WOO-HOO!!!!!! THE ORGANICS COLLECTION IS GOING TO START!!
Aug 26, 2008: The City of Minneapolis has approved a curbside collection of compostable items for the neighborhood of Linden Hills the week commencing September 15th on your regular garbage collection day. Carts will be delievered the week commencing September 8. Residents of single family, duplexes and fourplexes should have received a letter from the city asking residents to OPT IN to the program. If for some reason you've missed the letter you can find a copy including the fax and mail reply form here. Or,
For more details and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) click here.
How will the Pilot work? Once you sign up to participate in the pilot (see above), the city will deliver a 65 gallon green "organics" cart to your home. It looks very similar to your normal black wheeled bin that you bring out to the curb before your garbage collector arrives. From then on, you will wheel both bins out to the curb on your regular collection day and the city will take your compostable garbage (green cart), and your non-compostable garbage (black cart).
What IS compostable?
Food scraps, including fruit and vegetable peelings, meat, leftovers, etc. Paper products that you're not currently recycling -(continue to recycle newspaper, office paper, cardboard, corrugated card in your usual manner) that is, tissues, paper towels, egg cartons, pop boxes, paper that's touched food e.g. paper plates, pizza boxes; waxed containers such as milk cartons, and packing from fridge and freezer products. Once this pilot is up and running there should be no paper in your trash at all. Other items that are biodegradable include coffee grounds and filters, tea bags, lint from your dryer, vacuum bags, old potted plants, and unusable old (non-synthetic) clothes. Yard waste will NOT be composted at this time.
What is NOT compostable? There should be very little in your regular black trash cart - broken glass, ceramics, rubber, leather, non-recyclable metal, diapers and pet feces.
For more information and FAQ about the Organics collection, click here.
WHAT DO WE NEED?
We need your help in ensuring the SSO Collection is a success! Become a compost captain and encourage your friends and neighbors to participate. We promise you will not look like this guy if you help out. Click here to learn more.
What is LHP&L focusing on right now?
LHP&L's mission is to reduce our local carbon footprint through education and community action, by promoting sustainable energy, waste reduction and energy conservation. We have been working with the city to establish a pilot collection of biodegradable (compostable) material slated to begin soon after the carts arrive from the manufacturer. Taking biodegradable waste out of the trash has many environmental benefits, see here for more information. All households except multi-unit dwellings will be eligible to participate (and apartment buildings and businesses can opt to change haulers if they want to join). We're also working on a feasibility study to examine the viability of a neighborhood anaerobic digester, to see if we could use the neighborhood's waste to create energy that would benefit the community. We're also encouraging residents to participate in the MN Energy Challenge -an online tool that shows how small steps can have a big impact in reducing carbon emissions and global warming. Take the challenge! Linden Hills is currently number one for neighborhoods and LHP&L is number 2 for environmental groups in number of members and emissions reduced.
Click here to see a short 2 1/2 minute video about LHP&L.
What if you believed that community involvement could change the world?
Linden Hills Power & Light (LHP&L) is an informal group of citizens who got together in 2006 to brainstorm how to reduce energy wastage in our community - Linden Hills. More recently, a board of directors and advisory board have been assigned to actively target waste reduction and energy conservation tasks. We aim to make Linden Hills a replicable example to the rest of the city – by engaging our neighbors and moving them to action. Changing the habits of 4000 households is not something a small group of people can do, but with the support of our community – intelligent, thoughtful, committed people – we know it can be done. In fact it's already being done in Europe - watch this short video about Sweden!
Why did you choose to pursue anaerobic digestion?
Anaerobic digestion can be an integral part of the solution to two of the most pressing environmental concerns in urban centers: waste management and renewable energy.
In the anaerobic digestion process, specialized bacteria decompose organic matter (leaves, grass, tree clippings, food waste, pet waste, paper that's been in contact with food; items high in moisture) in an oxygen-depleted environment to produce biogas and a stable solid. Each of these products can be used for beneficial purposes to close the loop in organic waste management. Anaerobic digestion has been successful in reducing the volume of waste going to landfill, decreasing emissions of greenhouse gases and creating organic fertilizer. (from www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/nyc/projects)
It’s doable - Anaerobic digestion is widely used in Europe, and many US cities already recycle organics, including Toronto and Seattle who started with pilots that then went city wide. Closer to home, Hutchinson, MN collects organic matter, selling the processed product as composting material.
Hennepin County has done a few small pilot studies of collecting organics- e.g. Wayzata collecting kitchen waste, St Louis Park High School, Minnetonka and Hopkins High schools.
In Manhattan, some high rises are considering small scale anaerobic digesters; plus they're being considered for areas with high concentrations of restaurants -e.g. Hells Kitchen, Chinatown, etc.
Currently Minneapolis residents recycle around 35% of their garbage. Collecting organics could increase that to about 75%, leading to a massive reduction in landfill space.
At present, 75% of Minnesota’s electricity comes from burning coal. If the Linden Hills digester is successful, the technology could be replicated in neighborhoods across the city, state and beyond.
Energy from Waste
Energy from waste can be used to describe a variety of processes that use mixed or pure organic wastes to generate energy or energy-producing products. Well-known energy-from-waste processes include:combustion-based incinerators, landfill gas collection and aerobic composting. A lesser known option is anaerobic digestion.
Anaerobic Digestion : How does it work?
Controlled biological processes such as AD involve treating organic waste using bacteria in an oxygen-free environment. The bacteria eat away at the waste and produce a methane rich biogas. This gas can be used to generate electricity and/or hot water/heating and as a transport fuel similar to compressed natural gas (CNG). Other solid and liquid byproducts also result from the process (see diagram).
Click to see full sized image
This 4 minute YouTube video shows a digester with different technology at the University of California, Davis.
How can I get involved?
We welcome your ideas, comments and feedback. Feel free to use the buttons in the boxes on the left of this web page -particularly the ones that say "? question" and "discuss". This website is designed to harness the collective intelligence that we know is out there, whether you're in our neighborhood or beyond. If you're motivated for action beyond adding words to this website, pick up the phone and call us. We have lots of ways to get involved whether it's a 2 hour volunteer shift, joining a committee, or just joining our mailing list and spreading the word with your neighbors. (In order to ask a question or discuss, you may have to create a login initially. It only takes a few seconds and we totally appreciate you doing it!)
We need your support
This project cannot go forward without commitment from our neighborhood. And while financial support is nice, more important to us is your philosophical support – that you believe as we do, that Linden Hills is exactly the community that can make a replicable impact on a global crisis. To contribute time, ideas, suggestions, resources, or funding, contact LHP&L:
Linden Hills Power & Light
2720 W 43rd St, Suite 101,
Minneapolis MN 55410
Ph (612) 925-4249
Email: info@lhpowerandlight.org
Aug 26, 2008: The City of Minneapolis has approved a curbside collection of compostable items for the neighborhood of Linden Hills the week commencing September 15th on your regular garbage collection day. Carts will be delievered the week commencing September 8. Residents of single family, duplexes and fourplexes should have received a letter from the city asking residents to OPT IN to the program. If for some reason you've missed the letter you can find a copy including the fax and mail reply form 
There should be very little in your regular black trash cart - broken glass, ceramics, rubber, leather, non-recyclable metal, diapers and pet feces.
