Recycle Utah

Nonprofit Summit County, Utah Recycling Center

#zero waste

Composting

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Landfills are filling up and at least 40% of the waste is from our food and yard. This organic waste, along with paper and cardboard, releases a dangerous and potent greenhouse gas, methane. Great news, there are multiple options to compost in Summit County! Recycle Utah holds summer compost workshops to and sells discounted compost bins and buckets. Here’s how to get started today:

  1. Do it yourself: Purchase a bin or make your own (containing tight mesh wire). Select a level, 3”x3” area, partly sunny, at least 6” from a structure or fence. It’s important to learn the correct nitrogen to oxygen ratio in addition to acceptable compostable materials. Check Recycle Utah’s website for summer workshop dates to learn more.
  2. Worm Composter: The key to worm composting is the temperature needs to be 40 degrees or higher to keep the wiggly creatures alive. Attached garages, pantries, or mud rooms are ideal.
  3. Lomi: This is the latest craze. A 16” x 20” device for your kitchen or pantry that turns food waste into soil within two days!
  4. Spoil to Soil:This wonderful new and local compost business supplies a small and large bucket and collects the goodies weekly for a small fee.

Not only is composting becoming more important for our environment, but it’s also scientific and fun for the family. Summit County is working hard to keep food waste out of our landfill – get started today!

By Mary Closser

The Sustainability of Cooking

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Our daily lives consist of a lot of cooking, which can significantly impact the environment. Fortunately, there are ways to reduce our carbon footprint and contribute to saving the environment. These are some tips that can help you become eco-friendly when you are cooking:

Avoid single-use items: This includes disposable utensils, plates, and cups that end up in our landfills. If necessary, you can buy compostable and environmentally friendly substitutes or utilize reusable options.

Investing in an induction stove: These stoves are up to 10% more energy-efficient than electric stoves and three times more energy-efficient than standard gas stoves. Additionally, it is also better for your air quality. 

Disposing of cooking oil: Wait until your cooking oil has totally cooled before putting it in a metal can or plastic container instead of discarding it directly in the sink or the trash. You can then properly dispose of it in the trash after that. 

Reduce food waste: Meal planning for the week helps reduce the amount of food that is wasted unnecessarily. Furthermore, you can freeze or use your leftovers to create a new dish. 

Buy from local farmers: In addition to supporting local farmers, we can lessen our influence on the environment by supporting local farmers that grow their food without the use of pesticides and fertilizers. 

Together, we can reduce the environmental impact of our time spent in the kitchen!

By Miriam Flores

Carbon Footprint of Alcohol

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Our food, clothing, electronics, and even alcohol… there’s a carbon footprint for everything. Drinks of pleasure can weigh heavily on the environment. Whether it’s the associated transportation or water, packaging, or agriculture demands, there’s a carbon footprint for every processing stage.

1. Beer: Refrigeration and transportation account for most of the overall emissions. Buy local! Cans vs. bottles is better and cans are recycled more. Draft is best, and organic is preferred, assuring that no synthetic fertilizer was used. Research your beer – some companies do more than others in regard to energy, recycling, water and transportation efficiency, composting spent grains, capturing methane and more. Best yet, brew your own.

2. Wine: The majority of wine’s footprint comes from shipping. The key is to buy near – Utahns should buy from UT or CA, New Yorkers from Italy.  Room temperature is better (Red) in addition to organic/no sulfite options. Select natural cork, a renewable material, verses metal or plastic. And if water is a concern, go for bubbly wines made with early-harvested grapes. The box has a lower print than the bottle due to the weight from shipping and the bag, once rinsed, can be recycled at Recycle Utah.

3. Spirits: The greatest concern with most spirits is the distillation process utilizing energy and water, resulting in pulp and wastewater. Buy progressive brands, transparent about their production process. For example, do they turn by-product waste into compost, animal feed or irrigation water? Do they grow without pesticides & herbicides?

