There is new topsoil screener dealer in 100 Mile House British Columbia, Canada. To purchase a screener contact Terry Palasty at (250) 706 8323.
IDM is warehousing screeners on the East Coast. The coast of shipping DeSite screeners on the east coast is greatly reduced compared to last year. Order one now to lock in the savings on shipping.
The United States Compost Council Conference
The USCC's Annual Conference and Exhibition is the most widely attended composting and organics recycling show in North America.
Join us at the 18th Annual Conference and Trade Show, January 24-27, 2010 at the Wyndham Resort, Orlando, Florida!
An outstanding program featuring more than 100 educational and technical presentations on every aspect of Composting & the Benefits of Compost Use, Organics Recycling, Anaerobic Digestion, Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) and other Alternative Waste Treatment Technologies, Climate Change, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Carbon Credits - Organics, Composting and AD, Renewable Energy from Organics, Biomass, Financing Organics Recycling Projects, Systems, and Equipment; Streamlining State Composting Regulations, developing Product Standards, Advances in the manufacture and usage of Biodegradable/Compostable plastics; 10 pre-conference workshops and training courses; more than 100 Exhibitors at the Largest Exhibition of Composting and Organics Recycling equipment, products, and services; "Live" Equipment Demonstrations by 25+ manufacturers and Facility tours of the Disney World/Reedy Creek Composting Facilities, "Tools of the Trade" workshop, Showcase of compost products - learn about product quality & product branding; the "experts corner" - one on one problem solving meetings; certification exams & CEU's; raffles and giveaways of thousands of $'s worth of USCC publications & much more. Join us for the most important Composting & Organics Recycling event of 2010!
Our Good Earth: The future rests on the soil beneath our feet.
By Charles C. Mann
On a warm September day, farmers from all over the state gather around the enormous machines. Combines, balers, rippers, cultivators, diskers, tractors of every variety—all can be found at the annual Wisconsin Farm Technology Days show. But the stars of the show are the great harvesters, looming over the crowd. They have names like hot rods—the Claas Jaguar 970, the Krone BiG X 1000—and are painted with colors bright as fireworks. The machines weigh 15 tons apiece and have tires tall as a tall man. When I visited Wisconsin Farm Technology Days last year, John Deere was letting visitors test its 8530 tractor, an electromechanical marvel so sophisticated that I had no idea how to operate it. Not to worry: The tractor drove itself, navigating by satellite. I sat high and happy in the air-conditioned bridge, while beneath my feet vast wheels rolled over the earth.
The farmers grin as they watch the machines thunder through the cornfields. In the long run, though, they may be destroying their livelihoods. Midwestern topsoil, some of the finest cropland in the world, is made up of loose, heterogeneous clumps with plenty of air pockets between them. Big, heavy machines like the harvesters mash wet soil into an undifferentiated, nigh impenetrable slab—a process called compaction. Roots can't penetrate compacted ground; water can't drain into the earth and instead runs off, causing erosion. And because compaction can occur deep in the ground, it can take decades to reverse. Farm-equipment companies, aware of the problem, put huge tires on their machines to spread out the impact. And farmers are using satellite navigation to confine vehicles to specific paths, leaving the rest of the soil untouched. Nonetheless, this kind of compaction remains a serious issue—at least in nations where farmers can afford $400,000 harvesters.
Unfortunately, compaction is just one, relatively small piece in a mosaic of interrelated problems afflicting soils all over the planet. In the developing world, far more arable land is being lost to human-induced erosion and desertification, directly affecting the lives of 250 million people. In the first—and still the most comprehensive—study of global soil misuse, scientists at the International Soil Reference and Information Centre (ISRIC) in the Netherlands estimated in 1991 that humankind has degraded more than 7.5 million square miles of land. Our species, in other words, is rapidly trashing an area the size of the United States and Canada combined.
