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Just take a whiff of that if you will, smell that. KEROUAC: You see these little, tiny balls, about an eighth of an inch and sixteenth of an inch in size? They look like little-like dirt, if you will. GORENSTEIN: Kerouac opens the drum door and loads some of the finished product into a bucket. And after about a week, the waste is removed from the third, final compartment. It’s kept at 131 degrees, hot enough to kill dangerous bacteria like e-coli, but cool enough to preserve the useful microbes. GORENSTEIN: Kerouac says the computer controls the temperature inside the drum by occasionally signaling it to rotate. KEROUAC: The computer on board can control the moisture and the temperature and the oxygen, so this is the proper atmosphere for organic food waste to break down into another form. GORENSTEIN: Just like a simple backyard composter, the Super C3 uses bacteria to break down the waste, but the system here is considerably more high-tech, complete with a computer. KEROUAC: The product falls into the first barrel, and inside the first barrel we have the active bacteria already in there. Inside, there are three separate barrels.
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Housed in a park-bench green container, it sits outside at the back of the store. It’s 40 feet long, eight feet wide, and can hold up to seven tons of material. GORENSTEIN: The drum is where the waste is transformed. The product goes through the shredder and then is auger-fed into this stainless steel drum. KEROUAC: And the shredder slices everything to about the size of a piece of paper, but as thin as a piece of paper. Paul Kerouac conceived of the Super C3 and runs Nature’s Soil, the company that sells the system.
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#Living earth organic compost full#
The employee loads a box full of food waste onto a conveyor belt that carries it to a shredder. Each week, Zola turns seven tons of waste into compost. He spearheaded the effort to bring the new technology to the store. GORENSTEIN: Ted Brown is Hannaford Brothers’ Environmental Affairs Manager. That’s Greek for “ball of earth”.īROWN: Hannaford wanted to have an everyday user name that was very easy and user-friendly. That’s the formal name for the store’s in-house composting system, but Hannaford employees call it Zola. Until recently, the store never sorted their trash. The food packaging is destined for the trash compactor, but the food itself is thrown into a wax-corrugated box. He cuts through items like plastic bags of frozen French fries and cartons of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. GORENSTEIN: Back behind the produce department, behind the deli, behind the bakery, a Hannaford Brothers employee sorts unsellable food. But in New Hampshire, one supermarket chain is testing a new technology to turn most of their organic waste into profitable compost, and it’s saving thousands of dollars in the process.įrom New Hampshire Public Radio, Dan Gorenstein reports. CURWOOD: Each week, the typical supermarket generates 15 tons of waste that winds up in the local landfill or incinerator.