By Mary Closser

Produce Out of the Bag

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Many of us are in the habit of bringing our own reusable bags to the grocery store. Hooray! Unfortunately, not so many of us have significantly reduced our use of plastic produce bags. And especially during this season of abundant fruits and vegetables, these filmy polyethylene produce bags are rapidly spinning off their rollers. Resist!

Now these bags, like all plastic bags made from sheets of polymer film, can be recycled into new materials. For this to happen, they must be stuffed into a plastic bag collection box located in the front of many retailers or taken to Recycle Utah. This collection system and the processing equipment required to recycle plastic bags is different from that provided by curbside programs. So—plastic bags should never go in our bins!

Considering these points will help you decide not to grab a plastic produce bag for your next purchase of fruits and vegetables.

*All plastic bags can be used again and again. Use your produce bags repeatedly. Just place them in the bottom of your grocery bags.

*Go bagless with produce that has a rind or inedible skin, like bananas, citrus, avocados, corn.

*Forego taking a bag for single produce items, like broccoli or peppers. Putting them in a bag may reduce bacteria in a few steps along the way, but it does not eliminate germs. That’s why we wash produce before eating it.

*Purchase your own produce bags made of washable, biodegradable fibers like cotton, hemp and jute fabric or mesh.

By Bev Harrison

What to Do With Dog Poo?

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A man’s best friend or an infinite poop-producing machine? As much as we love our canine best friends, they can create a lot of waste. There is not a lot of information or even talk about what to do with their endless waste. Do you put it in the trash bin? You could, but it’s unsustainable and creates an unpleasant smell that no one wants. Can you compost it? Well, it depends.

One solution that has grown popular is Biodegradable poop bags. But one of the major problems with this solution is that these bio bags are meant to be composted, not landfilled, yet that’s where they usually end up. While meant to be better for the environment, sending compostable bags can be worse than sending regular plastic bags. According to a San Francisco zero-waste coordinator, “Anything that goes into the landfill and degrades is worse than something that goes in and doesn’t.” Once they start degrading, they produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Compostable bags should be composted(1).

But, where can you compost dog poop? Can you put it in the yard scraps bin? Not necessarily, many municipal composting facilities don’t want dog poop. There is an option of composting the poop yourself, but it’s much more complicated than regular composting. Animal waste contains pathogens that can be harmful to humans, so avoid mixing it with your food scraps. One website will show you step-by-step how you can create your own dog poo composter(2), or buy a pre-made dog poo composter(3). 

Another option is to offer flushable poop bags, but that means facilities would have to flush large amounts of poop down the toilet, overwhelming septic systems, and putting a drain on water when there is already a drought. The other alternative would be for the dog owner to take the poop bag home, which is highly unlikely. Poop also has the potential to become a source of energy. It can be anaerobically digested, where it is broken down into organic materials, producing biogas that can be used for energy and a residue that can be used as compost on plants. Wasatch Resource Recovery, in North Salt Lake, has an anaerobic digester they use to turn organics into energy, but they don’t allow dog poop just yet. 

There is still uncertainty around what is the best solution to deal with dog poop. There are working options, but many require expensive facilities. In Salt Lake City, there are dog poo services that will pick up your dog poop for you, but they ultimately end up dumping their pickings in garbage cans. 

So what is the best method for disposing of dog poo? First, the poop must be picked up. Poop does not just “eventually go away.” It harbors lots of viruses, bacteria, and parasites, many of which are harmful to human health. The best solution for disposal, while not desirable, is to send it to the landfill, a case of catch-22. 

If you decide to use biodegradable bags, you must make sure the bags have undergone rigorous testing to prove their claims. A good sign is if they make a representation of what conditions their products were tested under. Paper bags are also a more sustainable option compared to plastic, but no matter what bag you choose, we, unfortunately, have to throw them in the trash for now. 

In conclusion, I reached out to the sustainability departments in Portland, OR, and Santa Cruz, and my research was confirmed. Both cities also currently have no option for animal waste except to landfill it. For now, it is a waiting game with the best foreseeable option being a biodigester.

By Anna Duffy

Recycle Utah Intern, 2022