Green Products Unwrapped

Compost or a load of old rot?

Most compost bins like the ones in my backyard are not really compost bins. They are food rotting bins. Throw in some food scraps, a few nappies (someone told you they were compostable) and some dog poo, wait a few months and spread it on the garden. Don’t do this - it’s wrong. This is not composting.

Real compost is “an organic product which has undergone controlled aerobic and thermophilic biological transformation to achieve pasteurisation and a specified level of maturity.” Aerobic means plenty of air, pasteurisation means reaching a certain termperature (>50 deg C), maturity indicates that microbioligical activity has reached a certain (safe) stage. Note it’s also controlled. Not just a pile or bin full of waste.

Composting is becoming big business (think of all the kerbside garden waste collected each week) and with big quantities its important to ensure adequate quality otherwise there can be some really nasty outcomes.

A new compost standard AS4454-2012 has been released. To celebrate, the EPA in Victoria recently held an information event. It was a very informative session and taught me a lot about compost.

Manufacturing compost in a commercial setting requires very specific temperature management, aeration and careful turning of the matter over time, to ensure what you end up with is actually compost. I was told at the seminar that some systems simply dehydrate organic matter but do not eliminate potential diseases and toxins. Dehydrated Salmonella is still Salmonella apparently.

The compost standard is really about risk management. Done well, compost is a great way to recycle organic matter and return humus to soils.

Done badly it is a great way to spread pathogens, kill plants, spread weeds and potentially ruin entire agricultural sectors.

For example, the spores of a certain aphid that eats the roots of grape vines can be spread by recycled vegetable matter that has not been properly composted. The heat created in a proper compost facility is essential to eliminate these contaminants and subsequent risks.

The risk management emphasis in the compost standard draws on what the UK has learned since the disastrous BSE and Foot and Mouth outbreaks over there a few years back. Nothing sends a chill down your spine more than the thought that poor composting practices (among other things) could contribute to the spread of these sorts of issues. Stick to the stuff that meets the AS!

The key to making proper compost appears to be treating it as a manufacturing process - have proper procedures in place, including training of staff, record keeping, and control over the composting process. The other key is to think of it as creating a product of value, not disposing of a waste.

ECO-Buy is keen to promote genuine compost – that meets AS 4454-2012. This will lead to great assurity of compost quality, increased uptake due to satisfaction with the result, and reduce the risk of something nasty happening.

Exciting times for the future of compost I think.

Multifunction Minefield?

I think every green office program has at some time or other had to come to grips with purchasing a new office printer or MFD (multi-function device). I remember having to do this when ECO-Buy went independent in 2007 and I found it intimidating. The big green decision: Do I go for stand-by power? What about overall energy consumption. Does it do duplex – so how do I compare the power consumption – per page? How green is the company overall? Confused.

What I found was a lack of standards to make it easy comparing the environmental performance of different products, brands, and models. Getting your head around the parameters that make a printer energy efficient is one thing, getting the data in a comparable form from the various manufacturers is time consuming and can be very confusing. Not many people buy these products regularly enough to be able to make good judgements. You are at the mercy of sales and marketing hype from suppliers who are as expert at selling as you are novice at buying.

The most successful eco-labels in Australia, and some would say the world, are the energy and water rating labels commonly seen on fridges, washing machines and other whitegoods in Australia. What makes these two labels successful is that they are a compulsory scheme, stick to one parameter and are easy to understand. The more stars the better.

Another well recognised energy label is the Fuel Consumption Label on new cars sold in Australia.

Wouldn’t it be great if this type of scheme also covered office equipment and IT?

The closest thing I have seen to date is the EnergyStar “Total Energy Consumption” (TEC) test procedure. Energy Star in the USA have developed the TEC as a way of comparing different products in the office environment, including imaging equipment such as printers and scanners.

TEC is based on the idea of a ‘typical week’ – using a formula to determine how much of the time the device is working, how much it is in stand-by mode etc. I had a look at the formula used and tend to agree that it’s not about replicating the real world, but more about creating a level playing field for comparison purposes.

The limitations are that it’s not a rating scheme as such. The EnergyStar scheme is a minimum bar. While it does include a TEC figure, it would be up to the user to work out the relevance of this figure to the product they are thinking of using.

The scheme doesn’t take into account additional impacts either– for example whether remanufactured toner cartridges are available in Australia for that particular model (something we had had to live with at ECO-Buy).

Finally the scheme is US based – which means the models, certainly the voltage (115V) are not the same as in Australia.

So while the EnergyStar doesn’t provide the whole answer, overall it’s a useful source of information which is well worth looking at if you are in the market. You can download a spreadsheet containing all the models and then rank, filter and sort the data to your heart’s content.

Just don’t print out the PDF – it’s over 600 pages! If you did that then you would have to buy toner. You did consider running costs didn’t you? Oh No!

I would love to hear how useful you find the EnergyStar tool, and whether you found any other tools or resources that you would like to share.