This year food shortages, caused in part by the diminishing quantity and quality of the world's soil (see "Dirt Poor"), have led to riots in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. By 2030, when today's toddlers have toddlers of their own, 8.3 billion people will walk the Earth; to feed them, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates, farmers will have to grow almost 30 percent more grain than they do now. Connoisseurs of human fecklessness will appreciate that even as humankind is ratchetting up its demands on soil, we are destroying it faster than ever before. "Taking the long view, we are running out of dirt," says David R. Montgomery, a geologist at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Journalists sometimes describe unsexy subjects as MEGO: My eyes glaze over. Alas, soil degradation is the essence of MEGO. Nonetheless, the stakes—and the opportunities—could hardly be higher, says Rattan Lal, a prominent soil scientist at Ohio State University. Researchers and ordinary farmers around the world are finding that even devastated soils can be restored. The payoff, Lal says, is the chance not only to fight hunger but also to attack problems like water scarcity and even global warming. Indeed, some researchers believe that global warming can be slowed significantly by using vast stores of carbon to reengineer the world's bad soils. "Political stability, environmental quality, hunger, and poverty all have the same root," Lal says. "In the long run, the solution to each is restoring the most basic of all resources, the soil."
Excerpted from National Geographic
Alberta to Divert Construction Waste from Dumps
Soil & Mulch Producer News November/December 2008
Officials in Alberta, Canada recently announced a plan to significantly reduce the amount of construction waste in its landfills, reports The Calgary Herald. By 2010, Alberta will begin recycling all of its construction and demolition waste. The proposed plan comes as a result of a landmark agreement signed by Alberta government officials, the Canadian Home Builders’ Association-Alberta (CHBA-A) and the Alberta Construction Association (ACA). The three entities will work together to find, develop and execute the program.
Diana McQueen, Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Environment, says the new recycling program will make a significant positive impact. “If we divert even 50% of construction and demolition material, the amount we send to landfills would drop by 130 Kilograms (roughly 286 pounds) for each Albertan every year. When implemented, the program will support Alberta’s Too Good to Waste strategy, and will be the first of its kind in Canada making Alberta a leader in waste reduction in the construction and demolition sector.”
Construction and demolition waste currently accounts for about 23% of Alberta’s waste stream. The construction of an average home generates between four and seven tons of waste in the form of concrete, asphalt, wood and drywall, all of which will be recycled under the new program.
Michael Nyikes, Director of Safety and Technical Services for the CHBA-A, says his organization’s members are ready willing and able to execute Alberta’s recycling program. “The CHBA-A and its members have a long and successful track record of environmental stewardship as demonstrated by our BuiltGreen program,” he says. “we feel this recent waste diversion initiative collaboratively worked on with the Alberta government will further complement what our industry members are doing, as well as encourage additional recycling opportunities. The purpose of entering into the (agreement) with government was to make certain the construction industries’ voice was not only heard at the table, but that we would be a part of the decision-making process regarding its use.”
The CHBA-A commissioned EnerVision, an environmental sustainment company, to create an online directory of recycling depots throughout Alberta. Nyikes says this tool will help CHBA-A members to begin finding avenues to recycle their construction waste proactively before the new program launches in 2010.
According to Nyikes, “The program will then most likely be based on a deposit/refund method requiring a deposit to be paid at the building permit application stage.” The original deposit amount will be refunded proportionally to the size of the project based on waste management completion reports and weigh scale tickets from recycling depots. It has not yet been determined what the minimum diversion percentage or deposit will be.
Nyikes notes that construction industry members who are currently participating in a program called, BuiltGreen, have a distinct advantage as Alberta makes the transition to the new recycling program. “It’s worth noting,” he says, “that industry members who are involved in the Built Green program have a head start on meeting the anticipated requirements of this construction and demolition waste diversion program before the 2010 implementation date, by virtue of the comprehensive waste management category in the BuiltGreen checklist.” BuiltGreen is a voluntary program started in Calgary that allows builders and homebuyers to select their own level of environmentally friendly and sustainable housing.
Bernal Ulsifer, Chairmen of the ACA says he hopes the Alberta recycling program will inspire imitation. “This stewardship program has the potential to encourage and increase in capacity of recyclers, which is currently a constraint. A province-wide approach will reduce the costs of compliance as builders will not have to learn a different regime for every community in which they operate.