to keep bacteria in the digester alive,” adds Nice. The Domestic Technology Institute of Lakeland, Colorado furnished technical assistance for the project.
September-October, 1978
MANURE-TO-METHANE AT CALIFORNIA FEEDLOT
The Pacific Gas and Electric Company and the Southern California Gas Company are building California’s first manure-to-methane test facility at a cattle feedlot near Brawley, California. The companies also plan to utilize the end product as a high-protein feed, with the University of California performing cattle feeding trials. Bio-Gas of Colorado, Inc. designed, built and operated the facility, which will convert one ton of manure from 75 to 100 head of cattle daily to 7,000 cubic feet of natural gas. Bio-Gas has a 6,000 gallon unit currently in use in feeding trials at a Lamar, Colorado feedlot. The California utility companies envision expanding the demonstration project into commercial-size plants capable of processing manure from 50,000 to 400,000 head of cattle. Preliminary investigations have shown that approximately 30 million cubic feet of methane daily can potentially be produced from feedlot waste throughout California.
November-December, 1978
SEWAGE GAS VEHICLE FUEL
A Sewage Gas Vehicle Fuel System is reported to be installed in Modesto, California – a cooperative project of Dual Fuel Systems, Inc. (DFSI) and the Modesto sewage treatment facility. The system is designed to allow municipal agencies to operate fleet vehicles on methane gas produced during sewage treatment. The unit scrubs the gas to remove carbon dioxide and other contaminants, yielding a high-quality motor fuel. DFSI has patented equipment so the vehicles can use compressed natural gas while retaining ability to operate on gasoline. Five city vehicles are reported to be using the gas now, while methane supply is estimated to be sufficient to furnish the average daily fuel requirements of a fleet of more than 150 vehicles.
January-February, 1979
SEATTLE TESTS VARIABLE GARBAGE RATES
The Seattle Solid Waste Utility, under a contract to Seattle Recycling, Inc., has initiated Project SORT (Separate Our Recyclables from Trash) in “an attempt to answer some of the questions which are facing many local governments today in the area of solid waste management – what the actual economics of collection service will be,” wrote Kevin Mulligan in an article in the January-February 1979 issue of Compost Science/Land Utilization. “The idea for the SORT program originated after a group of citizens went to the Seattle City Council to protest the fact that residents with little or no garbage still had to pay the City $5.20 each month, the standard rate charged to households with four or less cans of garbage. The citizens’ committee reasoned that people who had no garbage, or only one can, should not have to subsidize their waste producing neighbors. What made this situation seem even more unfair was that the people with little or no garbage were taking the extra time and effort to separate their garbage, recycle some of it, and compost the rest.”
“The City Council decided to test the feasibility of variable garbage rates. At the same time, the pilot program was designed to look into other factors affecting the feasibility of recycling – the possibility of city-wide home collection of recyclables, what the City’s role in this recycling process should be, how to encourage recycling in general, and the efficiencies of the collection and processing of recyclables.” The SORT program is a 16-month study involving 15,000 households in 30 neighborhoods … divided into three research groups: option of a variable can rate with free curbside or alley collection of recyclables; opportunity for collection of recyclables without the variable can rate; and variable can rate but no recycling collection service … “The study, which charges a uniform rate of $5.20 for two to four cans/week, a reduced rate of $4 for one can, and $1 for no cans, is attempting to measure the impact of monetary incentives on the waste generating habits of the participating households.” The idea behind the $1 charge for no garbage service is that households will have some garbage, which they can self-haul to the transfer station and drop off at no cost, but the city will still incur costs for handling it. One problem raised early on was the difference between $5.20 and $4 is not significant enough “to convince people to reduce their waste generating habits.”