More information about EnergyStar ‘Imaging Equipment’ can be found here:

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=find_a_product.showProductGroup&pgw_code=IEQ

Lost in the Bush - Forest certifications and the supply chain

As always, a fair bit of the work at ECO-Buy involves forest certifications. Whether it be certified toilet tissue, timber used to make furniture, or the big one: paper.

There are two issues that keep coming up as common themes in the work we do:

We always get asked “Which is better: FSC or PEFC certification? and
In practice it’s really hard getting any sense from suppliers about whether they can supply certified timber. Most of the suppliers don’t really have a good handle on timber certification.

I can see a couple of patterns emerging based on my experiences over the last six months or so.

The first case is where a supplier doesn’t understand what certification is, all they know is that certification is important. They fear they won’t be able to sell their product without forest certification. We had a case where the supplier claimed their products were ‘FSC compliant’ as they did not come from forests. This does not make sense to me or the FSC since there is no such thing as FSC compliant. The product is either from a certified source or it isn’t. Sadly it wasn’t.

Then we have the case of the mistaken identity. To many people, including industry players, the main timber certifications all sound the same. AFS, FSC, PEFC, - who can remember which is which? So the timber supplier says ‘yes we can supply FSC timber’ and send me an AFS certificate.

But the most consistent misunderstanding we see concerns Chain of Custody (CoC) certification. Time and time again we come across timber suppliers that say ‘we have the Chain of Custody certificates for the timber’. But this means nothing. Chain of Custody certification is to ensure a management system is in place so that certified product is separated and can be tracked back to the source. The Chain of Custody certificate, in itself does not mean the timber is certified. You also need the Forest Manager certificate for that particular batch of timber. But because the suppliers don’t know this, and the customers don’t know this, CoC certificates are being used as evidence that the product itself is certified. Which it may or may not be.

One thing I have found though is a great willingness in the timber supply chain to better understand the certification systems and how they work, so that suppliers can better serve their customers.

And that is before we even get into the relative merits of the different certification schemes.

I won’t even get into the question of which is better FSC or PEFC.

So my question is how do YOU make sure that the forest sourced product you are buying is certified?

Breaking down composting myths

If you read my previous blog post you might get the impression that I am against biodegradable plastics, but I am not. It’s important to consider the context, that’s all.

I acknowledge that there are different types of biodegradable plastics, including compostable ones, and those that degrade in sunlight. Let’s consider the application for compostable plastics for a minute.

Councils collect huge amounts of household waste, and as we all know, a large amount of this is simply kitchen scraps, food packaging etc. It can include waste from restaurants and kitchens. Yes it would be great if all households composted their food scraps, but many still put food waste straight into landfill bins. This includes restaurants, other businesses and people living in flats.

Council collection of food scraps is difficult. For one reason, food scraps need to be stored until collection time – which is usually at least a week. Because the food starts to decompose while it is waiting for collection, the food scraps are usually stored in a plastic bag until that time. When they are collected, you are either left with the plastic bag, or put the plastic bag in the bin, which ends up as contamination in the waste. Plastic in compost is a big problem, as it looks unsightly, contaminates the load and large pieces can clog equipment.

This is an ideal application for compostable bags designed especially for household food waste collection. One of the suppliers listed on ECO-Find sells biodegradable bags to local councils in NSW. It also provides a special bag holder – which householders keep. They can put the food scraps into the bag, which doesn’t have to be very big. Each day or so, they can put this bag out ready to be collected.

The beauty of the compostable bag is that it’s able to be composted along with the contents. In this way it doesn’t become contamination. This really helps facilitate collection of food scraps, reducing the weight, waste and potential methane emissions from food waste entering the landfill stream.

Once you have a functioning compostable collection in place, you can start to expand the types of items collected. For example compostable plates and cutlery can be collected – solving another problem which exists in the event management space.

What other examples are there out there where a biodegradable or compostable bag or other product serves a valuable purpose? It would be great to hear…

Things should degrade

A common misconception is that a green product is one that degrades in landfill and disappears at the end of its life. How often do people nominate the paper bag over the plastic bag as the green alternative?

I can see where this idea comes from but fail to see that this makes a product green.

Yes it would be great if broken toys, clothes that are too small or the wrong color, outdated electronics, plastic bags and other junk could just disappear rather than sit in landfill forever. But would it save the environment?

Obviously sending products to landfill is a waste but it makes no real difference environmentally speaking whether a product degrades in landfill or just sits there intact. The resource is not being reused. In fact, more problems arise (leaching etc) when products degrade than when they dont.

From an environmental point of view, materials used in products should be durable. The ideal material is one that is durable during its use, but is also easily recycled at the end of its life.

To be sustainable, society needs to make better use of its resources. This means using them over and over.

Products that degrade at the end of their life mean we only get one use from the resources. We need to do better than that.

So sustainable products are made from easily recyclable materials or better still recycled content materials. I know its not easy finding a way to recycle that broken toys or other junk but that is where the work needs to be done.

Thats not to say there is not a role for biodegradable and compostable materials but that is a topic for next time