By Blake Jackson
Recycling goes beyond just separating plastics and paper. Innovative methods include feeding waste to fly larvae, which are then used as poultry feed, and extracting nutrients from human urine for fertilizer. Methane captured from dairy farms is also being converted into energy.
“We don’t think about waste as a resource, but we should,” said Lori Leonard, professor and chair of global development at Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “Our landfills are filling up, and nobody wants a new landfill in their backyard. I think there’s a big realization that there are valuable and useful things we could do with that organic material. We can supplement animal feed, create compost and improve soils, or create energy, all while diverting nutrients from somewhere they’ll be harmful to places where they’ll be beneficial.”
An estimated one-third of food produced globally ends up as waste. In the U.S., most of this food waste is landfilled, where it emits methane a greenhouse gas over 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Landfills account for about 11% of the country’s methane emissions.
Cornell researchers are actively working to repurpose organic waste such as food scraps, manure, and animal remains into useful products like compost, animal feed, and renewable energy. These efforts aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions, enhance soil health, and promote sustainability.
While farmers have long reused organic waste to enrich soil, understanding potential hazards is equally important. “We have this opportunity to see the sustainable benefits of these waste resources for soil health and soil fertility, but they come with the risk of potentially hazardous compounds,” said Dan Buckley, professor of microbiology.
“That's where we need to help the people who are generating and using these materials to do so safely, and we need to be doing research to anticipate problems before they become problems.”
Experts such as Joseph Amsili, Harold Van Es, Matt Ryan, Deborah Aller, and Robert Schindelbeck contribute vital soil health data and testing. Jean Bonhotal, director of the Cornell Waste Management Institute, has guided farmers through serious waste issues for decades, including managing livestock deaths during disease outbreaks.
“We haven’t had avian influenza on our farm, thank God,” said Hal Kreher ’85 of Kreher Family Farms, “but the farms that have had it, Jean and CWMI staff have gone to them to help them cope with mass mortality events.”
Photo Credit: pexels-denise-nys
Categories: New York, Education