Environmental Services Division Manager Angelica Gurule
By KIRSTEN LASKEY
Los Alamos Daily Post
kirsten@ladailypost.com
Food waste not only effects the environment but people’s wallets. Los Alamos County Environmental Services Division is planning to embark on an education program aimed at helping people to not carelessly toss food and their money away.
Environmental Services Division Manager Angelica Gurule said the food waste education campaign is expected to kick off in April.
During the Feb. 18 Los Alamos County Council work session, Councilor Katrina Martin asked what the education campaign would touch on and if the public’s interest in food reduction has been gaged.
Gurule said it is interesting because a lot of people don’t think they are wasting food, but the reality is quite different; in fact, 40 percent of all food generated in the U.S. is wasted.
“People think they are not wasting food but almost everybody wastes food,” she said.
The number one way to reach people about reducing food waste is to show them how much money they can save, Gurule added. She explained by reducing food waste, residents could save up to $1,500 a year.
According to agenda documents, food waste reduction would also save the County money – $66,000 in hauling and landfill costs would be saved each year.
Plus, the campaign will highlight different facts. For instance, Gurule said food expiration dates are not regulated. In fact, the only sell by dates that are regulated are for baby food and baby formula. The campaign will also instruct on how to properly store food. The education would be done through different outreach events and advertisements.
As far as gaging public interest, Gurule said the Los Alamos County Zero Waste Team’s restaurant sub-committee went to all the business and restaurants in town to ask how the County can help businesses reduce food waste and business owners told them they wanted food composting. She added the Zero Waste Team heard a lot of interest in food composting during the Zero Waste events at last year’s summer concerts.
Gurule said the education campaign wouldn’t be reinventing the wheel and that there are many municipalities throughout the U.S. that have initiated food waste campaigns that Los Alamos could follow.
These education campaigns have a proven track record, she told the Los Alamos Daily Post during an interview Wednesday.
“Most food waste is generated at the household level,” Gurule said. “In other communities that have launched food waste education campaigns, they have reduced waste up to 20 percent.”
To help get the message across, Gurule told the Los Alamos Daily Post that the County is partnering with the Pajarito Environmental Education Center to screen the documentary, “Just Eat It” at 6 p.m April 22, which is Earth Day. The film discusses food waste and how to reduce it.
The campaign would last a year and has a $18,000 budget.
To further help efforts to reduce food waste, Gurule told the Daily Post that the County will issue a request for proposals (RFP) to conduct a feasibility study on implementing a municipal food composting program. She said it isn’t currently known when the RFP will be issued.
Gurule explained to Council that a consultant would be hired to conduct the study, which would focus on several items such as determining the best technology for composting and developing a business plan. She said the study is estimated to take six months and then Council would be updated on its results. The budget for the feasibility study is $100,000.
Council was presented a third option to reduce food waste during the work session, which was conducting a pilot project for food composting.
Gurule said the project would be for one year and it would address the challenges for food composting as well as how to make good quality compost. There are two types of pilot projects presented – an in-vessel solution and a site-built solution.
The in-vessel solution, she said, would compost 200 tons. This is just a fraction of local commercial food waste, but it is a place to start, Gurule said, adding this option comes with a hefty price tag – $150,000 per unit.
The cool thing about the in-vessel solution, Gurule said, is that it is a continuous flow system, meaning food can be constantly added to it. The County wouldn’t need to stockpile food waste.
According to agenda documents, the in-vessel solution is a pre-manufactured unit. Food waste is dump into it, an auger churns the waste to facilitate the decomposing process and compost is created.
The site-built solution has a bigger capacity, she said. It can handle up to 500 tons, which would accommodate all local commercial food waste. The cost for this option is even higher: $230,000.
The site-built solution is described in agenda documents as a type of greenhouse that would produce compost.
The pilot project would focus on commercial customers, Gurule said.
“We’re saying commercial because we’ve estimated there are about 50 business customers that we could serve,” Gurule said.
She explained business customers include restaurants, schools and grocery stores.
This group, Gurule said, “would help us be able to manage our customer base. So, say for example, the program didn’t work out the way we expected – it is easier to tell 50 customers we’re not able to do this versus (thousands of) residents so it’s a good place for us to start.”
To help fund the pilot project, Gurule said the plan would be to apply for a New Mexico Environment Department Solid Waste Bureau’s recycling and illegally dumping grant. The grant application is due March 31 and a decision on if the grant would be awarded should be announced in October.
During the pilot project, Gurule said data would be collected and the program would be evaluated. The food collection process would involve providing participants with roll carts. It could get messy, she said, because neither the in-vessel or the site-built option allows for the food waste to be bagged.
So, the County would need to address how to collect the waste. This would be a labor-intensive project, she added. The waste would be collected, taken to the Eco Station, weighed and added to the vessel. Gurule reported that it would take 21 days for the food to compost and another 21 days for it to cure or improve the compost’s quality before the compost would be ready for purchase.
Plus, she said there are a lot of challenges to composting including how to keep critters away from the waste.
Council showed support for all the options.
In fact, Public Works Department Director Anne Laurent said it was the result of council’s excitement about food composting during its Dec. 3, 2019 meeting that pushed the Environmental Services Division to pursue these different options.
The hope, she said is to answer questions on how the food composting system would work, get community input on the process, develop a business plan and create staff priorities on how to start all of this.
“The best thing to do with food waste is to not have as much and reduce it,” Laurent said.
