June
2008
Waste and Waist Management: Day 200
Today Mr. Wiki gave us a very detailed lecture about Ecological Disciplines (ways to live in the modern world without overly harming the environment) and then took us to visit a waste management plant, a sewage treatment plant, and dinner. The sheer amount of information is a little daunting to provide here, so I will try to offer just highlights instead.
At SSTH, our rooms all have small dustbins, and the laundry rooms have many different waste bins. There’s a place just for used batteries, a bin for glass, another for aluminum, another for food scraps, another for paper, another for other waste. This is not the school being super-ecological. This is the school following the rules for Switzerland, where for the last five years, no waste may be disposed of without being treated – on pain of fines. Switzerland is practicing sustainable waste management.
It’s kind of a revolutionary thing, and it takes several things to work:
- the population must be willing and able to separate and turn in their waste
- the government must be willing to collect and treat wastes
- there must be enough roads, treatment plants, and staff to perform treatment
- the businesses must be willing to use treated wastes (recycled paper, reclaimed metal, etc.)
- the culture must appreciate and value sustainability
(you might begin to see why we have considerably less sustainable waste management at home)
Mr. Wiki also offered a novel and yet obvious observation: as much as we humans influence the environment (through buildings, farming, landfills, mining, harvesting, existing), the environment also influences us – we seek beautiful scenery and unspoiled lands for vacation and adventure. …When we consider this, it can make it more enticing to lessen our own footprints and so create more of what we’re looking for.
He continued to explain with Switzerland as an example. Without human settlement, this land would be virtually all forest. The people settled, prospered, built, and changed the landscape with farms and pastureland. There is less forest, and even the forests are cultivated by people. Saying humans should have truly zero impact on the environment just isn’t feasible. But we must proceed in a sustainable manner. And we must look at the picture holistically – if we focus on just one area, we could create solutions for that area which have seriously negative impacts on other areas and parts of the whole.
So yes – use energy-efficient machines and appliances, use energy-efficient light bulbs and as much sunlight as possible. Construct buildings which will automatically insulate to keep out the heat of summer (air conditioners are a rarity around here) and the cold of winter. Use machines that require less water, and have systems that reuse water where possible (soapy water isn’t good to drink, but it will flush a toilet). And stop using landfills for untreated waste. Not only are these space-wasters, they release methane which creates extra heat and messes up the atmosphere.
Gevag Waste Treatment Plant (pictured above)
It isn’t the largest plant in Switzerland. You could call it a mid-size model. But it processes some 330 tons of waste every day. (The largest plants handle 2,000 tons a day). The efficiency of the system is still blowing my mind.
The heart of the plant is a kiln which burns constantly, forever renewed with fresh waste. Staff with machines and computers regulate how much waste enters the system at a time, and do their best to provide an even, homogenized diet of trash. Too much of any one material can cause the internal temperature of the kiln to get too hot or not hot enough and that reduces how well the plant produces energy. (Plus if it really really gets too hot, parts of the kiln and feeding mechanism can melt, which isn’t good at all.) (Also like a heart, the kiln is one of the smaller elements of the plant – the rest of the space is for a very large and complex filtration system, sorting bins for recovered materials, and storage for waste awaiting burning.)
As the kiln burns, it produces a lot of heat, which is captured and turned into energy both to power the entire Gevang plant and most of the energy needs of a paper plant nearby. (In numbers, the heat energy Gevang diverts to the paper plant is equal to about 6 million liters of oil each year.) It also produces lots of dirty steam. This steam goes through a very complicated filtration process, separating each element back out until only pure water is left. The water is cooled and released into an adjacent river. The recovered elements (mostly different metals and dusts) are either dumped into collection bins for magnetic and non-magnetic metals, or sent to landfills (as completely inert dust – no gases to release, no decomposition to attempt). The solids left after burning are sorted the same way.
Gevang’s name, translated, is something like “Energy from Waste”. Not the prettiest name, but very true and to the point. The plant has 28 full-time staff and 5 part-time, and a selection of gift items. We were presented with some pretty nifty things: hats, cloth bags, and key chains with carabineer clips. I can now say I’m less likely to lose my keys, and more likely to take my own bag when I shop for groceries.
(best. warning sign. ever.)
Our next stop was to a sewage treatment plant, and yes – it smelled. Some of it was highly flammable. It was also very efficient. The plant’s function is to filter and clean the waste water vented by the sewage system. The raw water goes through a series of open-air holding tanks (some with special bacteria, others with chemicals) and filters that separate all the elements. Heavy metals and other solids are collected, dried out, then transported to another facility and burned. The dirty water left after the solids are removed is held in a tank and treated with air and bacteria for about 20 days. At the end of this time, when it tests clean, it is released into the river.
(Pictured above are the brave souls who stuck it out to the end of the sewage treatment tour. L-R, kneeling: Gia, Sophie, Adele. L-R, standing: Sarah, me, Curtis, Mr. Wicki, our guide, Shevy, Lilianna, Katherine, Asha)
After all that, it was back to the vans and off to dinner. Some things can’t be rushed, though. We drove a while to a cable car, and took a 15 minute ride up a mountain to a small restaurant which specializes in fondue and doesn’t care much about advertizing. If you know it’s there, you know you have to eat there. If you don’t know – that means there will be tables enough for the people who do.
While our dinner cooked, we had soft drinks and admired the view. Then we filled two tables and rolled up our sleeves and got down to eating. Each table was given two large pots of fondue, along with baskets of cubed bread (I’m used to this), plates of cubed baked potato (a variation for me, but quite tasty), and plates of cubed pineapple. It took a while before I was willing to try a cube of pineapple covered in melted cheese, but it was actually pretty good. I don’t know what the restaurant’s recipe is, and they don’t share it. I know it’s a mix of cheese (maybe gruyere, ementhal and something else, maybe more or less), some alcohol, and a lot of garlic.
Anywhere I’ve seen a recipe for fondue before, the garlic is treated like something of a necessary evil: take a clove, cut it in half, rub the pot before you put in the cheese, and then throw the garlic away. Not so here. Many, many cloves of garlic went into each pot. I think they were roasted or sauteed for a bit before being added to the cheese (or cooked first in the pot and then the cheese was put in after), and they were absolutely wonderful. I like garlic. I really like getting a forkful of potato and garlic and cheese after a long day of lecture and tour.
